Today our neighbor across the street had a birthday party for their child who turned 4. There are a few families on our street with kids around the same age (2-5 years old). They invited the other kids on the block but not ours. My son is 5 and has moderate support needs. He didn’t seem to notice but it still felt, well, really shitty. We get along fine with those neighbors (we say hi, at the holidays sometimes we’ll drop off goodies for each other). It feels like my son wasn’t invited because he’s autistic. Yes, he acts differently. He sometimes stims by tapping on things. Sometimes he yelps when he’s excited. But he’s a happy kid overall and likes being around others. I don’t want pitty invites to things, but if you’re going to involve the other kids around the same age on our block, would it kill you to include my kid too? At this age, it feels weird leaving kids out.

Maybe I would feel less salty about the situation if I didn’t already feel isolated as a parent in this situation. I feel like our world keeps shrinking to a smaller and smaller size. I’m trying to build my village, but haven’t made much progress yet.

Vent over, thanks for reading.

It's Autism Awareness month but for most of us (I think?).. it's just yet another month..

We all love and adore our children. I know it can be a struggle at times.
I tend to lurk here, but I read most posts and just wanted to give a big virtual HUG to all of you.

I know for myself I tend to feel a bit like Bruce Wayne in my life (i.e. no one at works knows what goes on back at home and as you all know.. A LOT GOES ON BACK AT HOME) When the other parents are lamenting about the diaper changes of their NT 14 month old or the curse words uttered by their 3 year old we politely nod in our Bruce Wayne suits and try to empathize, merely a few hours from returning home to dawn our cape to deal with the diaper changes in our 14 YEAR old, imagining the absolute joy we might feel if they uttered even a single word, even if it were a curse word.

Anyways, we aren't alone. Take care!

Does anyone else have mixed feelings about Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month?

On the one hand, I’m glad to raise awareness, but on the other hand, my son’s autism is so severe and nonverbal, I kind of hate it. It also looks like my second will also be nonverbal, and that is devastating.

The self harm, harming others, destroying property, screaming, lack of danger awareness, severe developmental delays, sleep deprivation, INSANE waste of money on therapies that did nothing or very little, high cost of respite, stress and depression-How can I “celebrate” any of this???

He's 2.5 and we just took him on the swings. By himself, without promoting, he said "Ready, set, go - wheeee!" And "Oh no!" When he fell off. He also sat on the swing all by himself. These were first and my husband and I just grinned so hard at each other.

My 11 year old son has L3 autism and very limited speech. He's self-harming so much right now. It's to the point that his arms, forehead, and legs are covered in bruises. He started hitting/throwing things at me. I can deal with all that, but he attacked his teacher on Friday. He punched her in the face and when she walked away he ran after her and punched her in the back of her head. He's NEVER hit anyone but himself and me when he gets frustrated enough. This all started in about September of last year. I don't know what to do. He's on the ABA wait list in our county. His doctor prescribed him Risperidone last month. I haven't had the courage to give it to him yet. Have any of you guys had experience with it? Did it help?

Almost 4yo, minimally verbal, strongly prefers being by herself and gets upset often if her siblings are even in the same room. I was planning a bday party for her at our house in a couple of months, and had planned to invite her daycare classmates. Only the more I am thinking of it, I wonder if she will actually enjoy this or if she will runaway to the comfort of her bedroom the entire time? But at the same time it feels wrong not to plan something like this. Any thoughts?

My 4 year old is on the same mix of supplements as most ND kids: fish oil, magnesium, B vitamins, vit d. About 3 months ago we were prescribed L-Carnitine for him and we've seen a substantial boost in his spontaneous (but still non-conversational, and rarely actually functional) speech. He chatters and sings all day now. So, the dosage has been upped, and now folinic acid (leucovorin) has been added to the routine.

I'm hesitant/nervous, but also interested to see what additional changes may occur in his speech, if any. We'll be monitoring for 6 weeks for side effects, etc. and if all goes well, upping the dose of that as well (or if not, cutting it out altogether).

