All About Autism

[Audvis]

Hi mummies, yesterday my son mis-behaved, not once but 4x. I was trying to control my temper, but the final straw came after the 4th misbehaviour. I beat him and pulled his hair. I felt very bitter towards him as i saw him as the cause of all the misery in my family. I even felt that I would be very happy if my son were dead.


I’m wondering if it is normal to feel so negative about your child, ie hate him so much that you wish he were dead?

[mashy]

Blokus:

Sigh, I had to answer some questions by the ST just now & I wanted to cry. It reminds me that my kid is on the spectrum. Though I know it but still a hard pill to swallow. I think I'll cry buckets during the diagnosis.


My son probably & maybe fortunately has only one area to work on & that's his social skills. Yet I find it the hardest to teach especially at home. Any suggestions or tips to help work on this area?

Nugget:

How old is your boy? I remember mine wasn't interested in writing till about 4 years old. Even though he start off late, he can write legibly now at 5 (I won't say it's beautiful nor neat la but ok). I agree with mashy, the school environment is vital. I didn't do anything to push him to write (was afraid I might stress him & get phobia of writing). But because he's regular school requires him to write, he eventually picked it up. If need be, I suggest you pick up Spalding method on how to teach writing letters. It uses the clock as reference. It was right up my son's alley because he could read clocks!

U can try the social skills picture book by Jed baker. It's very good! I borrowed from the library to try out and now I'm ordering it from books depository. It has photos of children and what to do in each circumstance. Eg, it teaches about what u should do when u meet a friend. Recently, my boy had a meltdown in school because two classmates didn't want to play with him. There was a topic in the book on what to do when others don't want to play with you. So we went thru that, did role playing and he now understood what to do next time. I was very happy to see him apply what we learned from the book when we went for his social skills class in kkh. They brought another boy to join him in a play session and he walked up to that boy and asked him if he could play with him. he used the exact words from the book too. Lol. Think he tends to trip over his words, so it's easier when he has a script to memorize. There are photos in the book and what each person said, so it's easy to understand.

[mashy]

Audvis:

Hi mummies, yesterday my son mis-behaved, not once but 4x. I was trying to control my temper, but the final straw came after the 4th misbehaviour. I beat him and pulled his hair. I felt very bitter towards him as i saw him as the cause of all the misery in my family. I even felt that I would be very happy if my son were dead.


I'm wondering if it is normal to feel so negative about your child, ie hate him so much that you wish he were dead?

Yes, there are times when I felt so angry that I literally felt like a monster whose steam just blew through the ears in anger. U need a break. Just go away and take your time out. I handed my son over to his daddy and I told him I can't handle it then. I admitted that I had gone overboard and my anger is blinding my judgement. I was becoming unreasonable. After my hb took him for a few weekends, I felt so much better now. Try not to be too angry with him. He already has the shorter end of the stick. If you also don't love and support him, who else will? I felt that my boy is so poor thing. All the bad things seem to befall him. My younger gal had such a smooth and easy life compared to him.

[Double E]

Audvis:

Hi mummies, yesterday my son mis-behaved, not once but 4x. I was trying to control my temper, but the final straw came after the 4th misbehaviour. I beat him and pulled his hair. I felt very bitter towards him as i saw him as the cause of all the misery in my family. I even felt that I would be very happy if my son were dead.


I'm wondering if it is normal to feel so negative about your child, ie hate him so much that you wish he were dead?

Yes, I had this feeling before. There was once I almost suffocated him becos I dun want to hear his cries. Of course I managed to stop myself but I broke down after that. I feel that I can't deal with him anymore. I storm out of the house and let my hubby manage him.

Then two weeks later I asked my hubby if God let us hv the chance of exchanging our boy with another child, a normal child, will he say yes. Both of us are very sure then that we will keep our boy as we hv already develop feelings for him and there's no way we will give him up.

[Blokus]

Thanks mashy! On the way to the library now!

[ImMeeMee]

Audvis:

Hi mummies, yesterday my son mis-behaved, not once but 4x. I was trying to control my temper, but the final straw came after the 4th misbehaviour. I beat him and pulled his hair. I felt very bitter towards him as i saw him as the cause of all the misery in my family. I even felt that I would be very happy if my son were dead.


