Re: Re:The future of our children

July 20, 2010

ï»¿

As far as church goes. I am with Robin.. I have never felt so unaccepted as when I attempted church with my kids. With my son's age group there was a little old lady who gave out candy to all the "good " kids after Sunday School . Of course, she always left my kids out since they were not "good" (meaning quiet). When I tried again with my granddaughter, it went ok until the day they introduced loud music to the program, and she wouldn't participate and, again, the little old lady that was the class "shepherd" screamed across the whole Sunday School gathering that "That girl needs therapy!" and later explained that she was only trying to let us know that she is in deep need of help. She harrassed several other kids, too, but my husband would no longer attend church, nor my daughter and I have quit trying too. I talk to God at home.

( ) Re:The future of our children

I hope I'm wrong, but I read you post as a kind of criticism of how many of us are raising our children. And I hope you're right. I hope what you're doing with your son will head off the many problems that develop as these children get older. We have three sons with AS. The oldest is 19. The other two are 15 and 12. The 15 yo is less affected, and will, I think, have a relatively normal future. The 19 yo and the 12 yo are facing a different set of challenges.

When my 19yo was 7 the way your son is now, I too thought he had a bright future ahead of him. There were problems at school but none of his classmates had really sophisticated social skills and they were very nonjudgemental. He also had a friend and we had just learned that his verbal IQ was/is about 200. He taught himself to read grown-up novels shortly after his third birthday. He was truly brilliant. I was envisioning a future for him that might include being an author or a college professor. You know, quirky, but brilliant.

When he was 7 1/2 the military transferred us to a different state, and we elected to move into a district that had a fabulous program for gifted kids. The biggest problem for my son was that he eventually lost contact with that one friend he had (and has never been able to make another one).

At 8yo he was moved to a full-time gifted program. I was so proud of him and it just reinforced my hopes for his future. AS wasn't going to stand in the way of anything for my son. It wasn't going to be an excuse for a failure to achieve. Yeay! Unfortunately, a gifted program involves lots of transitions all the time. The typical gifted children thrived, but my son was totally overwhelmed. The day came when the principal told us that if we brought him back to school the next day, he would expel him. I was completely new to the IEP world, and didn't know that this was an empty and illegal threat, so I pulled him out and homeschooled him for the next couple of years--all the while working on social skills and learning coping mechanisms. He did *wonderfully* academically, but when I put him in school I asked them to have his repeat the year we had just completed to give him an extra year to prepare socially for middle school. The school agreed, and, again, I was hopeful that things were back on track for a successful future.

Middle school was a mess. He got lumped in with ED classes because he needed a smaller group and the same district that has such a wonderful program for gifted kids has literally nothing for kids with high functioning autism. The ED kids victimized my son--especially in gym class--to the point that his teachers had him pulled out of that setting and moved to an LD setting instead. Well, so much for that brilliant academic future. LD classes don't move as quickly as even general ed. classes for obvious reasons.

High school rolled around, and my son got a wonderful case manager who took a personal interest in him. He was available to support my son throughout the day, and many of the problems we'd seen in middle school improved a lot. But he still had no friends, and he was constantly getting in trouble with his grades because he was so very disorganized. You see he has executive functioning deficits. Keeping himself as organized as a typical high school student is literally impossible for him. Where could he get more help with staying organized? The LD classes. He did, however, have some non-special ed. classes. Latin for example--and he did *very* well on tests and quizzes because he has a photographic memory--but he was still so disorganized about his homework. Also, by now his lack of friends was really hurting him. He wrote an entry in his journal concerning how hopeless he felt and wondering why he didn't just kill himself. I got a call to come to the school immediately. We talked with his case manager and I took our son home for a mental health day. We also contacted his psychiatrist (by now he was on several meds--including ADHD meds in an attempt to improve his executive functioning skills--so he had a psychiatrist. He was also in social skills therapy with a social worker, and we brought her in on the problem. The specialists couldn't really do much about the root of the problem though. The boy was lonely and you can't *make* other kids accept someone as a friend. We hoped that he'd make friends with someone from his social skills group which had several kids with AS, but what we found was that then *neither* boy had much in the way of social skills, and they would tend to get involved with their focal interests and ignore each other.

Skipping forward a couple of years, we found that it was time to start thinking about what our son would do when he finished high school. I was still thinking that a 4-year college was a natural choice for such a smart kid. The case manager gradually broke it to me that our son should get some trade skills in case college didn't work out. I was seeing here on this board that *many* parents who tried to send their AS kids to college were failing despite herculean efforts. Our son's social worker told me that AS kids "crash and burn" in college. Her daughter--also with AS--had just completed the required classes for a degree in teaching, but at the last minute, the faculty informed her that she wouldn't be granted the degree or certificate or whatever because they knew she lacked the social skills to teach and they couldn't in good conscience grant her the credentials she would need to become a teacher. She fell apart (including moving out and becoming homeless for a while), and her mother was desperately trying to pick up the pieces.

We decided to let our son try the high school's technical school. Two years later, he has five professional certifications in the computer repair/website design area. He loves the work, but his instructors informed me that they don't think he'll be able to hold a job in the field. Lack of social skills. For example, he finished the unit way ahead of other kids, but when his teacher asked him to help a fellow student who was having problems, he wound up asking the kid if he was stupid or what? Also, that executive functioning issue is rearing it's ugly head again. He can't really problem solve the way he would need to be able to in a professional capacity.

Then there are the day to day issues. He can't remember to take his medicine by himself. Simple problems confuse him because he has trouble generalizing one experience to a similar, but different, one in the future. Personal hygiene is getting better, but we still have to remind him every day to use deodorant, shave, and brush his teeth. If we don't do that, it doesn't get done because he really can't see why he should care about how other people see him.

