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New diagnosis for my 10 Year old

NAS80443

Hello I'm new to all this! I just got a diagnosis for my son. He is in year 5 and has challenges around communication and transitions between activities. He is doing well academically and having joined a few Facebook Groups I can see that he has not had to navigate as many challenges as others. He is in mainstream school and they have been great with supporting him with an ECHP. I don't have the report yet but it is around communication with adults, echolalia, and not reading the non-verbal cues in conversation. he has a few intense interests (Rubix Cubes, Mindceraft, memorising lists of things like algorithms). At home we've just accepted him for who he is as a family but I know that won't always be the case in the world. I've gone through grieving, frustration, anger, anxiety, guilt, self-analysis and fear in the last two days and I'm sure that's normal! I want to embrace the diagnosis and get on with it. Any advice on how to support my son and connect with other parents?

  • Up until the 70s, kids like these would be accepted for who they were, not forced to socialise like 'everyone else' and fast tracked into educating their talents. Along the way, they'd learn grounded principles and conscious techniques for being kind, gracious and gentleman-ly and make a grand effort because it is worthwhile to have others in our lives, if only a select few. 

    From the daughter of a man who plays World of Warcraft (my nephew plays Minecraft), who's a software engineer and a physicist, with similar nerd-like brothers, all undiagnosed, I absolutely adore these types! The best of kin are engineers and creative technicians and we find each other at social engagements we like. 

    The fact is, this kind of thinking - memorising systems and algorithms, if he were encouraged and not pressured into being someone he's not, he'd excel. Does he like coding? Have you bought him Little Bits for Christmas? Does he like chemistry? 

    Expanding the Autistic diagnostic is only now necessary because society demands a sort of homogenised thinking. And not everyone is impressed by adverts or needs to stand in a queue at the Mac store when a new model arrives to market. Not everyone enjoys a music festival arm to arm with sweaty drunk 24 hour party people. Some would prefer to chart stars and unearth treasures or catalogue species. I personally like 'us', our Autistic-Reasoning. As for social codes, yes, I needed a few shelves of philosophy and psychology, a few good essays from classics like Orwell, Chesterton, C S Lewis, Erich Fromm to understand the systems or algorithms which are key to Matters of the Heart. But when WE get it, we get it. We can be capable of deeply understanding one another, of loyal and lasting friendships and also dreaming up the next thing which will save humanity from it's brink of Chaos! 

    Congrats. Celebrate this amazing kid, and realise, we cannot be both introverted and extroverted - as Erich Fromm points out in the Revolution of Hope, One cannot have it both ways. 

  • Joining a Facebook group is helpful. In some areas there are local organisations which offer training and can be good to meet other parents. School may be able to tell you what is on offer locally. 

    It sounds like the school will help with transition support when moving to Secondary school. My son is in a mainstream school and we always make sure we have email addresses of all his teachers as sometimes we need to make contact if he has had communication problems. 

  • This may sound strange, but you need to teach your son to forgive himself. There will be times when things go wrong, and when he gets bullied or blamed for behaviour that is due to his autism. Help him to accept his difference, and that sometimes neurotypicals can be hard to figure out. " If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."  [ Henry David Thoreau ]