Managing Autism - A Personal View

Here in Australia we have an advertisement for KFC that finishes with the line, ‘Can’t Beat that Taste’.  Jack’s version (that we often have repeated for hours on end at top pitch after he sees it on television) is ‘Can’t Beat Cat Pi.s’ (you fill in the blank letter).

We laugh - imagining the faces on the KFC marketing team if they heard Jack’s version.  Luckily we don’t take him to KFC, we’re also very sure store management would not be impressed.

Oh, the joys of loud repetitive language - especially when it is perfectly in tune!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LISS!

I won’t tell you how old she is……. She would kill me….!

(But you could have your own guess ??!!)

Steve

We love you Mum!! xx

In a post we wrote sometime ago we introduced you to our ‘5th’ member of the family (Max the cat), and his special ability to calm and influence Jacks behaviour. This past weekend we had the opportunity to babysit another family favourite - Dunstan the dog.

Dunstan (or Dun, as he is called) has been in the extended family for over 10 years, and is a beautiful natured dog who just senses the mood and needs of others around him. Jack has a very special bond with Dun, and is always excited when he comes to stay.

Saturday was the day, and Jack was pacing the floor waiting for his special friend to arrive.  By early morning he had already placed 2 bowls of food, 3 water containers and a pile of sticks neatly out on the grass in readiness for play.

From the moment Dun arrived, he was so excited!! He began jumping all over the place, chasing birds, and rolling in the dirt! (Dun did some of those things too!)

From the photo you can see how happy both Dun and Jack looked together, and considering they spent the best part of 5 hours on Saturday afternoon playing together, they both slept like babies that night! Sometimes we underestimate the effect that family pets can have on our kids, and considering I grew up with family pets it was nice to have some of the memories come flooding back.

Now, if only I can convince Elissa to let Jack and I have a puppy…….!

Steve

I pulled my car to a stop at the side of the street, and I glanced quickly out towards the road before I opened my door.  The traffic was heavy; cars everywhere, young people on bikes, and buses moving out quickly with the end of school rush.

A quick hand over was all that was needed - a few brief words as I took the bag, along with the drink bottle that had fallen from the bag’s side pocket.

“Any news?” I asked Steve, as I attempted a kiss on Jack’s head.

“Nothing to report… not ready to talk yet,” was the answer I got as the head below me ducked and looked out toward the distance.

A few more brief words and Steve was in his car and driving away, rushing to a meeting.

I looked down beside me to realise that Jack was gone, and as my eyes searched the foot path, I noticed a figure standing some distance away… at the edge of the nearby parkland, staring into the trees and head tilted - as though listening.

He had found the quiet… he had found the calm… he had found the ’sanctuary’ in the middle of all the noise and movement around us.

As I called to him he slowly turned.  He looked quietly towards me, not responding, but just listening… though not to my voice, it seemed, but to the distant wildlife.

And at that moment the world seemed to ’still’… he had found that moment, and he had recognised the beauty of what was in front of us that no one else around us could see at that moment.

Then a minute later his eyes focussed on me and he called “I hope a train doesn’t come past Mum”, and he ran towards the car and climbed in.

I smiled to myself and climbed into the drivers seat.

I felt blessed.  And after a long day, in that moment, I felt alive.

Well after having some ‘catch up’ time after the events of the past week or so, I have so much that I want to post about!

Firstly is a recent award; I feel very honoured to be the recipient of ”The Spreader Of Love Award”.  A very big and special thank you to Michelle at In The Life Of A Child for this - my first reaction to the award was actually a little tear that came to the corner of my eye… (the award came at the end of my long and challenging week)!

All our blogging friends are extremely deserving of this lately, but I am going to pass this award along to Tulip Mom, who is busy preparing for a baby and who has made me cry recently (like I wasn’t crying enough already!!!) with a couple of very heartfelt posts, and to Laura, who doesn’t officially blog, but who is a regular reader of our blog - and who has plenty of love to share!

So now on to my rambling…

I’ve had quite a busy time making phone calls, and researching, and then making even more enquiries into getting some help for us all in dealing with Jack’s aggressive moments.  I’ve had some luck and have been referred to a counsellor (through our state Autism organisation) for some assistance, and have also been directed to a whole lot of resources that will be useful as we work through these issues.  Yay!!  We’re finally seeing some light, and a way to crawl out of the tunnel - well at least we’re heading in that direction anyway!

