All About Autism
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Someone sent me this link to an article about autism. Quite a good read.
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/ ... m-past-why -
Hi everyone
Haven’t checked in here for quite some time. Trust that we are all keeping in line with our best in caring for our loved ones.
Feeling a bit pensive these days. Last night had a chat with DH on DD3 and her future. He said that she will be partially independent but may not be fully independent. But in any case, he highlighted that he is one proud daddy of her achievements and progress.
I pondered over the point on adulthood dependency, and it brought me down a few notches. Although I knew DH was speaking the reality, it still hit me hard in the face. The eventual seems to get a bit closer as DD3 grows older by the day, and while I try my utmost to stay positive, the eventual does not seem all bright and sunny. I am only hoping that she is independent into adulthood and even this seems not as near-reaching as I have hoped.
There seems to be so many things to do and so little time. And what with us ageing, our physical and mental being seems to start to lag behind and not catching up. That fear becomes real and poignant. I ask for a solution but there seems none.
The feeling of helplessness sets in, as I seem to watch things slide by so quickly and fluidly but not able to catch hold of any of them. I want to make things stop for a while, take a breather, collect myself and move forward, but I seemed consumed by the never-endedness.
We are who we think, and right now I am not the best of any positive being. This is one of those days where we just have to let go to bring us back up again. While I trust that I will see some silver lining somewhere, as of now I am still looking. Life has it all planned out, I just have to wait for the right moment. -
Always look back to see how far you’ve come. It seems slow when you are in the midst of things, especially if you compare to NT kids of the same age, but if you look back 2 yrs, 5 yrs etc, you will see the improvements.
As for adult independence, just remember not to expect it on the same timeline as NT kids. We have come to terms with that with our daughter - at 19, she’s more like 15, and we expect that she will not be like an NT 21yo until she’s 30 or 35! Still, that’s something to look forward to. And maybe total independence may be difficult to achieve, but if she can be independent for 80-90% of things, and she has a social support of sibling/cousins/friends to ask about the 10-20%, she can probably cope even when we are no longer around. That will be the case for your daughter too, so don’t be too down. -
I never did look too far into the crystal ball. It makes me worry for nothing and most of the time, it turns out different from what I imagine it to be. Just go back to first principle. Enjoy our kids for what they are. Enjoy the family time and bonds. Our time together may be short. I have peers who have already gone to the other world. So I cherish the current with my kids, not waste energy figuring out the future. There are aspies before them who survived and there will be aspies after them who will survive. If you don't expect the condo and car lifestyle, our kids are far more resilient than what we make them out to be. Jmho.
It's probably one of those moments when you feel defeated. You'd bounce back. Who'd we kidding. You're an aspie mom. Tough as my wife's cookie
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I'm also feeling kind of defeated now. Taking one step forward and two steps back. Working very hard now to move against the tide.
Gotta cheer ourselves up this period. Getting kind of depressed lately.
:rahrah: :rahrah: :rahrah:
Sale is coming. Gotta do some retail therapy. -
Immeemee,
Just a month ago, I was feeling really very xian, tired n overwhelmed by the daily issues that I have to handle...And now I'm happy n thankful for what I have... I'm still having the same set of problem, same commitment, same routine but in a different mood. Not that I have adjusted my expectation, gave up helping my son or stopped thinking of his future.. Cos I know that no matter what happens in the future, I will do my best to help my boy to fit into this society.. I usually don't allow myself to dwell on the problems for too long or let the feeling of anger, frustration, dejection spoil my day.. We r mothers.. it is very natural that we want to protect our babies n worry for their future.. It's ok to feel lousy but don't be too hard on yourself k..
And Thank u for your sharing. Your past sharings on your emotion helping your girl finding a preschool n the issues having to stay with mil.. I had those problem too.. It helps as I know I am not alone dealing with those issues...
Go start a new hobby, distract yourself from the worry.. Come get some grains from me..kefir is loaded with tryptophan.. Will make u happy after drinking it... -
Hi everyone
It's really great to receive so much encouragement. Thanks!
It's one of those days where the mind was weaker than usual and the physical being was more tired than usual. So the net result was a downhill slide.
It was also largely because I was beginning to question myself about all the academic push and its value to this child of mine. So what if the child knows about classification between living and non-living things. So what if the child knows how to fill in the blanks for Comprehension Cloze without helping words. So what if the child knows how to interpret twisted questions in Math. How does this contribute to her future towards being independent? How does this contribute to her being able to take care of herself into the future?
They say we must maintain a balance between academic work and self-help skills. Truth be told, school work and its toil is really eating into the latter, and I find that I seem to be fighting a losing battle in maintaining a proper balance with the two. The focus seems to be intuitively wrong somewhere. Given the nature of our children, should she not be in a system where she learns some vocational skill since young, as well as focus on the daily living skills. The ultimate aim is for her to be able to hold down a job when she is an adult, and take care of herself, with some support from siblings.
