pretty sad, whats in the future
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Hello, everyone, I guess I am having one of my "moments" today and could use some re-assurance about my sons future. Junior Mint is 5 and 3 months, very high funcitoning PDD-NOS child. He will be in a mainstreem kindergarden in the fall and academically, he does very very well. He is verbal, laughs, is very active and has NO tantrums at all, he is as sweet as pie. We just got done the soccer season, he stuck it out, didn't do to much but run with the kids so I was kinda disapointed but realized that with his delays, I gotta deal with it. Now, in practice, he did great, the coach would even say how good he did and the while team really just ran around during the games except a few kids who did real well. (This is a lot of rambling but I am a but emotional now) So we spent the weekend in our pool and Junior is swimming pretty good with just the arm floats, not scared of water at all, doesn't jump in but still loves it, he will start a nice summer camp soon and have madatory swimming lessons each day, gymastics, golf and arts& crafts so I am hoping he does ok at the camp, it will be from 9-1 so a nice 1/2 day program, they are used to kids with all kinds of delays, kids that have none etc.. we did specify on the form about it and also talked with them and when we visited the camp, the director saw Junior and and how he was running up and down the playground ladders and said "wow, he is active and will do fine", I did trust him as he has said they have had kids with more severe autisim and the school Junior goes to is very familier to them, the pre-k program, plus I kinda know the guy. So really, he needs help with his social skills as he is very shy and still needs help interacting and the home tutor will be working on that this summer, she will even go to the camp some days to observe. I can play with him fine, I do see the delays but I also see his stongpoints like building things and him on the computer. At his IEP they showed us his chart of how much he has progressed and it was amazing, he is actually at the 6 year age mark for a lot of things, their are still some things like social interaction that he is a bit below but we get nothing but praises about him. He has been in Karate for over a year and is doing great, he listins and his body coordination is getting real good. I guess if you are still reading after that long post, thank you first, but second, what lies in my future ?? He is so close to being "Normal" if thats the right word but the autistic tendancies will just never go away. With a high functioning child like mine, will he have friends when he gets older ? Will he be able to do more things and be able to at least live close to a normal stile life or does it get worse ?? Sorry for the tone of my post, I am having a brainfart right now and I get kinda panicky about things like this and I figured "hey, tell it all on the message board as their are great people their" Does anyone have a high functioning PDD-NOS child who is able to interact ok and have at least some friends when they get older like 7,8 and 9 ??? I remeber when I was in school, their was kids without any delays that were just loners or didn't have friends because they were just that way but Junior Mint has these delays and crap, if it wasn't for them he would be even more outgoing and supreman! LOL I guess I want to here some success stories, I know how lucky I am and how much tougher it could be as a lot of kids are non-verbal, have tantrums etcc. All things that Junior doesn't so thats a big plus but still, being on the spectrum is tough. I am getting this guilt trip that its my fault he got this way, maybe because I partied in school ???? Drank beer when I was under 21 ??? I totally feel like its my fault and its eating away at my gut. Well, thats it, if you made it to read this full post, thank you... Just one of those days today. Last Night as I was walking around my apartment complex I saw this girl who lives on her own throwing some things out. I asked her if she was moving. SHe lives independently has friends. She is on HUD. She even has a boyfriend. Now being it she is little odd. When I asked her is she was moving she also told me she is high functioning autism. Now she was diagnosed as an adult. She said they her family all knew something was wrong. But she was raised as normal as possible told she could do anything. All in all she is independent working and living a so called "normal" life. I went to sleep with a little more hope. I think yeah we know our kids have delays but at some point keeping those in mind we need to enjoy and get the most out of every moment of our kids. Get the IEP and modifications in place. I tell my son he can do anything in world. He still the same kid as before the diagnosis. Looking to be loved looking to love and storm the world learning things. I worry but the future but what we do today in stepping stone to then. As my son neur said that future is endless and we don't know what will be so we need to joy every moment. You sound like a strong and wonderful parent to junior mint. wow Andsmama! Thats kinda relieving to here. I have my days when everything is fine and I just accept it and really don't care too much about it. Other days, like today, I get all caught up in thought and get so paraniod, my mondays are always bad ! LOL I just like to her success stories, every now and then I think we parents need to here success stories to keep us positive. Their is so much going on on helping them achive things that I hardly get to just stop and smell the roses so to speak, just stop and enjoy him as if nothing is wrong. And I don't think thats bad, 20 years ago they didn't have all these diagnosis's , sometimes, all I think about is the spectrum and I can't get it outa my head. Its tough..
