Hi. I don't know if anyone can help me, but I'm desperate in honesty. I apologise in advance for my rant, but I would be so grateful if someone could reply and offer any advice please.
I have 3 children, 2 of which are on the spectrum, but awaiting their 'official' diagnosis (numerous professionals have said they both clearly have asd).
My eldest is nearly 8, and my younger is nearly 5, he has a twin sister who appears neurotypical so far. They are the complete opposite of each other, truly proving how vast a spectrum there is! I myself grew up with a younger brother who was autistic, and my eldest is very similar to him, so I feel like I can understand and support him for the most part.
But younger son is completely different, and it's starting to honestly break me inside that I can't seem to help him.
He has limited speech, doesn't respond well to makaton, and can become for want of a better word, aggressive, without the intention of hurting himself or others, through becoming over stimulated or losing control or various other reasons we're not always confident on why. He is also one of the sweetest, loving, kindest boy who smiles so purely with his eyes when he's happy. But sadly, other people appear to struggle to see this, whether in public with us or in his school.
Recently, we have had two separate, horrendous incidents out in public with him, where he has been struggling for various reasons, and we have struggled to support him. Unfortunately in both incidents, lots of people were staring and scowling at him and us, and yesterday someone actually shouted at him to "shut the f*** up". It honestly devestated me, and I couldn't believe someone would say that, not only to a young child, but to another human being, let alone a child who was struggling and autistic, merely confused by uncontrollable change in our day.
I had to fight back tears very hard both times, and even now I'm tearing up thinking of these heartbreaking incidents.
The reason I'm putting all this here is, I would love to hear what other parents/carers do in these situations? Am I wrong in trying to take my son out to certain places, to encourage certain activities? I feel like his difficulties are becoming more apparent to others lately, or perhaps as he is growing people assume his behaviour is more inappropriate than when he was a toddler, or perhaps he's just changing and fighting to tell us he doesn't enjoy these activities, or maybe things are just becoming more intense for him as he grows and develops.
I just feel like I want to wrap him up and keep him safe from these things, but I also want him to live a happy, confident, free life. I don't want to prematurely restrict him, but am I being selfish by continuing to pursue/encourage family days out/small outings? He seems to have issues every single place we go outside of the house, and these days it's just so much more frequent and intense. Am I asking too much of him?
I'm worried for my other two children as well, especially my daughter as being his twin, she often compares herself or looks at him struggling to understand why he can be treated differently or unintentionally prevent them from doing something or impact how we do something.
Trying to consider their different needs is becoming very complex, and I find myself crying every day, several times a day about how I feel I'm letting them all down.
I personally have no friends or family, it's just myself and my husband, I've become very isolated due to my own physical health issues, I'm unable to work and my husband is my carer, as well as our boys. I just feel so alone and overwhelmed and I would really be so grateful if anyone could maybe just share some tips or advice that I could try, as I feel I've tried so many things over the years, and nothing is sure to work, every day is different and each response to all our methods is so interchangeable throughout the day.
I used to work with children myself, so have some experience of methods and resources designed to help, my husband is in a different industry though so he relies on me to guide or advise him. But I just can't seem to do that, and unfortunately my husband has no experience with autism or children other than ours, so we're both just trying our best.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, I appreciate it.