So here we are. He's 19 and taking a fifth year of high school to give him a little more developmental time (kids with IEPs can do that). His psychiatrist suggested that we needed to make him our ward because he still needs someone to take care of him--we're hoping he'll "grow out of" this, but realistically, only time will tell whether that's possible. I've had him evaluated by the Department of Rehabilitative Services, so he can get job placement and job coaching help--but I'm worried that means they'll get him hired on at Mc's to sweep the floor. I *still* want to see him go to college, but we've learned that colleges that offer support programs for kids with AS are *very* expensive. There's a really attractive program at NYIT--but it's so expensive that we can't possibly afford it. I'm supposed to be working on getting our son qualified for SSI because we could use that income to help him with a program like that, but I'm kind of overwhelmed and *he* certainly can't do it himself.

This has gotten hideously long, and I hope I haven't lost you, because what I really want to say is that even *very* high functioning children (and their parents) have major hurdles to overcome. The social and executive function deficits are *so* much more handicapping than you think they are when your child is very young. Also, children who can be diagnosed at 5 or 6 yo probably *aren't* all that high functioning. Most kids who are truly high functioning Aspies aren't diagnosable until they're in late grade school or even high school because they can compensate up until then.

As a parent, raising a child with Asperger's can mean dealing with the death of one dream after another for your child's future. It truly is heartbreaking. I know because we're living it. My son is still a wonderful person. He's sweet and innocent in a way that other people aren't. He's cute. He's brilliant. And yet none of that is enough to keep him from having the sort of limited future I could never have envisioned for him when he was 7yo.

I sincerely hope that your experience with AS follows a different pathway from ours. It's entirely possible that it will because every person with AS is different from every other person with AS. I'm just saying you need to be careful about judging other parents because you could so easily be walking in their shoes in ten years.

Peace.

Sue

The future of our children

Posted by: "" teamjakob06 teamjakob06

Mon Jul 19, 2010 12:48 pm (PDT)

Lately I have been reading some of the posts on here and thinking a lot about my child's future. I have NO doubt in my mind that my son will be a productive, sucessful citizen. I homeschool him and we get very indepth with certain subjects. He can learn much better than at a private or public school and the resources are endless. He is 7 now and when he graduates he will attend college like every other child in America. It will not be a special college either, it may very well be Washington University as it is in our city of Fredericksburg. I know that one day he too will have a family and I look forward to having grandchildren. Not one time have I ever thought that he would be a stock boy at Walmart or the service guy at our local Exxon, Shell, Wawa, etc.. Not one time have I thought that he would never amount to much or ever let him think that. Never ever have I thought of his disability as a bad thing. There is greatness in all these children and our job is to guide them to become greatness! Sometimes I think that we tend to hinder our children more than their disability by setting the bar so low that they believe thenselves that they can't do anything or won't amount to much. We used to live in Georgia and they had very little resources to help, so I moved to Virginia, where I was born and my parents were raised. Here there is a lot of help, BUT DON'T RELY ON THE SCHOOL SYSTEM TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT OR HELP YOU GET IT! You have to do your home work as I have read that many of you have and you have to know, have to have faith, and have to believe that God blessed you with this special child for a reason! The road is less traveled, tiring, and we all feel that we are treading on broken glass barefoot, but we all choose to be parents even though God choose us to be parents of Aspie children, again for a reason! If you stop clipping their wings and allow them to fly, who knows how high they will soar!

July 20, 2010

I agree with where schools' emphasis' are.

But,,,,,,,how do you teach to socially fit? Yep, I know that there are groups and classes, but for us, they weren't worth a dime. I remember Ian had Social Skills Class 1 time per week for 20 mins. This was also when the school had thier Assembly's. Ugh.

I may get beat up for this, but I think our kids can learn HOW to react socially but it will NEVER flow naturally. My son addresses everyone. Can say, "Fine thanks, how are you?", but it isn't "natural, if that makes sense.

I think the world would be better off to "get" those darned kids who haven't been taught to be nice. To get the kids that would rather get a laugh than to include others. Shame, also, on the teachers who look the other way or won't / can't jump in and make them be nice.

It's so simple, isn't it? hee hee. I wish.

Attack and enjoy every minute of life.

Try everything.....protect everything.

Robin

From: Mimi <sue@...>Subject: ( ) Re:The future of our children Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 12:21 PM

Ah ha! I think that you are so right. The social skill aspect is a large part of the equation. Someone on here used to sign their posts "Normal is just a cycle on a washing machine." I loved that quote. And therefore I say, "IQ is just a number." It is not a predictor of outcome, or success or failure in any case. In my limited observation, and I don't want to generalize, there are many kids with disabilities that are not part of the spectrum who are loved by everyone around them! They have the kind of social skills that make other kids take them under their wing, befriend them, want to protect them. Maybe not socialize with them...However, many of our kids do not have these personality traits. They say or do the wrong things, or have inappropriate reactions and poor social skills. In the long run, that, in my opinion only, is what is the biggest factor for success. So tell me why we put so much more emphasis on academic tutoring, help etc

and less on this when they are in school! We have it backwards.Sue in Tn> > > From: <teamjakob06@...>> Subject: Re: ( ) Re:The future of our children> > Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 10:27 AM> > > Ã‚ > > > > > > > I

personally am not judging anyone, I am only going on what I have read. Don'tÃ‚ get me wrong, we haveÃ‚ our good days and bad. I guess what I am struggling to understand and this may very well be because I am not there yet {and hope I never get there}, but what IÃ‚ am not understanding, not all, but someÃ‚ of these children have very high IQ's and are high functioning,Ã‚ like my child, soÃ‚ with that, I cannot see him not having a brighter futureÃ‚ and going to college, having a family, etc.. I'm not really worried about the friends thing right now as we seem to have it worked out for now. As far as being offensive to anyone else, this is my opinion only, it is not meant to hurt anyone but it is meant for people to think about the reason they may have been blessed with an Aspie child or children. I also couldn't imagine having more than oneÃ‚ Aspie child. Honestly, having one is one thing andÃ‚ having more

