Managing Autism - A Personal View

Jack has received an invitation to a birthday party for this coming weekend.  The birthday party is for a friend of Jack’s - a little boy he has known for a couple of years.  Whilst excitement is brewing over the idea of a party, there is a lot of nervous energy also building up.

Jack loves the idea of socialising and parties, it’s just the reality of it all that totally freaks him out.  He wants to have friends come to our house to play and he wants to be able to go to other kids houses and parties but when the time comes he struggles to manage - the anxious behaviour kicks in (literally) and he becomes totally overwhelmed.

The last party we ventured to was around 6 months ago and was for a ‘kindergarten friend’.  It was a total disaster - tears, tantrums, kicking other children, and inappropriate language.  The memory of it all is still very fresh in our minds and that makes us uncertain about whether or not we tackle this one.

So after much deliberation, the decision has been made to take the party one step at a time.  We have confirmed that the party is quite small, and that we may leave early without offending anyone.  We will make a choice on the morning of the party as to whether or not we go (depending on the mood of the day) and if we do go, we will take it slowly and without expectation.

Now it’s social stories and role playing until then!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 6:58 am and is filed under Characteristics of Autism, Personal Stories. 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.