Sunday, April 17, 2011

Planning for This

I have always been a planner. Always. And as I have matured over the years I have learned to adapt my plans to situations, be more flexible, but always with a plan. There is no planning with Autism. None. The best I can do is guess. Guess what my son's reaction will be to something, because most times he's not predictable. Which made arriving at an Asperger's diagnosis next to impossible. I have only recently been able to fully grasp what "on the spectrum" really means. For us it means anything and everything can and probably will happen.

It started five years ago. For whatever reason. I am not a much into blaming vaccinations, or genetics, or whatever might cause it, it just is and I am okay with that. Mostly. My marriage was falling apart, we put him back in daycare for the first time in almost 9 months, he had two new brothers, our nanny was stealing from us, we lived in a bad neighborhood by a steel mill, who knows. But the boy started freaking out at daycare only, hurting people throwing things, uncontrollable tantrums. And he was just 3.5 years old.

We had screenings, tests, charts, stickers, journals, good grief we tried everything. And the best diagnosis we got in those first few years was disruptive behavior disorder. I laughed. I have been disruptive my entire life, why wouldn't my son be disruptive? I had yet to witness these outburts, they only happened at daycare, then kindergarten, first grade. There was a time when I thought these people were lying to me. My son is very intelligent and he isn't a follower -he is a leader a great manipulator. I simply thought that these people were upset that my first born wasn't a sheep. Then I saw an outburst and I couldn't stop it. I witnessed what he did to his classroom, before the director of special education informed me that she didn't think he had a problem. He just needed authority and structure. She didn't know crap, and it took an attorney and a lot more evaluations to get that point across. The school now grudgingly accepts that he has Asperger's and ADHD and of course Disruptive Behavior Disorder.

He goes to a special school now, one that can handle him and work with him rather than against him. All in an attempt to try to get him back in public school someday.

I didn't want special schools, therapists, drugs, support staff, case managers, and the whole nine yards, but we have it. While there have been improvements; like he can answer people when they say good morning without flipping out and having a fit or grunting at them, I am still incredibly afraid of what his future holds.

I only want him to be happy. Whatever that means for him. I want him to be fulfilled with his life whatever it might be. But there is no planning for your children, whether they are on the spectrum or whatever their circumstance. We cannot plan how it will go.

As the years have passed my other two boys are showing signs of similar problems. Copycat or not, only time will tell. My youngest now attends the same school as my oldest. And my middle boy, well he has his own set of issues that are slowly revealing themselves.

It has only been recently that these people who are involved in our lives have accepted and recognized that we are good parents. For a time there, our parenting was always being questioned, any time new therapists or the like would enter our home they would have that talk with us. Only to quickly realize we didn't need that talk. The school finally caught on too. That there was actually something not typical about these children. Every day is different, there are no specific triggers with this bunch. They have loving parents who try everything, provide a stable home, loving pets, clothes, healthy food, toys, you name it we have done it.

I realized that the fantasies I had about sending my kids to cool summer camps with kayaking, hiking and the like are just fantasies. That my days off from work are used to pick up children who leave school to walk home because they simply had enough. Or they trashed the room. Or they threw a chair. Or any number of things that normal children don't do but not mani-pedis or an afternoon off at the mall or a weekend with the girls.

Because the schools and day cares cannot plan for what my boys will do next. They haven't learned yet that there is no planning for this.

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