then one is another, of course the out come will be> different as well as how the child{ren} our raise and how theyÃ‚ are involved with theirÃ‚ community {church, neighborhood, etc.}. Ã‚ > Ã‚ TeamJakob> Support children with > Aspergers,> With your support their is > no limit to Jakob's success!! > > > > > > > From: Comtois <suetoiscox (DOT) net>> > Sent: Tue, July 20, 2010 9:39:05 AM> Subject: ( ) Re:The future of our children> > Ã‚ > > > I hope I'm wrong, but I read you post as a kind of criticism of how many of us are raising our children. Ã‚ And I hope you're right. Ã‚ I hope what you're doing with your son will head off the many problems that develop as these children get older. Ã‚ We have three sons

with AS. Ã‚ The oldest is 19. Ã‚ The other two are 15 and 12. Ã‚ The 15 yo is less affected, and will, I think, have a relatively normal future. Ã‚ The 19 yo and the 12 yo are facing a different set of challenges. Ã‚ > > > When my 19yo was 7 the way your son is now, I too thought he had a bright future ahead of him. Ã‚ There were problems at school but none of his classmates had really sophisticated social skills and they were very nonjudgemental. Ã‚ He also had a friend and we had just learned that his verbal IQ was/is about 200. Ã‚ He taught himself to read grown-up novels shortly after his third birthday. Ã‚ He was truly brilliant. Ã‚ I was envisioning a future for him that might include being an author or a college professor. Ã‚ You know, quirky, but brilliant.Ã‚ > > > When he was 7 1/2 the military transferred us to a different state, and we

elected to move into a district that had a fabulous program for gifted kids. Ã‚ The biggest problem for my son was that he eventually lost contact with that one friend he had (and has never been able to make another one).> > > At 8yo he was moved to a full-time gifted program. Ã‚ I was so proud of him and it just reinforced my hopes for his future. Ã‚ AS wasn't going to stand in the way of anything for my son. Ã‚ It wasn't going to be an excuse for a failure to achieve. Ã‚ Yeay! Ã‚ Unfortunately, a gifted program involves lots of transitions all the time. Ã‚ The typical gifted children thrived, but my son was totally overwhelmed. Ã‚ The day came when the principal told us that if we brought him back to school the next day, he would expel him. Ã‚ I was completely new to the IEP world, and didn't know that this was an empty and illegal threat, so I pulled him out and homeschooled him for

the next couple of years--all the while working on social skills and learning coping mechanisms. Ã‚ He did *wonderfully* academically, but when I put him in school I asked them to have his repeat the year we had just completed to give him an extra year to prepare socially for middle school. Ã‚ The school> agreed, and, again, I was hopeful that things were back on track for a successful future.> > > Middle school was a mess. Ã‚ He got lumped in with ED classes because he needed a smaller group and the same district that has such a wonderful program for gifted kids has literally nothing for kids with high functioning autism. Ã‚ The ED kids victimized my son--especially in gym class--to the point that his teachers had him pulled out of that setting and moved to an LD setting instead. Ã‚ Well, so much for that brilliant academic future. Ã‚ LD classes don't move as quickly as even general ed. classes

for obvious reasons.> > > High school rolled around, and my son got a wonderful case manager who took a personal interest in him. Ã‚ He was available to support my son throughout the day, and many of the problems we'd seen in middle school improved a lot. Ã‚ But he still had no friends, and he was constantly getting in trouble with his grades because he was so very disorganized. Ã‚ You see he has executive functioning deficits. Ã‚ Keeping himself as organized as a typical high school student is literally impossible for him. Ã‚ Where could he get more help with staying organized? Ã‚ The LD classes. Ã‚ He did, however, have some non-special ed. classes. Ã‚ Latin for example--and he did *very* well on tests and quizzes because he has a photographic memory--but he was still so disorganized about his homework. Ã‚ Also, by now his lack of friends was really hurting him. Ã‚ He wrote an

entry in his journal concerning how hopeless he felt and wondering why he didn't just kill himself. Ã‚ I got a> call to come to the school immediately. Ã‚ We talked with his case manager and I took our son home for a mental health day. Ã‚ We also contacted his psychiatrist (by now he was on several meds--including ADHD meds in an attempt to improve his executive functioning skills--so he had a psychiatrist. Ã‚ He was also in social skills therapy with a social worker, and we brought her in on the problem. Ã‚ The specialists couldn't really do much about the root of the problem though. Ã‚ The boy was lonely and you can't *make* other kids accept someone as a friend. Ã‚ We hoped that he'd make friends with someone from his social skills group which had several kids with AS, but what we found was that then *neither* boy had much in the way of social skills, and they would tend to get involved with their focal

interests and ignore each other. Ã‚ > > > Skipping forward a couple of years, we found that it was time to start thinking about what our son would do when he finished high school. Ã‚ I was still thinking that a 4-year college was a natural choice for such a smart kid. Ã‚ The case manager gradually broke it to me that our son should get some trade skills in case college didn't work out. Ã‚ I was seeing here on this board that *many* parents who tried to send their AS kids to college were failing despite herculean efforts. Ã‚ Our son's social worker told me that AS kids "crash and burn" in college. Ã‚ Her daughter--also with AS--had just completed the required classes for a degree in teaching, but at the last minute, the faculty informed her that she wouldn't be granted the degree or certificate or whatever because they knew she lacked the social skills to teach and they couldn't in good conscience grant

her the credentials she would need to become a teacher. Ã‚ She fell apart (including moving out and> becoming homeless for a while), and her mother was desperately trying to pick up the pieces.> > > We decided to let our son try the high school's technical school. Ã‚ Two years later, he has five professional certifications in the computer repair/website design area. Ã‚ He loves the work, but his instructors informed me that they don't think he'll be able to hold a job in the field. Ã‚ Lack of social skills. Ã‚ For example, he finished the unit way ahead of other kids, but when his teacher asked him to help a fellow student who was having problems, he wound up asking the kid if he was stupid or what? Ã‚ Also, that executive functioning issue is rearing it's ugly head again. Ã‚ He can't really problem solve the way he would need to be able to in a professional capacity.> >