And how is she going to do that with the current system. These are real questions that I have to ask myself to prepare for the eventual when I am not with her anymore.
I am not quite sure where this academic push is leading us. -
ImMeeMee:
I think, if parents are thick-skinned enough, that they can ignore the academic push to some extent. Just tell the teachers that your priorities for the child are different. You can have her do what you feel is reasonable, and if she is behind others, don't sweat it. There is no need to be scoring the same marks as everyone else. Focus on what you intuitively believe to be useful (and really, most of the basic Pr school curriculum is instrinsically useful, just that it gets dressed up for PSLE to sort the best from the rest). Then you can have time to work on life skills etc.They say we must maintain a balance between academic work and self-help skills. Truth be told, school work and its toil is really eating into the latter, and I find that I seem to be fighting a losing battle in maintaining a proper balance with the two. The focus seems to be intuitively wrong somewhere. Given the nature of our children, should she not be in a system where she learns some vocational skill since young, as well as focus on the daily living skills. The ultimate aim is for her to be able to hold down a job when she is an adult, and take care of herself, with some support from siblings.
And how is she going to do that with the current system. These are real questions that I have to ask myself to prepare for the eventual when I am not with her anymore.
I am not quite sure where this academic push is leading us.
Once in sec school, the pathways are quite diverse and can cater for many ability levels. If your daughter isn't suited for Express, there's NA, NT. After that, if JC or poly isn't suitable, there's ITE. If your daughter is slow-maturing like mine, my daughter is 19 and taking A levels at MI, probably going to do quite badly (there is a self-esteem issue we have to keep working on), so we are asking her to consider poly and then a job. We tell her there is no shame in taking longer as long as she stays positive and keeps working at it. There can be a mismatch if the child's cognitive level in a few areas is higher, but weighed down by other, weak areas. That's my daughter's problem, and we have dealt with it by keeping her at a pace where her weaker areas can cope, and letting her read etc to keep her interested in some of the other areas where she is stronger. That's also why we are stretching out her education so much - she is bright enough in some areas where it would be a pity to stop too soon, but she is weak in many areas that make the normal academic route out of her reach.
SG Enable now has various jobs that people with ASD can do, and hopefully, by the time your daughter is of working age, there will be more workplaces open to her.
I can only say that you should make the choices that are right for your child, even if flies in the face of the norms. And you're right, we have to think about their lives, not just the next exam. -
ImMeeMee:
Given the nature of our children, should she not be in a system where she learns some vocational skill since young, as well as focus on the daily living skills.
Er....isn't your child in Pathlight which leads to a Vocational track?
The academic push is because our children should not be illiterate and innumerate, no? They should understand the basics of reading and counting before going vocational, instead of going vocational from young, no? How will they receive instructions on vocational training when they can't read or count?
Daily living skills are honed over time albeit longer for our special child. For example, after 5 months in Pathlight, my son can now take out his homework file every night on his own. Good enough for me. There is some form of learning in his routine. I am sure if you look closely, your daughter is learning too.
Like I said, if you don't expect your child to have the condo and car lifestyle, they will survive in society. No problem. A simple job with a simple routine. I run a business. I have seen how people with no skills survive. I have seen people who have trade skills make more than doctors and lawyers. Don't worry.
In fact, I think they will lead happier lives because they do not worry like us. My boy has not a care in this world
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Hi Everyone
Guess the feeling of being defeated is infectious! I had the same feeling in the last two weeks after getting calls from school on my boy’s behaviour and him not scoring what I had expected in his recently ended tests. I had focused alot on his acaedemic ever since he started mainstream P1, so much that I neglected his behaviour and is showing. He is much more defiant now, knows how to talk-back, find excuses to get his way and make-up stories. Such behaviour is not being tolerated by teachers and his form teacher told me that his autism cannot always be used as an excuse for his behaviour. To the teachers, he is cheeky and somewhat naughty. I guess they also compare him to other children with similar conditions like him, though they have different sets of issues to tackle too. I was very affected by the teacher’s comment because deep down inside, I agree with the teacher too. So what if he has autism, if he is wrong and misbehaved, he needs to be discipined and punished but I am now at wit’s end on how to manage his defiant behaviour and shudder to think what he will become as he gets older when I can no longer use the cane to discipline him. There is so much to think and ponder and on top of this, there’s the academic part. He scored band 2 for all his subjects. While many would think is good enough for him, even my husband thinks so, I can’t help but think is not good enough! I don’t want to be a tiger mum but I know the curriculum will just get tougher and he will have difficulty coping next time especially comes P3 when he has to manage the Science subject. I even doubted my decision of sending him to mainstream.
Sorry for ranting on the first day of the week! Life’s not been rosy recently and such ups and downs (we parents with special kids experience even more than others) made me asked the "Why me?" question all over again.
Hope life will be kinder to all of us and our children very soon. The next time we post here, we will be sharing great news again!
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