Steve and I have been tossing up the idea lately of trying to get together some sort of ‘coffee group’ for parents of autistic children in our local area.  There is a formal autism support group some distance away from us, but we’re really looking for something local as ideally we’d like to meet other parents and families who are close by.  So we’re going to get working on this idea and hopefully get together a small group of other parents who are interested in catching up informally on a regular basis.  (And if anyone has done anything like this before and has any suggestions or ideas.. we’d love to hear, and we’ll post on this more as we go along.)

Jack had his third day at school yesterday, which was also his first ‘full’ day.  He is coping really well in the classroom - in fact much better than we could ever have imagined, but he is really struggling in the playground (and this was certainly highlighted yesterday when he had his first experience of the long ‘lunchtime’ break).  We always knew that this part of the school day was going to be his biggest challenge, but now it’s just a matter of working out the best way to manage it.  His teacher has been absolutely wonderful and totally supportive (we couldn’t ask for better), and yesterday she arranged for him to spend the second half of the lunch break (when she wasn’t in the yard to supervise him) having ‘down time’ on the computer.  She also mentioned to Steve, when he picked Jack up at the end of the day, that the staff were going to work out the best way to structure lunchtimes for him - I’m going to meet with her about this later in the week.  We just feel so blessed that Jack is in such a wonderful supportive school environment.

In my search for help and advice over the past few days a couple of people have asked me where we usually turn for help and assistance when things get tough or ‘challenging’ or when we just need to talk through stuff.  This really made me stop and think, and I started to wonder myself.  I know that I always have my mum and dad as a support mechanism, but otherwise we simply rely on the support network that we have through blogging, and an online forum that we visit…  So don’t answer me now, but I’m planning on posting soon about support - in an attempt to discover where people find it, and how people deal with the unsupportive influences in their lives (around autism!!)…

Oh, and just quickly on a different topic, I must make mention of the fact that we had a snake in our backyard yesterday afternoon.  A passerby spotted it moving across the road and into our garden (we have an empty paddock across the road from us and bushland a short distance away).  It was a brown snake about 4 feet long - common in the bushland of Australia, but their bite can be deadly!  It disappeared into hiding somewhere in the garden, and we’re praying that it has decided to move on, (but for now the kids are confined to indoor play, and I have to admit I’m a little nervous about going out to hang the washing on the clothes line… silly I know - but I really don’t like snakes)!!  I’m just grateful that firstly, someone spotted it so that we knew it was around (seeing as Jack likes to hide in under the bushes in the garden), and secondly, that Jack was at school at the time when we had about 6 men (who were working on a building site a couple of doors down and who had spotted the snake as they were driving along our street) going through our garden with shovels trying to either kill it or scare it away.  I don’t think I could have coped with his questioning and panicking - it was enough trying to explain later to him why he couldn’t go and play outside!!

So now that I’m nearly caught up…!!

Have a great day everyone,

Elissa

We travelled to Melbourne last weekend to spend an evening out on our own (Steve and I) and to have a farewell lunch with my brother Mike and his partner Elien who are heading back to Belgium in a few days time.

We left home on Saturday afternoon in the pouring rain (unusual here as we have been in severe drought in our part of Australia for a very long time) and made a slow trip to Melbourne, struggling against the weather along the way.

Thankfully Annie slept in the car, but Jack was too interested in all the rain to even think about resting!

We arrived in Melbourne a little later than we had planned, but Steve and I still managed to head out for a few hours on our own - savouring the quiet and calm around us!

Sunday was spent with my Mum and Dad, and Mike and Elien.  Elien prepared roast lamb for us (her first ever attempt) and the kids spent much of the day playing with Mike (Jack had Mike building Lego creations with him).

Here are a few snapshots of our day together:

Little did we know when we had left 24 hours earlier that the worst of the weather was still to hit our part of Victoria.  We later discovered that the storm had been at it’s heaviest Saturday evening - resulting in flooding to our garage, and water damage to everything in it!!

Now, our garage stores many of the normal things that you would find in garages, but due to the fact that we are in the process of selling our home, we also have quite a bit of furniture stored in the garage, as well as many boxes of books and other items that we have started to pack away in preparation for our move.  So as you can imagine, not a pretty picture to come home to.

The kids hit ‘hyper’ state within moments of being home, simply because of the uncertainty of everything around them, but once darkness hit and we had done all that we could for the time being we managed to quieten things down and they eventually went to sleep.

We have spent the last couple of days mopping up, drying things out, and putting together a list of damaged items for the insurance company.  Certainly not a pleasant task, but at least we can be grateful that it was only the garage that was flooded, and not the house!

So with the storm having passed, the sun shining and the temperature starting to soar yet again… we’re finally returing to normal, and we’re finally back and blogging.