> Then there are the day to day issues. Ã‚ He can't remember to take his medicine by himself. Ã‚ Simple problems confuse him because he has trouble generalizing one experience to a similar, but different, one in the future. Ã‚ Personal hygiene is getting better, but we still have to remind him every day to use deodorant, shave, and brush his teeth. Ã‚ If we don't do that, it doesn't get done because he really can't see why he should care about how other people see him.> > > So here we are. Ã‚ He's 19 and taking a fifth year of high school to give him a little more developmental time (kids with IEPs can do that). Ã‚ His psychiatrist suggested that we needed to make him our ward because he still needs someone to take care of him--we're hoping he'll "grow out of" this, but realistically, only time will tell whether that's possible. Ã‚ I've had him evaluated by the Department of Rehabilitative

Services, so he can get job placement and job coaching help--but I'm worried that means they'll get him hired on at Mc's to sweep the floor. Ã‚ I *still* want to see him go to college, but we've learned that colleges that offer support programs for kids with AS are *very* expensive. Ã‚ There's a really attractive program at NYIT--but it's so expensive that we can't possibly afford it. Ã‚ I'm supposed to be working on getting our son qualified for SSI because we could use that income to help him with a program like that, but I'm kind of> overwhelmed and *he* certainly can't do it himself.> > > This has gotten hideously long, and I hope I haven't lost you, because what I really want to say is that even *very* high functioning children (and their parents) have major hurdles to overcome. Ã‚ The social and executive function deficits are *so* much more handicapping than you think they are when your child

is very young. Ã‚ Also, children who can be diagnosed at 5 or 6 yo probably *aren't* all that high functioning. Ã‚ Most kids who are truly high functioning Aspies aren't diagnosable until they're in late grade school or even high school because they can compensate up until then.> > > As a parent, raising a child with Asperger's can mean dealing with the death of one dream after another for your child's future. Ã‚ It truly is heartbreaking. Ã‚ I know because we're living it. Ã‚ My son is still a wonderful person. Ã‚ He's sweet and innocent in a way that other people aren't. Ã‚ He's cute. Ã‚ He's brilliant. Ã‚ And yet none of that is enough to keep him from having the sort of limited future I could Ã‚ never have envisioned for him when he was 7yo.> > > I sincerely hope that your experience with AS follows a different pathway from ours. Ã‚ It's entirely

possible that it will because every person with AS is different from every other person with AS. Ã‚ I'm just saying you need to be careful about judging other parents because you could so easily be walking in their shoes in ten years.> > > Peace.> Sue> > > > > > > The future of our children> Posted by: ""Ã‚ teamjakob06Ã‚ Ã‚ Ã‚ teamjakob06> Mon JulÃ‚ 19,Ã‚ 2010 12:48Ã‚ pm (PDT)> > > Lately I have been reading some of the posts on here and thinking a lot about my child's future. I have NO doubt in my mind that my son will be a productive, sucessful citizen. I homeschool him and we get very indepth with certain subjects. He can learn much better than at a private or public school and the resources are endless. He is 7 now and when he graduates he will attend college like every other child

in America. It will not be a special college either, it may very well be Washington University as it is in our city of Fredericksburg. I know that one day he too will have a family and I look forward to having grandchildren. Not one time have I ever thought that he would be a stock boy at Walmart or the service guy at our local Exxon, Shell, Wawa, etc.. Not one time have I thought that he would never amount to much or ever let him think that. Never ever have I thought of his disability as a bad thing. There is greatness in all these children and> our job is to guide them to become greatness! Sometimes I think that we tend to hinder our children more than their disability by setting the bar so low that they believe thenselves that they can't do anything or won't amount to much.Ã‚ > > We used to live in Georgia and they had very little resources to help, so I moved to Virginia, where I was born and my parents were raised.

Here there is a lot of help, BUT DON'T RELY ON THE SCHOOL SYSTEM TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT OR HELP YOU GET IT! You have to do your home work as I have read that many of you have and you have to know, have to have faith, and have to believe that God blessed you with this special child for a reason! The road is less traveled, tiring, and we all feel that we are treading on broken glass barefoot, but we all choose to be parents even though God choose us to be parents of Aspie children, again for a reason! If you stop clipping their wings and allow them to fly, who knows how high they will soar!Ã‚ > > >

July 20, 2010

Yep........sigh.

I was the one who used to have "Normal is just a cycle on a washing machine" as a signature.

I remember my mom always saying it. See,,,,my brother, had he been a student now, would have ADD/ADHD/AS for sure. But, it was in the days when a teacher could actually call a child "lazy". My folks were told that he had such a high IQ,,,,,they didn't understand why he was "so lazy".Anyway, don't know if she got that phrase from somewhere else or not, but as she was sitting wtih him at the dining room table till 10 at night, both of them crying and doing HIS homework, she's say things like the "normal" phrase.

That's where I got my thinking that "everyone's got something" from. I think all of us parents have some little phrases that stick with us.

*****After thinking about our conversations today, I really DO see a better "world" for kids with AS and spectrum issues some day. Things take time, sadly.

What we are going though now, or have gone though..........well, these are going to help the future kiddo's. Many of us will suffer, yep........go through bad things. Many of our kids won't get the services, let alone understanding and compassion that they deserve,,,,,,but we gotta keep on and know that in time, understanding DOES come.

Attack and enjoy every minute of life.

Try everything.....protect everything.

