I Stand Quietly....

seven-day-weekend
seven-day-weekend Posts: 36,755
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https://istandquietly.wordpress.com/2015/03/03/i-stand-quietly-istandquietly/

Written by the parent of an autistic child.

My son, now in his thirties, was 'odd' as a child. It wasn't until he was grown up that we realised that he has Aspergers Syndrome (a mild type of autism that wasn't really known about in the 1980s).. He has learned coping strategies and on the whole manages well. But I do remember feeling a little bit like the mum in the poem when he was young, and although his 'quirks' were different to the girl in the poem, I often had to 'stand quietly'. I also had the same remarks about him being an only child, and 'advice' about my parenting from the school.

Just hope it might help someone.

Discussion welcomed.
(AKA HRH_MUngo)
Member #10 of £2 savers club
Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology: Terry Eagleton
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  • kingfisherblue
    kingfisherblue Posts: 9,203
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    My 17 year old son has recently been diagnosed as either high functioning autism or Asperger's - I've always known that he was a little different, and had previously asked CAMHS if he had any form of autism due to his traits. They categorically denied that he had any difficulties apart from depression (diagnosed at the end of primary school). My other son has Down's Syndrome, and has a few traits of autism as well, but not enough to be diagnosed as autistic - the hand dryer is a major issue for him, whereas it doesn't bother my autistic son.

    Both have their own quirks, which can make life interesting at times. My autistic son is now finding his place a little more, in engineering, which is so much better for him than mainstream schooling. However, a special school would have been unsuitable in a more damaging way (local special schools are very heavily biased towards children with learning difficulties, and only offer foundation level GCSEs in English and Maths - nowhere near challenging enough for my younger son, and this is only one of the ways in which special school would be unsuitable).

    It can be difficult at times, supporting both boys with their very different needs. Life isn't always easy, but it's never boring!
  • One can only hope that research into this condition will soon throw up a prevention or a cure. What misery for the carer and the child concerned.
    It is not because things are difficult that we dare not venture
    It is because we dare not venture that they are difficult


    SENECA
  • My youngest son aged 16 got his diagnosis of Aspergers late last year, during his assessments it became apparent to me and the rest of my family that i have it too. As a girl born in the 1960's i totally flew under all radar, and coping and masking were all mastered by my mid teens, it's been nice to find out that i'm not a totally alien species as sometimes an Aspergers brain can think.
    ,
    Fully paid up member of the ignore button club.
    If it walks like a Duck, quacks like a Duck, it's a Duck.
  • Robisere
    Robisere Posts: 3,237
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    I have read and commented upon so many letters over the years that I have used this forum, so if you have seen it before, I apologise: but remember that this crops up again and again, because the Autism spectrum crops up again and again. Each experience is new to the parent and families of the sufferers.

    I am the grandfather of a male Aspergers child, now an adult in his early 20's. He has a severely dyslexic male cousin, his junior by 5 years. No one in our family had ever heard of Aspergers, but we learned about it over the life of my beloved, affectionate, strange genius grandson. The knowledge of his diagnosis caused his father to leave and live with his secretary when our gs was very young and our dd divorced him. He then married the secretary, who has also since divorced him. Gs has not seen dad since he was a toddler and I have been his male father figure, with help from his uncle. The whole family helped, but our dd worked hard to get her son into college and I finally found the "One Special Thing" that fired him up: I built him his first PC. The One Thing does not have to be a computer, it can be anything that fires their minds and opens up what is almost always a superb, but one-track, tunnel-vision, intelligence. That first PC took my gs on a journey through college which ended in his situation today - a very good IT job in a prestigious local company, and an executive apartment in a gated community.

    He still likes his own company and his computer systems more than people, but that is the way he is. He is a responsible, caring member of our family and his community, but it took hard work to get him there.
    I think this job really needs
    a much bigger hammer.
  • Robisere wrote: »
    I have read and commented upon so many letters over the years that I have used this forum, so if you have seen it before, I apologise: but remember that this crops up again and again, because the Autism spectrum crops up again and again. Each experience is new to the parent and families of the sufferers.

