Managing Autism - A Personal View

Picture this…….. You start your journey home from a long and eventful day at work, fight with the Friday night traffic, make a few last minute phone calls to clients, and start to drift off into weekend mode - looking forward to winding down, de - stressing and enjoying time with your loving family (as well as catching up with some sport via the television).

Sounds great doesn’t it? - nothing abnormal there. At this point I should tell you that I am the proud dad of two beautiful kids, Anna who is nearly 3 and Jack who is nearly 6 and recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s.  I should also tell you that I am married to the modern day version of wonder woman, who organises and plans every aspect of the kids (and mine!) lives so that a resemblance of order is maintained every day.

Most of you (especially the ladies) are probably thinking - so what, this doesn’t sound any different to thousands of other homes, and you would be right…….. except this is no ordinary weekend! As I pull into the driveway, I notice that my wife’s car door is open, I walk over to shut it and notice the suitcase, hairdryer, makeup bag and other miscellaneous women’s stuff. Then it hits me (about the same time as my naked 5 year old is jumping into my arms to welcome me home) - this is the weekend I promised to look after the kids, and send my wife on a well deserved break! 

I start to panic….. can I really do this??….. who can I call in as back up??….. what are the emergency services numbers??….. and most importantly - how am I going to get to watch the game and what are we going to eat!?…..

To be continued ……….

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 11th, 2007 at 7:20 am and is filed under Dad's View, Parenting Autism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.