Robin

From: rushen janice <jrushen@...>Subject: Re: ( ) Re:The future of our children Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 12:38 PM

Oh so true....IQ and class number are just that NUMBERS. Do they really mean anything in the real world? I have my doubts. What good is it to be #9 in your class if you can't handle transition ...or attend graduation.. ..or hold a job because you can't handle the noise or smell or don't know how to handle social situations.

"In the Midst of Difficulty lies Opportunity" Albert Einstein

Success is not measured by one's position but by the obstacles one has overcome to obtain that position

From: Mimi <suelowerydesign (DOT) com> Sent: Tue, July 20, 2010 1:21:36 PMSubject: ( ) Re:The future of our children

Ah ha! I think that you are so right. The social skill aspect is a large part of the equation. Someone on here used to sign their posts "Normal is just a cycle on a washing machine." I loved that quote. And therefore I say, "IQ is just a number." It is not a predictor of outcome, or success or failure in any case. In my limited observation, and I don't want to generalize, there are many kids with disabilities that are not part of the spectrum who are loved by everyone around them! They have the kind of social skills that make other kids take them under their wing, befriend them, want to protect them. Maybe not socialize with them...However, many of our kids do not have these personality traits. They say or do the wrong things, or have inappropriate reactions and poor social skills. In the long run, that, in my opinion only, is what is the biggest factor for success. So tell me why we put so much more emphasis on academic tutoring, help etc

and less on this when they are in school! We have it backwards.Sue in Tn> > > From: <teamjakob06@ ...>> Subject: Re: ( ) Re:The future of our children> > Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 10:27 AM> > > Ã‚ > > > > > >

> I personally am not judging anyone, I am only going on what I have read. Don'tÃ‚ get me wrong, we haveÃ‚ our good days and bad. I guess what I am struggling to understand and this may very well be because I am not there yet {and hope I never get there}, but what IÃ‚ am not understanding, not all, but someÃ‚ of these children have very high IQ's and are high functioning,Ã‚ like my child, soÃ‚ with that, I cannot see him not having a brighter futureÃ‚ and going to college, having a family, etc.. I'm not really worried about the friends thing right now as we seem to have it worked out for now. As far as being offensive to anyone else, this is my opinion only, it is not meant to hurt anyone but it is meant for people to think about the reason they may have been blessed with an Aspie child or children. I also couldn't imagine having more than oneÃ‚ Aspie child. Honestly, having one is one thing

andÃ‚ having more then one is another, of course the out come will be> different as well as how the child{ren} our raise and how theyÃ‚ are involved with theirÃ‚ community {church, neighborhood, etc.}. Ã‚ > Ã‚ TeamJakob> Support children with > Aspergers,> With your support their is > no limit to Jakob's success!! > > > > > > > From: Comtois <suetoiscox (DOT) net>> > Sent: Tue, July 20, 2010 9:39:05 AM> Subject: ( ) Re:The future of our children> > Ã‚ > > > I hope I'm wrong, but I read you post as a kind of criticism of how many of us are raising our children. Ã‚ And I hope you're right. Ã‚ I hope what you're doing with your son will head off the many problems that develop as these children get older.

Ã‚ We have three sons with AS. Ã‚ The oldest is 19. Ã‚ The other two are 15 and 12. Ã‚ The 15 yo is less affected, and will, I think, have a relatively normal future. Ã‚ The 19 yo and the 12 yo are facing a different set of challenges. Ã‚ > > > When my 19yo was 7 the way your son is now, I too thought he had a bright future ahead of him. Ã‚ There were problems at school but none of his classmates had really sophisticated social skills and they were very nonjudgemental. Ã‚ He also had a friend and we had just learned that his verbal IQ was/is about 200. Ã‚ He taught himself to read grown-up novels shortly after his third birthday. Ã‚ He was truly brilliant. Ã‚ I was envisioning a future for him that might include being an author or a college professor. Ã‚ You know, quirky, but brilliant.Ã‚ > > > When he was 7 1/2 the military transferred us to a

different state, and we elected to move into a district that had a fabulous program for gifted kids. Ã‚ The biggest problem for my son was that he eventually lost contact with that one friend he had (and has never been able to make another one).> > > At 8yo he was moved to a full-time gifted program. Ã‚ I was so proud of him and it just reinforced my hopes for his future. Ã‚ AS wasn't going to stand in the way of anything for my son. Ã‚ It wasn't going to be an excuse for a failure to achieve. Ã‚ Yeay! Ã‚ Unfortunately, a gifted program involves lots of transitions all the time. Ã‚ The typical gifted children thrived, but my son was totally overwhelmed. Ã‚ The day came when the principal told us that if we brought him back to school the next day, he would expel him. Ã‚ I was completely new to the IEP world, and didn't know that this was an empty and illegal threat, so I pulled him out and

homeschooled him for the next couple of years--all the while working on social skills and learning coping mechanisms. Ã‚ He did *wonderfully* academically, but when I put him in school I asked them to have his repeat the year we had just completed to give him an extra year to prepare socially for middle school. Ã‚ The school> agreed, and, again, I was hopeful that things were back on track for a successful future.> > > Middle school was a mess. Ã‚ He got lumped in with ED classes because he needed a smaller group and the same district that has such a wonderful program for gifted kids has literally nothing for kids with high functioning autism. Ã‚ The ED kids victimized my son--especially in gym class--to the point that his teachers had him pulled out of that setting and moved to an LD setting instead. Ã‚ Well, so much for that brilliant academic future. Ã‚ LD classes don't move as quickly as even

general ed. classes for obvious reasons.> > > High school rolled around, and my son got a wonderful case manager who took a personal interest in him. Ã‚ He was available to support my son throughout the day, and many of the problems we'd seen in middle school improved a lot. Ã‚ But he still had no friends, and he was constantly getting in trouble with his grades because he was so very disorganized. Ã‚ You see he has executive functioning deficits. Ã‚ Keeping himself as organized as a typical high school student is literally impossible for him. Ã‚ Where could he get more help with staying organized? Ã‚ The LD classes. Ã‚ He did, however, have some non-special ed. classes. Ã‚ Latin for example--and he did *very* well on tests and quizzes because he has a photographic memory--but he was still so disorganized about his homework. Ã‚ Also, by now his lack of friends was really hurting him.

