NT kids have issues too... | Autism PDD
I know what you mean about feeling relieved on some level.
When my son started school, he was hiding under the desks (sensory overload) and was in the middle of all these evaluations (he didn't get diagnosed until age 7). I felt like I was the only parent who was struggling.
But then I found out that one of his classmates had started wetting her pants again at home. She is a sweet NT girl and definitely not a case of "a diagnosis waiting to happen." But because of her personality and her age (among the youngest in the class), the transition to being a school girl was very stressful for her.
We autism parents tend to idealize NT kids, but they experience stress, too, and don't always have the coping skills they need for various situations.
Interesting story Fred - great perspective!Ok, sorry! I didn't mean to insinuate. I do that though. At first I automatically assume kids are nt. And then I find myself wondering are they really? And I do know what you mean about making you feel a little better to know that they go through problems too. It makes things feel a little more normal at times when maybe they are not so normal!I see it all the time too, I usually wonder if the children I see are on the spectrum, just not dxed, or they might have other issues.
My take home message is that they all have "issues". The five year olds that I see in my mind's eye are really nine year old hollywood actors playing kindergarteners in movies :)
I know that the language and social skills, which with the girls, are already standing out as being very different, will continue to diverge, and it is hard to see the ease with which these children communicate, and that the typical kids will 'get over' their problems probably quicker than the girls, but yeah, it's not like all the other kids are McCauley Culkin or anything.
So, it's been revealing, spending the last couple mornings at the bus stop, sending my son off to school. There's a few new kindergarten kids at the stop. One is within a few weeks of the girl's age (the others are eight months older, grrr.).
Yes, they talk better than the girls. It's not the clarity of their speech or their conversational tone that really stands out - it's really just a sense of 'connectedness' that you get with the NT kids - you can just speak in natural tones, at a normal cadence, and they understand. They say thing like, "no, really, I'm serious!" - (reading incredulity from the facial expressions of their conversation partner - amazing) using commong idioms like that. You don't get the sense that there's this 'translation layer' going on like when talking with my girls - like they need extra processing time and effort to decode what's said to them and have the same inefficiency in expressing themselves - the girls have to work much harder to say and understand much less.
That said, as someone said to me on this board, these are not the "perfect typical kids of my imagination". The little girls who's the girl's age, this morning, took the bus for the first time. I was talking with their parents who expressed their concern about her 'readiness'. She didn't really know her letters, numbers - had a defiant streak - tantrumed, etc. On some levels, many of our kids are better prepared, at least for starters.
The little girl was fine waiting for the bus - she was catching little pill bugs and playing with them - just like my girls would have been doing. The wait was longer than expected, and after about twenty minutes of waiting, she told her mom that she had to pee (!)
A neighbor told her to follow her to her house, which was closer to the stop, and they ran towards this neighbors house.
Just as they were about to enter the neighbor's house, the bus rounds the corner, so quick, change directions, run back to the bus stop!
By that time, the little girl was crying animatedly. She wasn't talking anymore - just trying to turn the corner and run back to her house. Her anxious parents persevered and insisted that she get on the bus. She was melting down, crying loudly and animatedly - not responding to her parents who were trying to find out if it was because she was scared of the bus or because she had to pee.
They practically had to push her onto the bus - her brother was trying to escort her. She was making quite a scene and all the kids were looking in slack jawed silence - there was a 30 car traffic jam behind the bus.
Once she was finally on, you could see her little head bobbing up and down inside the window as she was wandering up and down the isle trying to figure out just what to do - she couldn't find a seat, her brother was trying to calm her down and get her settled in, but couldn't, apparently.
The bus eased forward with the two children still walking around inside the bus - the traffic jam was about a quarter mile long, and they had to get moving. Finally, an older girl took control of the situation on the bus, and the little girl sat.
The parents were very unsettled. The father planned to quickly go home with and grab a change of clothes and drive them to the school in case the poor little girl couldn't "hold it" through the duration of the busride, the confusion of getting off of the bus and being escorted into her class, etc.