One more story my 37 year old brother who was diagnosed low functioning autistic. He still lives at home but independtly he does every thing on his own he hold a full time night job where he works alone. He has a Bachelor of Science is Psychology and he told us he did this degree to figure himself out. Then he also got a Bachelor of Arts in ENglish to learn how to express himself. When we younger my mom was told he would know how to really care and love someone else. The love and feelings he shows for my son brings out tears thinking about. He takes him out and really tries to provide and since my sons father is not in his life he told me once he needs to be as much as he can my sons role model. My brother is my sons god father. Socially he's behind but in these past three years since the birth of my son he has made leaps and bounds in every thing. Maybe just maybe with alittle suppervision he can live on his own. We hope. If I ever get married I would not know how to explain him! my son is 19. he is on the low functioning side of autism. never would have believed he would be where he is at this stage. he was a sit in corner and moan child at age 3. he loves music and plays miniature golf. goes out to work at school. he is non verbal but types on a speller what he needs. will never be able to live on his own but i am ok with that. do not measure your child against other children. he will excell in some areas and not progress as far in others. stress where he excells. none of us know the future but there is more research and programs starting up for these kids. his biggest asset is you and your love for him. always let him know that you are there for him.Seniormint, I also know of several high functioning adults that are living on their own and doing quite well. I met them through my local Autism Society. Wow Col, he can play minature golf? Lol, I totally suck at that game. So tell him if he ever wants to win, he can play against me, Tammy Senior mint your son sounds like he is doing great. Yur post describes a very accomplished happy little boy. so as far being on the spectrum I would think he is in the best place possible cosidering he is ASD. maybe he will keep progressing and end up indistiguishable from his peers but if not he sounds like as close to NT as is possible. Some days are very hard..hope you feel better soon. For Andysmama-What does your 37 yr. old brother do for work? My son is 17 and we are researching all available employment options.My brother works as a night auditor in a hotel. . .He works graveyard and its perfect becuase there is not much socilaztion needed. . .He has been there two years and has receive $2.50 raise. . . .He does not know how to say no but beside being socially backwards and does not always make sense when you speak with him he has made wonderful progess inspite of a grim diagnosis. . .funny about the miniature golf. not really into anything related to sports very hypotonic and i think just walking diffucult at times. loves the golf tho. only thing i have ever really seen him be competetive over. really gets into it.I keep thinking the same things. I guess with the younger babies here that is all we can think. Most of us have just been told about dx which means we are getting told what they cant do, wont do. It makes it very hard to deal with and leaves us thinking but what can they do. Corbin is almost 3 pdd-nos. I am really starting to see his delays now. I have hope he will talk well since he has such good jibberish, I picture a non-verbal kid not doing that. (is that right?) But sometimes he acts so young for age. I am still getting used to people staring at his tantrums and oddddd behavior (staring at lights and gawking). I have an internal conflict of give him a passy or let him cry? I am preparing myself for the day that someone says something to me!!! Ginger [QUOTE=seniormint]Hello, everyone, I guess I am having one of my "moments" today and could use some re-assurance about my sons future. Junior Mint is 5 and 3 months, very high funcitoning PDD-NOS child. He will be in a mainstreem kindergarden in the fall and academically, he does very very well. He is verbal, laughs, is very active and has NO tantrums at all, he is as sweet as pie. We just got done the soccer season, he stuck it out, didn't do to much but run with the kids so I was kinda disapointed but realized that with his delays, I gotta deal with it. Now, in practice, he did great, the coach would even say how good he did and the while team really just ran around during the games except a few kids who did real well. (This is a lot of rambling but I am a but emotional now) So we spent the weekend in our pool and Junior is swimming pretty good with just the arm floats, not scared of water at all, doesn't jump in but still loves it, he will start a nice summer camp soon and have madatory swimming lessons each day, gymastics, golf and arts& crafts so I am hoping he does ok at the camp, it will be from 9-1 so a nice 1/2 day program, they are used to kids with all kinds of delays, kids that have none etc.. we did specify on the form about it and also talked with them and when we visited the camp, the director saw Junior and and how he was running up and down the playground ladders and said "wow, he is active and will do fine", I did trust him as he has said they have had kids with more severe autisim and the school Junior goes to is very familier to them, the pre-k program, plus I kinda know the guy. So really, he needs help with his social skills as he is very shy and still needs help interacting and the home tutor will be working on that this summer, she will even go to the camp some days to observe. I can play with him fine, I do see the delays but I also see his stongpoints like building things and him on the computer. At his IEP they showed us his chart of how much he has progressed and it was amazing, he is actually at the 6 year age mark for a lot of things, their are still some things like social interaction that he is a bit below but we get nothing but praises about him. He has been in Karate for over a year and is doing great, he listins and his body coordination is getting real good. I guess if you are still reading after that long post, thank you first, but second, what lies in my future ?? He is so close to being "Normal" if thats the right word but the autistic tendancies will just never go away. With a high functioning child like mine, will he have friends when he gets older ? Will he be able to do more things and be able to at least live close to a normal stile life or does it get worse ?? Sorry for the tone of my post, I am having a brainfart right now and I get kinda panicky about things like this and I figured "hey, tell it all on the message