Ã‚ He wrote an entry in his journal concerning how hopeless he felt and wondering why he didn't just kill himself. Ã‚ I got a> call to come to the school immediately. Ã‚ We talked with his case manager and I took our son home for a mental health day. Ã‚ We also contacted his psychiatrist (by now he was on several meds--including ADHD meds in an attempt to improve his executive functioning skills--so he had a psychiatrist. Ã‚ He was also in social skills therapy with a social worker, and we brought her in on the problem. Ã‚ The specialists couldn't really do much about the root of the problem though. Ã‚ The boy was lonely and you can't *make* other kids accept someone as a friend. Ã‚ We hoped that he'd make friends with someone from his social skills group which had several kids with AS, but what we found was that then *neither* boy had much in the way of social skills, and they would tend to get involved

with their focal interests and ignore each other. Ã‚ > > > Skipping forward a couple of years, we found that it was time to start thinking about what our son would do when he finished high school. Ã‚ I was still thinking that a 4-year college was a natural choice for such a smart kid. Ã‚ The case manager gradually broke it to me that our son should get some trade skills in case college didn't work out. Ã‚ I was seeing here on this board that *many* parents who tried to send their AS kids to college were failing despite herculean efforts. Ã‚ Our son's social worker told me that AS kids "crash and burn" in college. Ã‚ Her daughter--also with AS--had just completed the required classes for a degree in teaching, but at the last minute, the faculty informed her that she wouldn't be granted the degree or certificate or whatever because they knew she lacked the social skills to teach and they couldn't in good

conscience grant her the credentials she would need to become a teacher. Ã‚ She fell apart (including moving out and> becoming homeless for a while), and her mother was desperately trying to pick up the pieces.> > > We decided to let our son try the high school's technical school. Ã‚ Two years later, he has five professional certifications in the computer repair/website design area. Ã‚ He loves the work, but his instructors informed me that they don't think he'll be able to hold a job in the field. Ã‚ Lack of social skills. Ã‚ For example, he finished the unit way ahead of other kids, but when his teacher asked him to help a fellow student who was having problems, he wound up asking the kid if he was stupid or what? Ã‚ Also, that executive functioning issue is rearing it's ugly head again. Ã‚ He can't really problem solve the way he would need to be able to in a professional

capacity.> > > Then there are the day to day issues. Ã‚ He can't remember to take his medicine by himself. Ã‚ Simple problems confuse him because he has trouble generalizing one experience to a similar, but different, one in the future. Ã‚ Personal hygiene is getting better, but we still have to remind him every day to use deodorant, shave, and brush his teeth. Ã‚ If we don't do that, it doesn't get done because he really can't see why he should care about how other people see him.> > > So here we are. Ã‚ He's 19 and taking a fifth year of high school to give him a little more developmental time (kids with IEPs can do that). Ã‚ His psychiatrist suggested that we needed to make him our ward because he still needs someone to take care of him--we're hoping he'll "grow out of" this, but realistically, only time will tell whether that's possible. Ã‚ I've had him evaluated by the

Department of Rehabilitative Services, so he can get job placement and job coaching help--but I'm worried that means they'll get him hired on at Mc's to sweep the floor. Ã‚ I *still* want to see him go to college, but we've learned that colleges that offer support programs for kids with AS are *very* expensive. Ã‚ There's a really attractive program at NYIT--but it's so expensive that we can't possibly afford it. Ã‚ I'm supposed to be working on getting our son qualified for SSI because we could use that income to help him with a program like that, but I'm kind of> overwhelmed and *he* certainly can't do it himself.> > > This has gotten hideously long, and I hope I haven't lost you, because what I really want to say is that even *very* high functioning children (and their parents) have major hurdles to overcome. Ã‚ The social and executive function deficits are *so* much more handicapping than you

think they are when your child is very young. Ã‚ Also, children who can be diagnosed at 5 or 6 yo probably *aren't* all that high functioning. Ã‚ Most kids who are truly high functioning Aspies aren't diagnosable until they're in late grade school or even high school because they can compensate up until then.> > > As a parent, raising a child with Asperger's can mean dealing with the death of one dream after another for your child's future. Ã‚ It truly is heartbreaking. Ã‚ I know because we're living it. Ã‚ My son is still a wonderful person. Ã‚ He's sweet and innocent in a way that other people aren't. Ã‚ He's cute. Ã‚ He's brilliant. Ã‚ And yet none of that is enough to keep him from having the sort of limited future I could Ã‚ never have envisioned for him when he was 7yo.> > > I sincerely hope that your experience with AS follows a different pathway from

ours. Ã‚ It's entirely possible that it will because every person with AS is different from every other person with AS. Ã‚ I'm just saying you need to be careful about judging other parents because you could so easily be walking in their shoes in ten years.> > > Peace.> Sue> > > > > > > The future of our children> Posted by: ""Ã‚ teamjakob06Ã‚ Ã‚ Ã‚ teamjakob06> Mon JulÃ‚ 19,Ã‚ 2010 12:48Ã‚ pm (PDT)> > > Lately I have been reading some of the posts on here and thinking a lot about my child's future. I have NO doubt in my mind that my son will be a productive, sucessful citizen. I homeschool him and we get very indepth with certain subjects. He can learn much better than at a private or public school and the resources are endless. He is 7 now and when he graduates he will attend