Mom wanted to 'abort mission', but dad insisted she follow through with it. The were both very concerned that she would have an accident on her first day of school :(
I felt bad for them both and the little girl, though I felt a small sense of relief (probably horrible of me) - that even typical kids have problems. If this episode had happened and my girls were involved, I would've been despondent and ready to pull them out of kindergarten, assuming the weren't ready. These parents found humor in the situation and, though a little ambivalent about what they had done, seemed to take it pretty much in stride. Different contexts.
This is not the first crying child I've seen ride the bus in the morning. Must be a fairly common thing.
I got home and the girls were drawing these really cool bugs and cutting them out with scissors - making decorations for the house. The were the picture of kindergarten aged industriousness. Evie had written a story, "The littl turtl was sad. He at[e] a bad worm". It's a little sad to see the NT kids and their perfect little communication skills and come home to hear my girls droning on and on perseveratively about the names of all of the characters that they were drawing, but what the heck, the girls have strenthgs, too.
Yes, our kids will have their challenges when starting school, but 'normal' kids do, too.
I noticed when Sarah was in kindergarten all kinds of behaviors..tantrums, hysterical fears of bugs on playground..whiney..lack of control for sitting, talking..ect..Sarah was a model kid and the best one in the whole classroom.. It totally assured me that she was going to be fine and that the teachers were going to love her:) She loves the rules and hates when the other kids dont behave..the first day of school yesterday she saw a little boy in her class that had major behavioral issues last year and very "bad choices" and she stated as loud as she could..
"OH NO!!! IT'S ***** AND HE HAS SUCH BAD BEHAVIOR!!!! His mom was standing right next to me!
This kid is a pill...talks nonstop and has no control at all...he is also the one that pushed Sarah off the platform on the monkey bars!
I told the teacher to keep an eye on him!
I saw so many issues with nt kids last year that had no diagnoses that stood out daily..no wonder the teacher thought Sarah was normal..it is the social skills you will notice issues in your girls..Sarah also has no gestures when talking or gages other peers looks like nt kids do..not enough to disable her but makes her look snooty or standoffish..she may not answer to a kid that is talking to her so this is an area I will be concentrating on with speech therapist and teachers this year..somehow:)
I hope seeing the grass is not so green on the other side makes you feel better:)
For some odd reason, my son is so well behaved at school. He is an angel in class. Compared to my neices and nephews, he is also so well behaved. Those kids are in time out all day long! I'm sure that NT kids all have issues too. I'm very happy the my son is so well behaved and polite most of the time.I see it too. My dd has a lot of deficits but she's more prepared for school than many. It's the 2nd week of school and some of these kids are still crying their eyes out every AM. My dd is able to actually sit and eat her breakfast and then sit and wait for the teacher when some kids are running around (I wish she'd sit in class like she does in the cafeteria
). When I go to stores, restaurants the park etc I'm always comparing my dd and I've noticed that even with her problems she's not really all that different and better behaved than a lot. 
Hey Fred, just a thought. The little girl may not have been nt. My son was mainstreamed this year and rides the bus with my 10 year old daughter just like the other kids. I don't know maybe you knew them and knew for fact that she was nt. And I'm not trying to burst your bubble. But, what I have observed with what I believe are "nt" children is like you said their communication ability but also, they do have issues just as our children due. The positive about our children is that most of the time we are so on top of there behaviors because we have invested so much time in studying them that we can pretty much predict what will occur in certain circumstances. (or at least that something will occur)Parents of nt children do not have to invest the kind of time we do in getting inside of our kids head. And incase that offends anyone, I surely do not mean that parents of nt kids are not invested in the wellfare of their children, but just that they are able to take for granted some things that we have to really contemplate "ok what kind of a reaction will this cause". For instance, my son is doing well with riding the bus with his sister, but the one thing he will not do is stand at the bus stop with the other kids. He wants to stay in the car until the bus arrives. I tried walking to the bus stop so there was no option one day and he kept saying over and over "can we go get the van" almost in tears until the bus got there. Anyway, that's my two cents worth. I also think as parents of children on the spectrum we sometimes isolate our minds into thinking that we are the only ones and one thing that I have learned is not assume that every other child I see out there is nt just because they are doing nt things. But, I have to admit it is always, always my first assumption and then I have to talk to myself.My dd is almost 8 and has ADD and Anxiety disorder (has had it since she was about 9 months old), now she is suspected to have Aspergers. We are just waiting to talk to her doctor about evaluating her for it. But yes, I agree, even NT children have issues.