The last thing I want to do is put him on something that makes him feel strange or less like himself, especially when he can't express it to me, but the L-Carnitine has worked so well that I'm inclined to trust the process with folinic acid, as well.

I'm not sure what I'm asking for from the larger group here. I think I just needed to put this with a pool of people who understand the journey.

My baby is starting aba therapy tomorrow. I am so so nervous and so sad, honestly. I know it's going to be great for her..but not being with her is killing me. I have major trust issues. 😭😭 I just pulled in here and lost it because I have to go get her lunch box and stuff for lunch..

I've held onto this for 5 years now, and I can't make it go away. I have a beautiful little boy, who was diagnosed with level 3 ASD just shy of his second birthday. He is the absolute light of my life, and brings joy to literally everyone he meets. He's smart, he's funny, he's so incredibly curious, just all around the best son a mom could ever wish for.

When my son was 6 weeks old, I tripped down the stairs while carrying him. I dropped him while we were both falling, he hit his head, I went through a whole wall when I hit the bottom, and he cried the most blood curdling cry I'd ever heard. I called 911, ambulance came, he was taken to our local children's hospital, and by gods grace, he was later cleared with no injuries, not even a scratch.

I cannot help but feel like it's my fault he ended up being diagnosed with Autism. All these years later, and I still cannot shake the feeling that it was my fault. Could he possibly have sustained a brain injury from falling and it was misdiagnosed as Autism? More recently than ever, I think about it everyday and the guilt is eating me alive. I don't know what to do. He's still mostly nonverbal, and I've watched him struggle through therapy, frustrations with language barriers, and self harming. I cannot help but wonder if he would've had a chance to be a normal kid if that day never happened.

Maybe I'm crazy, but I cannot stop thinking about it. Everytime I look at him, I just want to cry. I was suppose to protect him, and I didn't.

Perhaps a weird question but how do we tell people my son has autism. He the best guy ever and we are very proud of our 7 year old. We have been open with him and his sibling about his diagnosis and want him to be proud of his unique brain. That being said we recently when to an inclusivity event and my husband said to another mom ( after she asked), “he’s our amazing boy, he’s our autistic son” her reaction was aggressive and she told us that incredibly offensive but didn’t correct us. Our whole world is our kids and my husband is very very proud of our son. In no way do we want to be offensive but how do we say it? *it’s also important to note that my husband recently late diagnosed autism and I have ADHD.

Hello, my daughter has been diagnosed since she was three and shes always been agressive but when she was around 6 or 7 it got way worse. Shes been on several meds, abilify, risperidone, concerta, ritalin, zyprexa, latuda, seroquel. Nothing works. My house is disgusting and a wreck everything makes her mad she cant find something i am busy and she has to wait a minute for me to play she cant get her shoe on i say something she doesnt like. Shes in therapy shes been in therapy since 2 she goes to a special ed private school. She is verbal and intelligent. When shes mad i get punch kicked slapped she breaks my things calls me all kinds of names trashes the house. Shes been in inpatient three times so far. I dont know what to do anymore i love her so much but i am exhausted and so stressed out i literally live i fear. She is bigger than me already and is able to overpower me i just want to cry all the time. She is so mean most of the time too calls me stupid and bitch all the time. Nothing works discipline wise either ive taken things away tried reward bevaior charts she doesnt care. 😭

I don't have anyone to tell about this, so I figured I'd post it here. My two year old daughter is very possibly autistic. At her intake, the doctor told me that they are confident she is high on the spectrum. We get her evaluated on April 18th. So while going through this whole process, her pediatrician diagnosed her with sleep distributions. My child has barely been sleeping. The poor thing has dark circles under her eyes. Her pediatrician recommended melatonin until we find out if she's autistic, then they'd consider medication to help her sleep. However, due to my beliefs, I believe in natural medicine and herbs for certain problems, such as sleep issues/distributions. My daughter is two, and I'm very skeptical and paranoid to put her on sleep medication. But I was willing to try the melatonin. After a week of doing the melatonin and it NOT working, I stopped giving it to her, and started something new tonight. As usual, she was wired tonight and just would not lay down. If I force her to lay down, she tends to get slightly aggressive, and start hitting me. And screaming at the top of her lungs. (I also have a 4 year old daughter who usually is asleep by 8-9pm. My youngest has woken up my oldest a few times already)