    I am the grandfather of a male Aspergers child, now an adult in his early 20's. He has a severely dyslexic male cousin, his junior by 5 years. No one in our family had ever heard of Aspergers, but we learned about it over the life of my beloved, affectionate, strange genius grandson. The knowledge of his diagnosis caused his father to leave and live with his secretary when our gs was very young and our dd divorced him. He then married the secretary, who has also since divorced him. Gs has not seen dad since he was a toddler and I have been his male father figure, with help from his uncle. The whole family helped, but our dd worked hard to get her son into college and I finally found the "One Special Thing" that fired him up: I built him his first PC. The One Thing does not have to be a computer, it can be anything that fires their minds and opens up what is almost always a superb, but one-track, tunnel-vision, intelligence. That first PC took my gs on a journey through college which ended in his situation today - a very good IT job in a prestigious local company, and an executive apartment in a gated community.

    He still likes his own company and his computer systems more than people, but that is the way he is. He is a responsible, caring member of our family and his community, but it took hard work to get him there.

    I understand exactly what you mean :)
    (AKA HRH_MUngo)
    Member #10 of £2 savers club
    Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology: Terry Eagleton
  • Robisere wrote: »
    I have read and commented upon so many letters over the years that I have used this forum, so if you have seen it before, I apologise: but remember that this crops up again and again, because the Autism spectrum crops up again and again. Each experience is new to the parent and families of the sufferers.

    I am the grandfather of a male Aspergers child, now an adult in his early 20's. He has a severely dyslexic male cousin, his junior by 5 years. No one in our family had ever heard of Aspergers, but we learned about it over the life of my beloved, affectionate, strange genius grandson. The knowledge of his diagnosis caused his father to leave and live with his secretary when our gs was very young and our dd divorced him. He then married the secretary, who has also since divorced him. Gs has not seen dad since he was a toddler and I have been his male father figure, with help from his uncle. The whole family helped, but our dd worked hard to get her son into college and I finally found the "One Special Thing" that fired him up: I built him his first PC. The One Thing does not have to be a computer, it can be anything that fires their minds and opens up what is almost always a superb, but one-track, tunnel-vision, intelligence. That first PC took my gs on a journey through college which ended in his situation today - a very good IT job in a prestigious local company, and an executive apartment in a gated community.

    He still likes his own company and his computer systems more than people, but that is the way he is. He is a responsible, caring member of our family and his community, but it took hard work to get him there.
    Totally understand you, my son's tunnel vision is with gaming, he wants to learn at college how to code with a view to going into game making.
    Far from seeing his hooked to the xbox as a negative i see it as a positive that fires his imagination, and encourages him in his goal.
    ,
    Fully paid up member of the ignore button club.
    If it walks like a Duck, quacks like a Duck, it's a Duck.
  • ognum
    ognum Posts: 4,835
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    Many, many employees in the high tech sector are on the spectrum, many are genius level in invention and tech problem solving.

    We are not all the same and that is good.
  • shiny76
    shiny76 Posts: 548
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    Totally understand you, my son's tunnel vision is with gaming, he wants to learn at college how to code with a view to going into game making.
    Far from seeing his hooked to the xbox as a negative i see it as a positive that fires his imagination, and encourages him in his goal.
    It'd be worth looking into the working conditions in the games industry. Many of my colleagues used to work in that field and say that the demands put on them were excessive - they moved to other roles to avoid burn-out
  • You can't just walk into a job in the computer games industry, it is very competitive, as you can probably imagine. It doesn't do their social skills much good, either, spending so long in front of screens.
    It is not because things are difficult that we dare not venture
    It is because we dare not venture that they are difficult


    SENECA
  • You can't just walk into a job in the computer games industry, it is very competitive, as you can probably imagine. It doesn't do their social skills much good, either, spending so long in front of screens.
    This is a thread with regard to people with Aspergers, social skills are not high on the agenda so that point is moot.
    I dont see anybody implying that its an easy job to walk into either.
    I think your opinion while probably valid in the NT world, has no real substance in a thread about Aspergers/ASD/HFA.
    Just my opinion.
    ,
    Fully paid up member of the ignore button club.
    If it walks like a Duck, quacks like a Duck, it's a Duck.
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