board as their are great people their" Does anyone have a high functioning PDD-NOS child who is able to interact ok and have at least some friends when they get older like 7,8 and 9 ??? I remeber when I was in school, their was kids without any delays that were just loners or didn't have friends because they were just that way but Junior Mint has these delays and crap, if it wasn't for them he would be even more outgoing and supreman! LOL I guess I want to here some success stories, I know how lucky I am and how much tougher it could be as a lot of kids are non-verbal, have tantrums etcc. All things that Junior doesn't so thats a big plus but still, being on the spectrum is tough. I am getting this guilt trip that its my fault he got this way, maybe because I partied in school ???? Drank beer when I was under 21 ??? I totally feel like its my fault and its eating away at my gut. Well, thats it, if you made it to read this full post, thank you... Just one of those days today. [/QUOTE]Hi, I have been working as a private therapist specifically doing verbal behavior for about 4 years now. I find that my kids are responding very well to this type of teaching from an academic standpoint. However, eventhough the children can be on lvel with their peers in that sense, I find that developing relationships is the hardest part. I have just begun researching and doing some work with Relationship Development Intervention. It focuses on social skills and being able to relate to others. For me it was an instant"wow. this is the missing link I have been searching for!" If you haven't already, I recommend the website www.connectionscenter.com wow you checked out this post from back in June! lol. How nice of you to check backwards for people. Amber I thinks its just that I am so excited about RDI and I saw that post, I had to respond. well my son is 23, he does not have freinds, has had few thru the years and they didnt last long, the one that did ended up stealing stuff from him so we didnt allow him over anymore. I have never had good interaction wih freinds, cant teach them what you dont know, my daughter does good with freinds, but other son has hard time making freinds also, Bobby is High funtioning autism, he does not really care as much as I do, sure he would like freinds, but his social skills never reached that far to allow him to intereact for too long, he says he has freinds online and he goes to college, drives, and someday may live on his own. At least that is our goal. If someone finds secret to freindships let me know, it is a mystery how some have so many freinds and others cant find one. I keep telling them to join groups, interact, stay busy. If your life is full you dont have time to worry about why you dont have freinds.I believe this is my biggest fear for my son who is 4. I often see him playing by his self. My dw tells me I worry too much, that she always played by her self when she was a little girl. I guess I worry because I am a VERY social person. Some may say too social. Anyway that’s how I feel. Thanks for listening. Oh Asly great site, thanks My son in 11 and doesn't really have any friends. He is not upset about it because I don't think he wants to interact with other kids. He does talk to just about any adult and will even go into a store and ask questions about something like a video game. He will ask any adult if he can pet their dogs. He wants to be an electrician when he grows up. And we think that would be good because it is more of a solitary kind of job. Everyone in his life is trying to get him to have friends, but he usually says "no thanks". Friendships have always been a struggle for my son too. He's HF pdd-nos, has a desire for friendship but social anxiety and social skills deficit gets in the way. (Their loss... he's a great kid!) The good news is we've found that it only takes one person to make a difference. There is a wonderful young man in our church who understands our sons difficulties and has reached out to him in a mentor sort of way. Yes, as a mom, I would love to see a true, reciprocal friendship - but in the meantime, a relationship like this is doing wonders for his well-being too. The administrator of his school has also 'taken him under his wing' and goes out of his way to engage him and build him up during the school day. I guess what I'm saying is that the difficulties remain and we aren't seeing friendships in the traditional sense but other types of relationships can offset the lack of peer friendship.I'M GLAD THIS SUBJECT WAS BROUGHT UP AGAIN. MY LITTLE GUY IS ONLY 2 BUT I WORRY ABOUT HIM HAVING FRIENDS IN THE FUTURE. HIS S.T. SAYS THAT HE'S GOING TO BE AN ENGINEER SOMEDAY, WHILE THAT WOULD BE WONDERFUL, I SAID I WOULD RATHER HIM WORK AT WAL-MART AND HAVE FRIENDS THAN BE BRILLIANT WITH NO FRIENDS. AT THE SAME TIME I TOLD MY HUSBAND THAT IF OUR SON SAYS HE IS HAPPY NO MATTER IF HE HAS FRIENDS OR NOT ,THAT'S ALL THAT IS IMPORTANT TO ME. unfortuntally, I think I expect to much from my son. I can't wait to until the day that he meets a girl that I hate. Until he goes off to college and gets married. etc. I sometimes worry that I expect to much out of him. I just can't allow myself to think that he won't make it in the outside world. I know that he will! I guess I see it differentally, because I have two older brothers that are slow. (that's how everyone see them) (I sometimes wonder if they have some form of autism) to late to find out now. Neither are married or have kids, but both live on their own. I also have a 19 year old nephew who is mental retarded, whose parents did nothing for him but throw him in school, and then he goes home and back to school. No knowledge of the world. My family drives me crazy with their comments, but when they compair my ds to my nephew, they say (at least when I'm arround) that I'm doing all the right things. I only hope that they are right. I worry what is going to happen to my ds after I'm gone. I Pray his life is going to be good to him. I hope someday there will be a cure for autism, or at least a prevention. I pray all our children will be able to function in the real world, or at least be accepted. Wishfull thinking I guess. I just have to stay possitive for my ds. |
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Tiger Woods doesn't have to worry about me competing against him anytime soon.
(im having these thoughts based on the stares we get) We all know to hope for best, push hard, no limits, focus on what they are best at. But does anyone have a much older kid or adult in family with pdd-nos or like that has been somewhat successful in their social life. Will my son ever have a girl friend? (ok I know Im being silly, but I cant help but think it) I will shut up now!!