So when my youngest wouldn't lay down, I decided instead of forcing her to calm down, I'd take her outside. This would prevent her from waking her sister, and hopefully tire her out. I let her run around, play with some toys, and walk to the mailbox. We were only outside for 30 minutes. I brought her back inside 30 minutes ago, and she's already asleep. So, for anyone going through something similar, maybe you can try letting them go outside for a bit, if it's possible.

My 5 year old was just diagnosed with Level 1 Autism, ADHD and anxiety. She comes home from school constantly upset because she doesn’t have any friends and because she’s different than her classmates. It breaks my heart, but I don’t know if explaining autism to her and telling her she’s autistic will be beneficial. I also don’t really know how to tell her.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

My son is 6 and profoundly autistic. Dentistry has been a struggle and I noticed some dark spots late last year. A few trips to the dentist to get him used to it went well and we were then referred to a paediatric dentist in Feb who used a sealant on two of his back teeth that seemed to be the solution without sedation. Tonight while brushing I noticed that they have both fallen out and a sizeable piece of both teeth have decayed away. I’m so upset and angry at myself for letting this happen. It’s been hard to brush his teeth for so long and he’s a big grinder too but I have tried my best, they don’t seem to be causing him pain and I’m calling the dentist first thing but just feeling incredibly low now and a complete failure to him.

My child (12m) is very into cologne and his hair right now.

I don't mind that he's deep into hygene but the kid has hundreds of dollars in scents; makes us listen listen to him talk about the ones he has, the ones he wants. Tries to get me to buy cheap cologne from scammy sites. Sprays it where he doesn't need it (like before bed)

He drags a mirror around the house and sprays down his hair with water about 15 times/day. It's a little compulsive.

Today it's very important to get to a store to look at scents. I really don't enjoy taking him to the store. He's also doing everything he can to get money, which is annoying because it's my money. (Although he will take soccer ref training and the babysitting course; he might do mothers helper class or minecraft lessons in the summer)

Nit a big problem, just annoying

My kiddo (7yo) twisted his ankle stepping off a mat in the gym at ABA. They called me and said he wanted to come home. They said he had a lot of pain at first, but they said they thought it was probably a sprain. He couldn’t really out weight on it, and woke up in so much pain in middle of the night I took him to urgent care the next morning and an xray confirmed a small fracture.

Just wanted to vent. This year has been rough. Now we get to add a pediatric ortho to his care team after dealing with pediatric gastro, endo, and a developmental pediatrician so far this year. Just a lot to deal with on top of his other challenges.

I asked if I need to sign an incident or accident report and the BCBA said she’d get me a copy, but I haven’t seen it yet.

He’s dealt with some bullying at school and now having to sit out due to the walking boot just further isolates him. And we really have been trying to get him more exercise and movement and now this sets him back. Sorry for the vent. Frustrating.

Sorry for the vent

My son will be 13 in June and is really the best kid. He was diagnosed with “asperbergers” when he was 9. Around age 11 he started having pretty violent tantrums. He would hit us, break things, hurt himself and scream. We spoke to his neurologist and he was prescribed Guanfacine ER 2x daily. His outbursts arent as often but when he does have them they are BAD. I honestly can’t even count how many bruises I have/had.