Well, we’re again heading off for a couple of nights - another short break to Elissa’s parents home.  We’re planning an evening out on our own (yes… really without kids!!) and also a farewell lunch tomorrow for Elissa’s brother Mike and his partner Elien who are heading back to Belgium later in the week after spending the last few months here in Australia.

Mike has been in Belgium for the past few years, he initially went to live there having joined a cycling team and then fell madly in love with a Belgian girl!!  Both are looking forward to going back… but this will be the last time we’ll see them for about 2 years…

Have a super weekend everyone!

Our living room floor has been taken over today - by Lions!!!

Well, pictures of lions anyway…

At his last therapy session, Jack’s Speech Pathologist printed out a whole lot of lion pictures for Jack to colour in (she is so lovely!!), so he busied himself this morning with colouring.

I made the mistake of asking if I could see one of his pictures that looked like a ‘real’ lion as opposed to a ‘cartoon’.  At first Jack looked at me blankly, and then of course he wanted a full explanation of what I meant.  Since then we have been trying to talk about the differences between pictures that look like ‘real’ lions, and pictures that are more like ‘cartoons’ (yes, very confusing, but he is starting to get the idea of how there are differences).

At Jack’s latest speech therapy session I asked his Speech Pathologist how I might go about trying to get him to understand different voice tones, and whilst it looks like it will be a very long process, we’re about to start working on it here at home.

Hmmm… now how could we relate voice tones to lions…

Anyway, on the topic of lions, Jack has taken to grouping lately (as opposed to lining up) - here is one of his latest groupings… lions of course, with a tiger and a polar bear thrown in for good measure (and no apparently it’s not a vicious attack on the polar bear even though it looks this way - I was a little worried for the bear!!!).

Oh, it really has been a lion of a day!

We were away for 48 hours but it feels so much longer - funny how time seems to pass.

This past weekend, the kids and I headed away for a break to my parents home.  I had a chance to spend a little time on my own with plenty of ‘babysitters’ around, and we all had a chance to get away from ‘life at home’ (which did us all some good).

For the last week or so I have been struggling with judgement - or I should say, self judgement.

I wrote recently about dropping to a really low point with the kids, where I was trying just to keep my head above water.  It is usually during these times that the self doubt and self judgement tend to set in, but I thought this time I had avoided it - that is, until it hit me square in the face late last week.

Self judgement serves no purpose other than to eat away at our self confidence and self esteem, but when you’re caught up in the moment, it is difficult to see past your own doubts and feelings of inadequacies.

So although I was getting back on top of things with the kids, by the time the past weekend rolled around, I was floundering in a sea of self judgement.  Thankfully some time spent with my aunt (and some time to talk a whole lot of things through) saw me heading back up the scale of self confidence.

Living with an autistic child (or for that matter any child with special needs), is very different to living with a ‘typical’ child.  And I find that most of my self judgement begins when I feel like I’m being judged by others.

But I have to remind myself that I’m a great Mum - I love my kids with all of my heart and they love me.

After my weekend away I now have a new quote stuck up on my wall at home:

“I can just be who I am”

(Louise Hay)

Judgement removes a person’s ability to do this.

So regardless of what’s going on around me, and what others think or say, I need to remember this most of all.

Elissa

With Jack approaching the start of his first year of school, we have been working with him on developing some strategies to help him in the classroom.

During our visit with Jack’s Speech Pathologist this week we worked on some strategies using ‘visuals’ to help Jack think through the steps involved in a task, and at the same time work independently.

I have to say, we have been totally blessed with Jack’s Speech Pathologist - in fact we couldn’t ask for better!  She is extremely warm, generous and supportive, and Jack has taken a real fancy to her (he really looks forward to going to therapy sessions).  Really, she has been a wonderful support all round - and at a time when we’ve especially needed it.

Anyway, Jack’s Speech Pathologist had put together some task boards for him to work with during the session (and for us to use as a starting point at home), and he took to the idea really well.  Although he wanted to negotiate on the order of some of the tasks to be completed, he was happy to work through the process.

The task boards also brought to our attention the fact that we need to look at re-doing Jack’s basic daily schedule here at home.  We put a basic schedule together for him some time ago, but have never been back to reassess it’s appropriateness as his needs developed.  But we can see from how he worked with the task boards that he is ready for his schedules to be more detailed and involved - and this should help settle him into a better routine as well.

So it’s off to the drawing board (or computer) with Jack’s schedules and task boards this weekend… well, we will tackle it a bit at a time anyway…