All About Autism

[sharonkhoo]

Couragemom:

Hi Jme,


My 2 kids are only 1 year apart, so the allocation of time/expectation/resources mentally 'torture' me every day! I get my older NT daughter to model a lot of things to her brother and sometimes she don't want. She goes to a full-day cc while my son goes for 3hrs class and she asks why? She gets jealous when we applause our son for all the right things he achieved and she gets jealous. Gosh, can you imagine my inner struggle everyday? But yet if I don't help my son now, he will lag more and more behind. The developmental pediatrician told me if I had not started therapies so early at 22 months, he can only achieve his current speech/social abilities at 36 months or older instead of now at 27 months old.

I do set much higher academic standard for my NT girl. Following Double E's example, I sit down for 30mins every night to do handwriting with her. She is in N2 this year.

Do you also praise your daughter for what she does achieve? If you make it as effusive as for your son, and maybe she won't compare so much. To make the comparison less stark, I usually don't praise for achievement, but praise for effort, and say so clearly. So even if the achievements are different, they get the same amount of praise.

[ImMeeMee]

Personally I think there is nothing wrong in setting different expectations for different kids, but the expectations must be based on the potential of the child, and we as parents must be open-minded enough to moderate our expectations as we work our way through with our kids, cos kids change along their growing up years.


I have different expectations for my gals, and its true that I expect more from my two elder NT gals cos their potentials are different. But i think my expectations for my two elder gals are still within reasonable levels - they go to mid-tier primary school, they do not go for tuition, their enrichment programs are based on their interest. The only thing I ‘force’ upon them is swimming class, as we think that is an essential survival skill.

At times I fall into the same trap of flaring up at my gals when they make careless mistakes or when they do not know their work well enough when I expect them to, and those are the moments when I remind myself to go back to fundamentals and I try to improve at the next occasion.

At times I tell myself that if my kids can be healthy and independent into adulthood, the rest of their achievements is a bonus. When I take that perspective, I tend not to be too uptight. As parents our role is to support and guide them in what they do. It is not an easy balance, and I am still learning.

[Double E]

Couragemom:

Hi Jme,


My 2 kids are only 1 year apart, so the allocation of time/expectation/resources mentally 'torture' me every day! I get my older NT daughter to model a lot of things to her brother and sometimes she don't want. She goes to a full-day cc while my son goes for 3hrs class and she asks why? She gets jealous when we applause our son for all the right things he achieved and she gets jealous. Gosh, can you imagine my inner struggle everyday? But yet if I don't help my son now, he will lag more and more behind. The developmental pediatrician told me if I had not started therapies so early at 22 months, he can only achieve his current speech/social abilities at 36 months or older instead of now at 27 months old.

I do set much higher academic standard for my NT girl. Following Double E's example, I sit down for 30mins every night to do handwriting with her. She is in N2 this year.

Ironically, I actually have higher academic standard for my ASD boy than my NT girl!!! Am I the exception here? I think the main reason is because, i find it easier to teach my boy academics than my girl. He can read and have good memory, hence, after he mastered a topic, I can add on. Whereas for my girl who is NT and doesn't have the kind of memory that my ASD boy has, getting her to remember the sequence of numbers like 1-30 and learning how to write numbers 20 and above is way more difficult than my boy. But the blessing is that, she picks up the skill of writing much easier than my boy, but can't remember how to write the numbers. For my boy, due to his motor skills issue, I had to spend a lot of time on his writing skills.

[sharonkhoo]

Double E:

Ironically, I actually have higher academic standard for my ASD boy than my NT girl!!! Am I the exception here? I think the main reason is because, i find it easier to teach my boy academics than my girl. He can read and have good memory, hence, after he mastered a topic, I can add on. Whereas for my girl who is NT and doesn't have the kind of memory that my ASD boy has, getting her to remember the sequence of numbers like 1-30 and learning how to write numbers 20 and above is way more difficult than my boy. But the blessing is that, she picks up the skill of writing much easier than my boy, but can't remember how to write the numbers. For my boy, due to his motor skills issue, I had to spend a lot of time on his writing skills.