He is a big boy, 5’11 190lbs and predicted to be 6’4. Hes STRONG and my husband and I are having a hard time getting his violence under control. I’m mainly worried for my daughter, who is 16 years old, and has been a target of his a few times. She’s such a good kid and deals with it the best she can but it’s taking a toll on her. We’ve tried taking things away. Punishments. Ignoring him. Talking to him. De-escalating. Giving in. I can’t even tell you how many things we’ve tried. I’m not sure what else to do. We all know it’s not his fault. He can’t help it. But I’m scared that it’s gonna get to a point where he really, really hurts somebody.

All I do is cry for him. I don’t know what else to do.

I've been forced into this life and I want to KMS every day. Nobody can tell me not to drink. I'm a great caretaker and have 50/50 custody. When I don't have them I drink until I can't feel, or talk really. When I do, they are in good hands until I'm not around anymore

When our AuDHD/Epileptic daughter encounters loud sounds like hand dryers in public restrooms, she reacts with immediate distress—covering her ears and running out. This makes us wonder: is it the sensory input itself that triggers her anxiety, or does her baseline level of anxiety make her more sensitive to these sounds? On particularly exhausting days, this reaction seems even more pronounced. I’d love to hear your thoughts on whether one factor drives the others or if they all interact in a complex loop. Thank you.

10 year old boy, high functioning and in mainstream school. By far the biggest problem we have always had is extreme opposition to things. He puts up a fight to absolutely everything such as going toilet, brushing teeth, the colour of the sky even. The majority of arguments and meltdowns stem from him refusing to do simple tasks. Has anyone dealt with this and what worked?

My son and I listen to a lot of SpongeBob songs. Today we were walking in the park and I sang "when big Larry came 'round just to put him down" and my son took it away and sang the rest of the song. Using mostly word approximations but he carried the tune, kept the rhythm and whole structure of the song.

I'm so proud. He's struggled with speech his whole life. He's almost 4 and barely spoke at all 6 months ago.

My daughter is 2.5 she is in ot and st, we have no diagnosis yet. But one of the things she really struggles with is ANY new place or crowded space (restaurant, relative's house we don't see often, gas stations, businesses) literally every where it's very stressful for her and I. I was wondering if anyone else has been through this? Help?

To preface I am also autistic. I understand the importance of therapies. My girls go to OT and SLP one day a week. We leave the house at 8:25A. It always seems to be a rush and stressor for all of us to get out of the house. The first appointment starts at 9am (OT 30min for daughter B), 10A (OT 60min for daughter A), 10:30A (SLP 30min for daughter B), 11A (SLP 30min for daughter A). All said and done we are back home at 12:15P. Dad usually stays home with toddler brother but sometimes brother comes along with me.

Reasons to Pull:

Reason 1: I am slightly annoyed at the office due to their poor communication. They don't respond to texts or calls in a timely manner (I mean over a month to get a call/text back.) We use a state funded education fund (ESA for Arizona) to pay for their appointments. This matters because they want payment 3 months in advance, which we don't like. We agreed on 1 month and even that is pushing it because we prefer to pay for the service as we use them.

We were going to their other office 1 hour away and we were on the wait list for the closer office for almost a year for my girls to have their appointments back to back. Well daughter B needed an evaluation but their person was that was out on leave and we waited another 3 months to get that. And they gave our back to back spots away. Maybe I am still holding a grudge about how long we have to spend at the office waiting. I think that is part of why I wanting to pull them.

Reason 2: ALOT, I should say ALL of what they do my husband and I can at home with the girls. Most of the things they do there we already do. So why are we paying for this services and stressing everyone out getting out the door and waiting around for half a day every week?

Reason 3: The SLP provider is kinda flat and seems annoyed at times. She is good at her job but idk if she truly prefers working with children.

Reason 4: The waiting room is bland, very bright, and uncomfortable. (It kinda puts me on edge honestly.) The only toys they have are toys I donated to the office because it is just a room with chairs and a coffee table.

Reasons to Keep Them Going:

Reason 1: The OT is great and my girls really like going to her. They listen to her well.

