Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone. My 7 year old son was diagnosed with level 1 Autism. I had a feeling, but he still has some things that I consider normal, if not less likely to have Aspergers in the emotion department, if that makes any sense at all. As far as kids his own age goes, he cannot hold a conversation especially if its not a preferred topic. He can express excitment and anger, ( very well) but he also expresses like, sadness if he thinks he's in trouble by an adult. He could care less if a kid likes him, or even teases him, but god forbid an adult tells him to stop doing something he almost cries and starts stimming. Usually chews on something, or rocks (if hes able to sit down in the situation). I don't mean any offense by this at all, but this is new to me, and I feel like not much was explained. I was under the impression (again NO offense at all) that kids with Aspergers don't show much emotion? Especially with something like, shame I guess? He's obsessed with rules, and hates to see them broken by anyone, so maybe that has something to do with it? My best example is he's in Jiu Jitsu, and does fairly well despite his general awkwardness. But at times he gets overwhelmed by everything and he doesn't listen to some rules, and today he got confused and the coach told him to "please listen to the rules" and that's when he looked like he was going to cry and started stimming.
I feel like I may be comparing him too much to other kids, and his cousin who is the same age but is severely autistic. I'm just still wrapping my head around him finally being diagnosed I guess.
Thank you for anyone who listened to my rant here :)
We are simple creatures who crave calmness, logic, rules, clarity and confirmation that we are doing the right thing. We are programmed to be good, to not do anything wrong, to not break the rules, to not embarrass our parents etc.
As we go out into the world, we see everyone else doing the opposite - and getting away with it - this causes enormous logic problems for us - it's total chaos - and we simply can't deal with it. We melt down when we get overloaded with all this craziness. When adults behave badly we are totally confused and have no-one to trust any more.
When our own parents seem to want us to behave like 'normal' and get frustrated when we are told to break the very rules that they insisted on for all those years, we're stuffed.
I get the feeling you're ashamed of your son? This is very common for parents when the were expecting a 'normal' child and the feel cheated when they get a 'faulty' one instead.
You may be putting undue pressure on your son to conform because you're grieving for the loss of your typical 'perfect child' parental dream - and you're seeing the limitations your son will have as he grows up and might not follow the prescribed consumer lifestyle with a pretty wife, nice house, 2.4 kids and Labrador.
I am 100% not ashamed of my son nor do I find him "faulty". No child is ever "faulty". Please don't assume that. That thought has NEVER crossed my mind. In regards to your "prescribed consumer lifestyle" comment, the only thing I want for him is to be HAPPY, I don't care what that happiness looks like, as long as he's happy. If he has a job he loves, and his obsession with cars and video games follows him into adulthood and that's his idea of happiness, then I'M happy. It's as simple as that.