I had higher standards for my Aspie girl in earlier years as she was a good reader and has a good memory for things that interest her. Her weaknesses are in social and physical skills, and later on, in Maths and general comprehension. My NT girl was a late reader but good at other stuff. Once my NT girl started reading, her ability quickly caught up and she surpassed her older sister in overall comprehension. We've got past the comparison stage now as both have realised that they are just very different.

[Couragemom]

Hi Simkhoo,


Yes, I praise my daughter when she does something well too but I think she feels insecure. For example, my son can kick a ball to daddy when we instructed him to and we praised him for that and my girl goes and imitate the same move and expect praises as well. Nowadays after her cc, I will pay attention to her for the rest of the evening and leaves my son to the maid and daddy. As she grows bigger, she understands better and sometimes even asks me ‘mommy, are you bringing didi for therapy today?’

[sharonkhoo]

Couragemom:

Hi Simkhoo,


Yes, I praise my daughter when she does something well too but I think she feels insecure. For example, my son can kick a ball to daddy when we instructed him to and we praised him for that and my girl goes and imitate the same move and expect praises as well. Nowadays after her cc, I will pay attention to her for the rest of the evening and leaves my son to the maid and daddy. As she grows bigger, she understands better and sometimes even asks me 'mommy, are you bringing didi for therapy today?'

Why not praise her for that too? Even if you feel she can do more, you can still praise her and then encourage her to go further. I have never had a maid, so I haven't practised separating my kids. Anyway, I feel that having them together teaches them to adjust to each other and take turns. Just my thoughts.

[Couragemom]

Hi Simkhoo,


Yes, I do praise her for those simple tricks as well as I know she feels insecure and wants our attention. I don’t separate my 2 kids as I deem learning social interaction and imaginary play as top priorities for my son so Jiejie is a great help with that! What I mean to leave didi w maid and husband is I bathe my daughter, feed her dinner (yes, she wants us to sayang her at home while she is fully capable of self-feeding in school!). We bring the 2 kids to playground every evening as long as there is no rain. DIY OT! Thanks for sharing your insights with me. I will try to focus my praises on effort rather than end-result (good pointer!)

[Tamama]

My NT girl is three years older than my silly boy.

She is a good model to my boy. Both of them are close and always stick together.
I have different expectation of them, regarding of their personal strength. So I cannot set the same goal for them both and whenever my girl asks why she needs to do this but my silly boy doesn’t need to, I will say something that she knows well, like everyone is different and unique, or tell her when younger brother reachs her age, I will require the same thing from him too… Blah blah blah…
My boy will not challenge me with ‘why sister can do and he cannot do’ type of questions yet, luckily. Some years later I cannot tell… But you know, even for NT kids, they are different. So I guess as a parent, we should just let them develop their full potential instead of to mold them into the same ideal expectation in our mind.
And lots of praises and encouragement can let the kids keep moving forward. That’s my golden rule.

[jme]

Thanks mummies for the sharing.

I think I am having more issues with myself. I don’t believe in inflicting pain on children be it physically or emotionally. But recently I find myself raising voice on my NT girl quite frequently whilst teaching her on academic stuff. I used to be more relax during her kindy time. Ever since she started P1, I have higher expectation on her. Instead of being firm n calm during revision, I would get frustrated when she couldn’t understand the work after several explanation on it. And because she has never seen this ugly side of mummy, she got scare when I have "small outburst ". Anyway I think this is a good wake up call for me. I just have to constantly remind myself not to get too emotionally involved during revision. And to adjust the level of expectation according to her abilities.

[Gifts from Heaven]

Same as most here, I also hv different expectations for my older NT gal and younger SN boy.

Ditto to Tamama, when challenged by my NT gal, I will tell her that 'cos she is older, so she cannot do/behave the same as her bro. Else other people who see her will be 'confused'. I've not told her that her bro is SN case, so sometimes need special accomodations. Dunno how to approach this subject. She is 9 this year. Does your NT kids know the condition of their SN siblings? How to tell them in a manner that they will understand and not be scared/despised/ashamed of their SN siblings?

Jme,
Relax! your NT gal is just P1. The journey is v long. P1 is supposed to be honeymoon year :).