I'm wondering if it is normal to feel so negative about your child, ie hate him so much that you wish he were dead?

audvis

I think you are very brave in articulating your darkest thought so openly. Facing one's darkest fears and articulating them requires a lot of courage, at least for me.

There was a stage where I asked myself questions 'What if ...' and 'How I wish ...'. Some of the thoughts can be quite dark and I was scared to share with even dh. We are but human beings ourselves, and while we have the strength, we have our own weaknesses too. When those moments struck I took breaks to try to help myself. Then I felt guilty of taking breaks instead of helping dd3 ... it can become a vicious cycle. While I could exercise self control not to hurt dd3 physically when I was frustrated, it was the emotional trauma that was tough to handle.

Now I have learnt to take things a bit easy. There are times when I still feel uptight and frustrated, and when I take breaks to relieve my own self, I no longer feel guilty about taking breaks cos if the break will do more benefit than harm, then its worth.

There are times where I leave dd3 and instead do things with dd1 and dd2. These are the times where I can interact with the kids the usual way, where I dont have as much worries, where I feel normalised again. And these are moments that I enjoy myself in another way, apart from the joy that I have when I see dd3 improve.

Hope this helps, and dont give up.

[ImMeeMee]

mashy:

ImMeeMee:

Actually I cried right in front of the psychologist as she was talking to us about dd3's diagnosis, cos I couldnt contain it. If crying is an expression of an emotion, its only natural to let flow your feelings.

Haha, I didn't cry in front of th dr or the psychologist. The dr thought I was crying when she broke the news to me and passed me a tissue. However, I did cry in front of the medical social worker becoz my son didn't just have autism. He has another medical condition that required loads of money for the medication. So when I told her that he might have autism (at that time) on top of his medical condition, I broke down.

Good for you mashy for picking yourself up and not breaking down after the first blow ... I have always seen you as a strong mother ...

[Blokus]

Audvis:

Hi mummies, yesterday my son mis-behaved, not once but 4x. I was trying to control my temper, but the final straw came after the 4th misbehaviour. I beat him and pulled his hair. I felt very bitter towards him as i saw him as the cause of all the misery in my family. I even felt that I would be very happy if my son were dead.


I'm wondering if it is normal to feel so negative about your child, ie hate him so much that you wish he were dead?

I can somewhat relate. When I was first convinced that my kid is on the spectrum, I told my husband I don't think I can love him any more. I have to be honest, I've also rough handled my son out of frustration even before I suspected he's on the spectrum. So, no, you're not the only one. No, you're not a bad mummy. You're just a mummy who was frustrated, at her wits end and had momentary angry thoughts. It's ok, just pick yourself up, chin up, dust your feet & move on. :snuggles:

Oh wait, I need to clarify. I love my son to bits. What I said about not loving him was my grieving process, on the hindsight. I also wouldn't change my kid for any one else. I'm very proud of him, no less.

[nugget]

mashy:

Yes, he's in P1. Need to sit next to him and make him do. For your boy, is it because he can't do or won't do? If can't do, then need to do kneading exercise, crunch newspapers, threading etc. Then do simple strokes first before progressing. If won't do, then gotta supervise closely. I gotta cane my boy very often to get him to do. I have seen how he could write beautifully and small characters so I know he can do it. He just won't do. Of course I also praised him profusely when he does his work. And lately I've been praising him for writing 'big boys' words (aka small) instead of big baby words. It's a challenge and I don't think he can do Chinese for psle. So will use my exemption letter in time to come.

Mashy,

My boy learning to write but I think he find it very tedious and get tired easily. Always got to bribe him then he write. Yes he has shown great improvement but there is still a big gap. Other than practicing, I guess there is no way out.

[nugget]

mashy:

How old is he now? If in k1 maybe can consider changing school. My boy's nursery sch teachers had poor attitude towards him and thankfully I changed sch. His cc teachers altho had a hard time with him getting him to do his work, they weren't as negative. I sent him for OT for handwriting class too.

Mashy, my boy is in k1 now. But I dun think i wanna change school. I wanna see how my son can cope and strive in such environment. There will always be people who stigmatize ASD kids. Cannot be the teachers look at him differently then I change school every time. That is the true world out there. He need to learn to learn with it. As long as the environment is safe, I let him go there. At least I think he is coping. He has did some art and school work compare to last sem.