Reason 2: It is good for them to interact with other adults giving them the same information as mom and dad. Shows them we aren't "bossing them around" but actually trying to help them.

My dilemma is if we pull them and it doesn't work out idk where else they will go that isn't an hour away and their appointments will definitely be spread out. But what if it does work out and they do great learning the same things from their therapies at home with mom and dad.

ADVICE?

I’m in the process of trying to get my 13 year old rising 9th grader out of public school. I know everyone uses levels and we just had another private psychoeducational evaluation done and that was frustrating to say the least. My kid’s psychologist felt it was very biased and it painted a picture of a kid that didn’t look like ours. My kid’s psychologist thinks my kid is more level 1 but the one who did the evaluation scored them level 2.

I’ll dive into that later…..

This is a bit of a long post but I’m looking to hear experiences from parents who went the private school for learning differences route.

We have just gone through a very exhausting and so far unsuccessful attempt round 1 at applying to private schools. However we are not done in the process.

We took a tiered process

1 - applied to mainstream schools that focus on small class sizes, have built in tutoring, and explicitly call out their ability to support learning differences. We didn’t get accepted to any of them.

2 - applied to 2 schools that specialize in learning differences. This was hard because our kid has always been mainstream. We are in this process right now. It’s looking very likely that at least one will be successful. These schools have full facilities , extracurricular and sports.

3 - plan 3 - a 1:1 private school that specializes in learning differences. In effect it’s private home school. They already attend as a tutoring student and the school has indicated that they would happily take our child.

I’m very sure that I want out of public school. Aside from the ability to participate in band ( they have been playing an instrument for 3 years now ), I haven’t seen anything on the public school front that gives me confidence in my child’s ability to thrive. It feels bare minimum at best.

The ability to have lots of social interaction opportunities is important to us - hence us gravitating towards mainstreaming. However, and this is where I start to struggle - we feel uncomfortable putting our child in a school where all of the students are neurodivergent. I’m wondering if anyone here has done so and felt it was ultimately a positive experience.

Extracurriculars matter to us a lot - so we want to give them a chance to experience that. A 1:1 school doesn’t have that capacity - however it’s a much lower stress environment and we think that would be a huge plus as well. Does anyone have experience doing 1:1 schools and can speak to how that went?

Finally - and I’m just shooting this question into the internet for additional perspectives -

If I have a teenager who plays an instrument , can cook meals, is comfortable traveling and managing their own delta app, walks themselves to and from school, plays team sports , maintains their daily routines, manages all of their school assignments on their own, and has about 3 close friends they socialize with daily. They also have not failed a class to date but their math and English has been hovering in the B’s and now more often C’s range. They are holding A’s in science and social studies and their extracurriculars ( including French and band ). They also don’t have behavioral issues.

Language is a challenge and they do require extra instruction / practice time - but they can solve word algebra problems correctly with plenty of practice for example - am I wrong for thinking they are more on the level 1 side of the spectrum?

Bottom line - for any parents who have gone the private school route - i would love to hear the good, the bad and the ugly.

My AuDHD kid is and has always been interested in adults. On the playground, they have to be redirected by the teachers to go play with friends. They do their best work when sitting at the teacher’s desk, otherwise they get behind. We are in ABA and working on this, because it’s scary: they’re too physically close with adults they “know” or think are safe/endorsed by mom and dad. Lots of hugging, snuggling, inviting themselves to sit on laps, leaning on, climbing on, otherwise getting into the personal space of people we sometimes barely know. Meanwhile, other kids are treated with suspicion, given tons of personal space, and sometimes outright ignored.

I’m terrified by this for obvious reasons: the high risk of abuse among ND kids, and the fact that my kid can’t interpret the appropriate level of space and trust between their parents and someone we all just met 3 minutes ago.

As a caveat: We do talk about stranger danger and they seem to understand these scenarios. Not sure how to communicate the extra layer that the danger could be someone you “know.”

Anyone else’s kid have this particular quirk?