[QUOTE=fred]
My take home message is that they all have "issues". The five year olds that I see in my mind's eye are really nine year old hollywood actors playing kindergarteners in movies :)
[/QUOTE]
Fred,
I'm sorry for the little girl but so glad you got to see this and that it put things into perspective for you. I still think it would be awesome for you to do a classroom observation. This is 2nd week of school here. I'm going to let things settle down for another 2 weeks and then set up a time to sit in the class for 60-90 minutes to just observe. It's very enlightening to watch your child(ren), and the other children too, like the proverbial fly on the wall.
That is so true!We are so focused on our kids, and their deficits - that I think we forget that the whole world is a "spectrum" of behaviors, strengths, weaknesses, intelligences...
Honestly - We were at the public pool as a family a few weeks ago - and Bug started playing with another boy that appeared to be about his age - 4-5. The other boy was AWFUL. I'm sure he was just a "typical" 4-5 year old boy - but they were playing with this "bike" that you peddle and it sprays water. You can aim the sprayer and hit people. Bug Never does that. The other little boy showed him how to spray me - and I laughed at first - and then the other little boy kept doing it and doing it (way past where it was funny or entertaining - it was just Rude). Bug would NEVER do that. He would stop.
Anyway - I was thankful for my polite, albeit, anxiety ridden boy at that moment!
(Are the girls attending a different school than your son? Why weren't they at the bus stop - they are starting Mainstream Kindy, right?).
Thanks folks - gnome, there's a staggered start - the kindergarten kids come to school one day this week to be 'assessed' - the girl's day is Thursday. They will be going to the same school as their brother, but they are using the spec. ed. bus for now (we're going to switch them to the regular bus once they're established in a routine in their class at school). Oh, and yes, they are in a regular kindy class.
thanks for the interesting postNt kids have issues too --- absolutely agree with you!!! Before I had children I worked as a para-educator , usually hired as a one-on-one but I spent much of my time in small groups of NT kids. In any class of 20-25 students there would be a group of children (4 or 5) who needed support in class to be sucessful. These children (for the most part) where not waiting for a dx. Some where going through a family break-up and their behavour and attention-span looked like ADHD but was stress related. Some kids struggled with learning to read, no disability, just difficult. Some kids were painfully shy. In any class there were kids who were more mature and those less mature. The saddest story I remember is about a boy about 8yrs who went from being a *good kid* to a *wee hellion* He lost his friends, respect of his teachers, pretty much out of control. ASD?? ADHD??? NO - he was being molested by a family member.
Sam is constantly surprising me with his strengths. Every year he stands out less in many areas ( and alittle more in some). He has a full-time one-on-one Para-ed. and she works with Sam and small groups of NT kids who need support and would not get it if it were not for my son and his *fundable disorder. * As frustrated as I get at the *system* , I feel lucky to get the help my child needs. I've seen sooooo many kids who need support and their parents can get nothing for their NT child . Mama to Sam 8yrs PDD NOS OCD ODD PPD and Alex 2yrs [QUOTE=rubyruby]Hey Fred, just a thought. The little girl may not have been nt. [/QUOTE] I was going to say ... T was not dx'd till age 6! I never understood why I felt the need to apologize for her behavior. Well it was b/c she was DELAYED. It is so common now, and we are so conscious of developmental appropriateness ... you are going to see things, that other parents do not. That little girl also may not be ASD however, she could be ADHD with poor regulation of emotions. Unless you consider ADHD to be ASD which I increasingly do.
your imagination". I hope I didn't offend you when I wrote that (sometimes
our own words sound different when they are coming back at us! 
)
But that is exactly what I was talking about. Five year olds are not models of
sophistication and self-regulation at all. I would think something was 'off' if
they were!
Good Luck this week. I can hardly wait to hear how it went!
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