college like every other child in America. It will not be a special college either, it may very well be Washington University as it is in our city of Fredericksburg. I know that one day he too will have a family and I look forward to having grandchildren. Not one time have I ever thought that he would be a stock boy at Walmart or the service guy at our local Exxon, Shell, Wawa, etc.. Not one time have I thought that he would never amount to much or ever let him think that. Never ever have I thought of his disability as a bad thing. There is greatness in all these children and> our job is to guide them to become greatness! Sometimes I think that we tend to hinder our children more than their disability by setting the bar so low that they believe thenselves that they can't do anything or won't amount to much.Ã‚ > > We used to live in Georgia and they had very little resources to help, so I moved to Virginia, where I was born

and my parents were raised. Here there is a lot of help, BUT DON'T RELY ON THE SCHOOL SYSTEM TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT OR HELP YOU GET IT! You have to do your home work as I have read that many of you have and you have to know, have to have faith, and have to believe that God blessed you with this special child for a reason! The road is less traveled, tiring, and we all feel that we are treading on broken glass barefoot, but we all choose to be parents even though God choose us to be parents of Aspie children, again for a reason! If you stop clipping their wings and allow them to fly, who knows how high they will soar!Ã‚ > > >

July 20, 2010

Some of the saddest times we've had have been because of people in certain churches. It's pitiful.

We finally found a very accepting church. But,,,,,like you, we realized that spirituality can be felt anywhere. Not just in a church.

God is everywhere.

Attack and enjoy every minute of life.

Try everything.....protect everything.

Robin

From: <teamjakob06>Subject: Re: ( ) Re:The future of our children Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 10:27 AM

I personally am not judging anyone, I am only going on what I have read. Don't get me wrong, we have our good days and bad. I guess what I am struggling to understand and this may very well be because I am not there yet {and hope I never get there}, but what I am not understanding, not all, but some of these children have very high IQ's and are high functioning, like my child, so with that, I cannot see him not having a brighter future and going to college, having a family, etc.. I'm not really worried about the friends thing right now as we seem to have it worked out for now. As far as being offensive to anyone else, this is my opinion only, it is not meant to hurt anyone but it is meant for people to think about the reason they may have been blessed with an Aspie child or children. I also couldn't imagine having more than one Aspie child. Honestly, having one is one thing and having more then one is

another, of course the out come will be different as well as how the child{ren} our raise and how they are involved with their community {church, neighborhood, etc.}. TeamJakobSupport children with Aspergers,With your support their is no limit to Jakob's success!!

From: Comtois <suetoiscox (DOT) net> Sent: Tue, July 20, 2010 9:39:05 AMSubject: ( ) Re:The future of our children

I hope I'm wrong, but I read you post as a kind of criticism of how many of us are raising our children. And I hope you're right. I hope what you're doing with your son will head off the many problems that develop as these children get older. We have three sons with AS. The oldest is 19. The other two are 15 and 12. The 15 yo is less affected, and will, I think, have a relatively normal future. The 19 yo and the 12 yo are facing a different set of challenges.

When my 19yo was 7 the way your son is now, I too thought he had a bright future ahead of him. There were problems at school but none of his classmates had really sophisticated social skills and they were very nonjudgemental. He also had a friend and we had just learned that his verbal IQ was/is about 200. He taught himself to read grown-up novels shortly after his third birthday. He was truly brilliant. I was envisioning a future for him that might include being an author or a college professor. You know, quirky, but brilliant.

When he was 7 1/2 the military transferred us to a different state, and we elected to move into a district that had a fabulous program for gifted kids. The biggest problem for my son was that he eventually lost contact with that one friend he had (and has never been able to make another one).

At 8yo he was moved to a full-time gifted program. I was so proud of him and it just reinforced my hopes for his future. AS wasn't going to stand in the way of anything for my son. It wasn't going to be an excuse for a failure to achieve. Yeay! Unfortunately, a gifted program involves lots of transitions all the time. The typical gifted children thrived, but my son was totally overwhelmed. The day came when the principal told us that if we brought him back to school the next day, he would expel him. I was completely new to the IEP world, and didn't know that this was an empty and illegal threat, so I pulled him out and homeschooled him for the next couple of years--all the while working on social skills and learning coping mechanisms. He did *wonderfully* academically, but when I put him in school I asked them to have his repeat the year we had just completed to give him an extra year to prepare

socially for middle school. The school agreed, and, again, I was hopeful that things were back on track for a successful future.

Middle school was a mess. He got lumped in with ED classes because he needed a smaller group and the same district that has such a wonderful program for gifted kids has literally nothing for kids with high functioning autism. The ED kids victimized my son--especially in gym class--to the point that his teachers had him pulled out of that setting and moved to an LD setting instead. Well, so much for that brilliant academic future. LD classes don't move as quickly as even general ed. classes for obvious reasons.

High school rolled around, and my son got a wonderful case manager who took a personal interest in him. He was available to support my son throughout the day, and many of the problems we'd seen in middle school improved a lot. But he still had no friends, and he was constantly getting in trouble with his grades because he was so very disorganized. You see he has executive functioning deficits. Keeping himself as organized as a typical high school student is literally impossible for him. Where could he get more help with staying organized? The LD classes. He did, however, have some non-special ed. classes. Latin for example--and he did *very* well on tests and quizzes because he has a photographic memory--but he was still so disorganized about his homework. Also, by now his lack of friends was really hurting him. He wrote an entry in his journal concerning how hopeless he felt and wondering

why he didn't just kill himself. I got a call to come to the school immediately. We talked with his case manager and I took our son home for a mental health day. We also contacted his psychiatrist (by now he was on several meds--including ADHD meds in an attempt to improve his executive functioning skills--so he had a psychiatrist. He was also in social skills therapy with a social worker, and we brought her in on the problem. The specialists couldn't really do much about the root of the problem though. The boy was lonely and you can't *make* other kids accept someone as a friend. We hoped that he'd make friends with someone from his social skills group which had several kids with AS, but what we found was that then *neither* boy had much in the way of social skills, and they would tend to get involved with their focal interests and ignore each other.

