Managing Autism - A Personal View

To our beautiful Jack,

May you bask in the sunshine of your uniqueness.

May you shine in the beauty of you.

May you always know of the blessings you bring to our lives.

We love you to the moon and stars and back… forever,

 Mum, Dad & Annie. xx

Today we celebrate Autism Awareness Day.

Today we embrace what autism means to us.

Today we look with hope to a future of understanding and acceptance.

Today we look forward with love.

Elissa has spent the last few days trying to knock over a headache, as well as general aches and a feeling of not being well. (She thinks she’s just run down after a big start to the year and that her body is trying to catch up!)

So the posting has been entrusted to me!!

Over the Easter weekend, Elissa and I were given the opportunity to enjoy a night out for a few hours, and decided to take in a movie. We had both seen the previews for a local Aussie movie called The Black Balloon, and decided that it would be great to go and see it.

Wow! - A great film with typical Aussie humour, but the best bit is that it is centred around the sibling of an autistic teenager.  The movie deals with the sibling’s struggle to come to terms with his brothers autism, and how it relates to his and his family’s life.

You can view the trailer, and some other information about the film here.

We really enjoyed it! (Could have just been the fact that we were also out alone and acting like adults for the first time in a long time!!) It was confronting at stages, and it was interesting to hear the audiences reaction to some of the more confronting parts.  I would certainly recommend it, and hopefully it will be released widely for everyone to see.

Steve

After juggling the drop offs between Steve and I this morning, I spent the day at work (relief teaching at the secondary school where I once taught full time) and ended up having lunch with one of the teachers assistants (aides).  I hadn’t met her before, but when she discovered I had an autistic son we chatted for a long time, with her asking lots of questions about life with Jack.  I think she really liked getting a parent’s perspective on a lot of things, and she was really interested in knowing how I handled life in general.  I was pleased in the fact that she had a very positive outlook on our discussion, and felt that the more people who knew about autism, the better.  We discussed the fact that people really needed to be aware of autism, and be able to learn about it in order for it to become more accepted and less judged.  Ahhh, a breath of fresh air… to have a conversation such as this out of a therapists office and away from our blog was really quite uplifting.

On a different note, Jack has recently reverted to the need for having something in his mouth constantly.  He chews on his toys (or anything else that he picks up ) and we have been trying to explain to him that not everything is appropriate for chewing.  His response to this is always “but I just need to chew it”!  So I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions for a chew toy of some sort… preferably something that is age appropriate, that he could keep in his pocket or on a key ring.  We’d really like to be able to replace the chewing of toys and things like coins before he accidently swallows something he shouldn’t!

And Jack’s week at school?  Pretty good!  Despite the few issues that we’re working with him on at the moment, things seem to be progressing well.  One day at a time…

As we look to begin 2008, it is an appropriate time to reflect on the year that has passed - the year that autism became a real part of our lives - and celebrate the wonderful memories that 2007 holds.

This was the year that we discovered Jack for who he really is - we have learned more about him, and about ourselves as a consequence.  2007 has been a huge year for personal growth, and for developing our family relationships.

This was a big year of relief - finding answers… and with this came plenty of tears as well as plenty of joy as we made our way through the emotional battlefield that comes as part of finding a diagnosis.

This was a year to learn about letting go - and to trust that with enough love, our children will find their way in life.

This was a year for courage, and for finding the strength to move forward.

This was a year for questions, and for simply being content that the answers were there.

This was a year for learning, knowing, and living autism - and discovering that labels don’t have any bearing on how much you can love your child… yes, we love autism completely and unconditionally.

This was the year where our lives were turned upside down, but where our lives started to make some sense.

And as the new year begins, we remember that this year, 2007, was most definitely a year to be grateful for.

Elissa & Steve

WISHING EVERYONE A HAPPY AND JOY FILLED 2008 - MAY ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE!

I read a fabulous article yesterday, titled “Courageous kids on film“.  It caught my attention because the first line of the article made a statement about it taking ’courage’ to face the world with Aspergers Syndrome.

The article then went on to outline the launch of a short film highlighting and celebrating the stories of children with the condition.  The film came as a result of a number of workshops that were held to investigate some of the challenges that Aspergers kids face.

I was delighted to think that such a film had been produced.  I have posted before about the need to highlight and celebrate the wonderful things about our kids with autism spectrum disorders, and this film is definitely a wonderful contribution to raising positive awareness in our society.

On that note, I’d like to share a story of Jack’s courage recently - not a big ground breaking moment for most kids, but for Jack, it was huge…

Jack had his final orientation day at school last week, in preparation for next year.  The first 2 orientation days had been really successful; they had been for around 2 hours a visit, and although there were a few challenging moments, Jack had coped really well with everything going on around him.

The evening before his final orientation day Steve and I had been to a meeting at the school for a final rundown on some of the details for next year.  During this meeting we discovered that although we had requested Jack be placed in a class with his Kinder friend, they had been placed in separate classes (a little boy who he had been very attached to during the ‘getting ready for school’ process, and whose presence we felt would help Jack make a smooth transition to school).  So the trip home for Steve and I was filled with anxiety as we contemplated how we would break the news.

Jack was devastated with news, as we had anticipated.  After the tantrum, and the ’hurt’ and ’sad’ tears, we had ‘angry’ tears, with the question asked continually ”why would they do this to me?”.  I struggled to fight the tears myself and for a while he just let me cuddle him to me like a baby.  He was scared, and I was feeling scared for him.  Steve (thank goodness he is very practical) managed to bring the focus back to the more positive things about the day to come, and finally we got him to sleep.

The next morning went quite quickly, getting ready for school.  We were finally ready to go when I discovered Jack had gone missing.  Annie and I searched the house, only to find him hiding under a table - the news had hit him again, and he didn’t want to go.  So we spent a while talking, and I convinced him that even though he wouldn’t be in the same room as his friend, it might be worth still giving school a go.  Ten minutes later and we were in the car, and off to school.

This is where Jack’s moment of courage comes in.  We arrived at the school, me feeling sick to the stomach with anxiety, and Jack quite subdued.  We got out of the car, and Jack turned to me and said, “It doesn’t matter Mum, it’ll be okay, I can play with …. at our break time”.  My eyes filled with tears under my sunglasses as he let me hug him.  At that moment I was very proud.  As I said above, not a ground breaking moment for most kids, but a huge moment of courage for Jack.

Elissa

PS - We would love to hear about other fabulous moments of ASD courage…..

Oh, and yes, Jack’s day went well - and he did seek out his friend at break time.

It seems a number of our fellow bloggers have been hitting the 100th post milestone lately - and today we join them!

And we thought the perfect way to mark the occasion would be with a lovely uplifting message titled “Mother’s View On Autism”

This video is simple and heartfelt - it is a mother’s message of love and acceptance.

Enjoy!

Elissa & Steve

PS - Spend some time today reflecting on the ‘brightness’ that a person with autism has brought to your life.

Casdok at Mother of Shrek forwarded us this link to her favourite video.

We’ve had some trouble with the code so if the video doesn’t appear on your screen head over here to view it, but please come back and leave us a comment to tell us what you think.  It’s very powerful in it’s message!

Thanks Casdok!

And please leave us a link to anything you would like to contribute!

Jason McElwain autistic athlete

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