Hi to all, today has not been so great... I have a 4 year old son who was diagnosed last year with ASD and fragile X syndrom, guess I've always known my little boy was a bit different and to be honest having the diagnoses confirm things came as quite a relief.
But as he gets bigger and stronger and more determind his behaviour is becoming much more challenging and difficult to cope with. I am a single parent and he is my only child, so to a certain extent I don't really know any different. But with his lack of verbal communication skills and general development delay I am finding even the most basic of tasks a constant battle.
Going out, for example to nursery has turned into a daily struggle, with his unpredictable behaviour and inability to understand personal safety. I have to take him in a pram, this is not ideal he is tall for his age and the pram is not really suitable (I am in the process of trying to find out how to go about organising a more suitable one), out of nowhere and for no apparent reason he will launch into an extreme meltdown, screaming incredibly loudly whilst throwing his head back hitting the pram frame, he will stretch out his legs going very stiff so that they drag on the floor. He will work up such a temper that he has no regard for how his physical outbursts are affecting himself or others. Not only is this incredibly distressing to see but even harder to deal with.
90% of the time my son is a lovely sweet tempered little boy who enjoys nature and being out and about, but it's that small 10% which seems to be overshadowing and taking over our lives making the simple joys of bringing up a child really difficult to see.
I am not one to normally ask for help, but I am struggling and I hate to admit this.
just needed to get this out of my system, like I said today has not been so great, fingers crossed tomorrow will be better. Thanks for reading. Xxx
its the journey and waiting to get inside, he can sometimes work himself up where he will be fighting to not go in, but when I leave and he has been distracted by the staff and sometimes the other children, he im told calms down again. And 9 times out of 10 picking him up to go home is a lot less dramatic. He loves music but is not a one for headphones, I don't think years of going back and forwards to the hospital about his ears has helped that. But he does sometimes put his ear to certain toys, I tried this myself to see what he was getting out of it, other then being obviously louder guess the sensation of a sort of vibration felt good to him! He has come on considerably with his speech, but no where near the level he should be at for a child of his age, he has P.E.Cs cards but seems to get on better combining certain words with signing-I think the speech and language people are covering all bases and seeing what is most effective.