Skipping forward a couple of years, we found that it was time to start thinking about what our son would do when he finished high school. I was still thinking that a 4-year college was a natural choice for such a smart kid. The case manager gradually broke it to me that our son should get some trade skills in case college didn't work out. I was seeing here on this board that *many* parents who tried to send their AS kids to college were failing despite herculean efforts. Our son's social worker told me that AS kids "crash and burn" in college. Her daughter--also with AS--had just completed the required classes for a degree in teaching, but at the last minute, the faculty informed her that she wouldn't be granted the degree or certificate or whatever because they knew she lacked the social skills to teach and they couldn't in good conscience grant her the credentials she would need to become a teacher. She fell

apart (including moving out and becoming homeless for a while), and her mother was desperately trying to pick up the pieces.

We decided to let our son try the high school's technical school. Two years later, he has five professional certifications in the computer repair/website design area. He loves the work, but his instructors informed me that they don't think he'll be able to hold a job in the field. Lack of social skills. For example, he finished the unit way ahead of other kids, but when his teacher asked him to help a fellow student who was having problems, he wound up asking the kid if he was stupid or what? Also, that executive functioning issue is rearing it's ugly head again. He can't really problem solve the way he would need to be able to in a professional capacity.

Then there are the day to day issues. He can't remember to take his medicine by himself. Simple problems confuse him because he has trouble generalizing one experience to a similar, but different, one in the future. Personal hygiene is getting better, but we still have to remind him every day to use deodorant, shave, and brush his teeth. If we don't do that, it doesn't get done because he really can't see why he should care about how other people see him.

So here we are. He's 19 and taking a fifth year of high school to give him a little more developmental time (kids with IEPs can do that). His psychiatrist suggested that we needed to make him our ward because he still needs someone to take care of him--we're hoping he'll "grow out of" this, but realistically, only time will tell whether that's possible. I've had him evaluated by the Department of Rehabilitative Services, so he can get job placement and job coaching help--but I'm worried that means they'll get him hired on at Mc's to sweep the floor. I *still* want to see him go to college, but we've learned that colleges that offer support programs for kids with AS are *very* expensive. There's a really attractive program at NYIT--but it's so expensive that we can't possibly afford it. I'm supposed to be working on getting our son qualified for SSI because we could use that income to help him with a program

like that, but I'm kind of overwhelmed and *he* certainly can't do it himself.

This has gotten hideously long, and I hope I haven't lost you, because what I really want to say is that even *very* high functioning children (and their parents) have major hurdles to overcome. The social and executive function deficits are *so* much more handicapping than you think they are when your child is very young. Also, children who can be diagnosed at 5 or 6 yo probably *aren't* all that high functioning. Most kids who are truly high functioning Aspies aren't diagnosable until they're in late grade school or even high school because they can compensate up until then.

As a parent, raising a child with Asperger's can mean dealing with the death of one dream after another for your child's future. It truly is heartbreaking. I know because we're living it. My son is still a wonderful person. He's sweet and innocent in a way that other people aren't. He's cute. He's brilliant. And yet none of that is enough to keep him from having the sort of limited future I could never have envisioned for him when he was 7yo.

I sincerely hope that your experience with AS follows a different pathway from ours. It's entirely possible that it will because every person with AS is different from every other person with AS. I'm just saying you need to be careful about judging other parents because you could so easily be walking in their shoes in ten years.

Peace.

Sue

The future of our children

Posted by: "" teamjakob06 teamjakob06

Mon Jul 19, 2010 12:48 pm (PDT)

Lately I have been reading some of the posts on here and thinking a lot about my child's future. I have NO doubt in my mind that my son will be a productive, sucessful citizen. I homeschool him and we get very indepth with certain subjects. He can learn much better than at a private or public school and the resources are endless. He is 7 now and when he graduates he will attend college like every other child in America. It will not be a special college either, it may very well be Washington University as it is in our city of Fredericksburg. I know that one day he too will have a family and I look forward to having grandchildren. Not one time have I ever thought that he would be a stock boy at Walmart or the service guy at our local Exxon, Shell, Wawa, etc.. Not one time have I thought that he would never amount to much or ever let him think that. Never ever have I thought

of his disability as a bad thing. There is greatness in all these children and our job is to guide them to become greatness! Sometimes I think that we tend to hinder our children more than their disability by setting the bar so low that they believe thenselves that they can't do anything or won't amount to much. We used to live in Georgia and they had very little resources to help, so I moved to Virginia, where I was born and my parents were raised. Here there is a lot of help, BUT DON'T RELY ON THE SCHOOL SYSTEM TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT OR HELP YOU GET IT! You have to do your home work as I have read that many of you have and you have to know, have to have faith, and have to believe that God blessed you with this special child for a reason! The road is less traveled, tiring, and we all feel that we are treading on broken glass barefoot, but we all choose to be parents even though God choose us to be parents of Aspie children, again for a

reason! If you stop clipping their wings and allow them to fly, who knows how high they will soar!

July 20, 2010

My son has been accepted at his church for years now. He traveled with them to a church camp in Tennessee (we live in Texas) last summer and he was gone for 8 days. He enjoys going to youth group on Wednesday nights during the school year. It has not translated to friends outside of church or youth group, but he feels accepted and enjoys it so that works for me!

"Over-optimism is waiting for you ship to come in when you haven't sent one out."

From: and/or Robin Lemke <jrisjs@...> Sent: Tue, July 20, 2010 1:33:25 PMSubject: Re: ( ) Re:The future of our children

Some of the saddest times we've had have been because of people in certain churches. It's pitiful.

We finally found a very accepting church. But,,,,,like you, we realized that spirituality can be felt anywhere. Not just in a church.

God is everywhere.

Attack and enjoy every minute of life.

Try everything.. ...protect everything.