Re: Please help...I am not sure I can take much more

[Guest guest]

So sorry it's been so hard.

I just gotta say that until my son got older (12 or so), trips were horrible. Out of his comfort zone. We tried and DID take them, even if it was just 7 hours to gramma's....but it was still bad.

A lot of his chatting/interrupting may be nerves or simply him not feeling "right". He's also 8. I think that adds something to the mix, right? he he. One of my kids talks so much....e(even without others' responses) that I've literally thought of running the vehicle into a tree to "make it stop".....he he. My other kids can't take all the talking, either. But,,,,that's just the way she is. Oh well. So......we are constantly tell her to "shorten it up" OR let someone else talk and respond.......and also tell her that sometimes you just gotta "keep it to yourself".

Sounds like you are working with him on social "correct" responses....but remember that it's not just a "show him and talk to him and he'll rmember"........wish it was, but it's neverending.

Sounds like you're really stressed. I know it may be easy for me to say, but your bf is either NOT the right guy or yes, he may be the right one but just in need of couseling and understanding. Does he understand AS? I'm thinking of your son,,,,,,,,,and if he senses that everyone is sick of him........well, it brings tears to my eyes. I think meds for your son.....maybe meds for you.......and finding out if your bf is gonna stick this out is necessary right now. The last thing you and your son needs is someone not willing to work together and stick it out.

Hugs to you.

Attack and enjoy every minute of life.

Try everything.....protect everything.

RobinFrom: <teamjakob06@...>Subject: Re: ( ) Re:The future of our children Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010,

10:27 AMI 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 childrenI 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.SueThe future of our childrenPosted by: "" teamjakob06 teamjakob06Mon 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!

[Guest guest]

I think you're missing the bigger issue your son is facing and that is having to share mom with her boyfriend and another kid. It would appear that you've not fully considered the impact of your new guy (and his kid) and your son. If your son has problems with expression, I would bet he's unable to share with you how unsettling it is to have this new guy around. Has there been a bio dad in the picture for your boy? How much time does he spend with his bio dad?

 

 Nt kids have a difficult time with a divorce, so I can only imagine that one of our kids must feel hell inside when they can't truly express the pain they feel for not having the other parent in their life. I would honestly suggest you make all the other issues you've brought up to be secondary issues and make the issue that your son is acting out because of the new structure of his family life the primary issue to address. Tackle this issue first and there is the high likelihood that many of the other issues will recede when you are addressing the right problem.

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 9:58 PM, gina9431@... <gina9431@...> wrote:

 

So we left for vacation this morning with my boyfriend and his 11 year old son..my 8 year old aspie is driving me crazy. He has been unbelievably defiant, rude, loud, etc. I am pretty sure he talked 7 1/2 hours out of the 8 hour trip..no exaggerating! Everytime someone talks, he talks over them. He has argued everything.no matter hoe stupid. To top it off, I have a sinus infection and just started antibiotics yesterday, do I don't feel well, which doesn't help the patience any. I'm pretty sure my boyfriend and his son have had enough. It is times like this I wonder why he hasn't ran yet (we have been together 2 years). Why would anyone chose to live like this? I do have an appt to talk about meds..we tried once before, but he developed tics. I am scared to try again and feel guilty..like I am only doing it to make my life easier. Any suggestions on meds? We have to stay away from stimulant (the very meds I think would help). I need help with tyhe constant talking and arguing. I told him earlier this is the worst he has ever been, to which he replied, " oh no, I've been worse " . I mean seriously, how do you deal with that? Everything is my fault or someone elses..he never takes responsibility. I thought I was doing good this time..I made a social story on how to act on vacation, especially in the car. I printed maps, menus, etc. to ward off problems. so far the 1st restaraunt was an issue-they had stuffed animal heads, his biggest fear!

----------Sent from my Verizon Wireless mobile phone- Re: ( ) Re:The future of our childrenAs 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 childrenI 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.SueThe future of our childrenPosted by: " " teamjakob06 teamjakob06Mon 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!

[Guest guest]

Strattera has worked well for my son. Intutive didn't work for us. He is also on Lamictal as a mood stabilizer.Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®From: "gina9431@..." <gina9431@...>Sender: Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2010 01:58:19 +0000< >; Roxanna<MadIdeas@...>Reply Subject: ( ) Please help...I am not sure I can take much more So we left for vacation this morning with my boyfriend and his 11 year old son..my 8 year old aspie is driving me crazy. He has been unbelievably defiant, rude, loud, etc. I am pretty sure he talked 7 1/2 hours out of the 8 hour trip..no exaggerating! Everytime someone talks, he talks over them. He has argued everything.no matter hoe stupid. To top it off, I have a sinus infection and just started antibiotics yesterday, do I don't feel well, which doesn't help the patience any. I'm pretty sure my boyfriend and his son have had enough. It is times like this I wonder why he hasn't ran yet (we have been together 2 years). Why would anyone chose to live like this? I do have an appt to talk about meds..we tried once before, but he developed tics. I am scared to try again and feel guilty..like I am only doing it to make my life easier. Any suggestions on meds? We have to stay away from stimulant (the very meds I think would help). I need help with tyhe constant talking and arguing. I told him earlier this is the worst he has ever been, to which he replied, " oh no, I've been worse " . I mean seriously, how do you deal with that? Everything is my fault or someone elses..he never takes responsibility. I thought I was doing good this time..I made a social story on how to act on vacation, especially in the car. I printed maps, menus, etc. to ward off problems. so far the 1st restaraunt was an issue-they had stuffed animal heads, his biggest fear! ----------Sent from my Verizon Wireless mobile phone- Re: ( ) Re:The future of our childrenAs 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 childrenI 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.SueThe future of our childrenPosted by: " " teamjakob06 teamjakob06Mon 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!

[Guest guest]

I know sometimes in a car I can have a little quiet if I bring his DS it needs to be a game he has already played though or you have the frustration issue and outbursts....Hope it helps.From: <teamjakob06@...>Subject: Re: ( ) Re:The future of our children Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 10:27 AMI 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 childrenI 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.SueThe future of our childrenPosted by: "" teamjakob06 teamjakob06Mon 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!

[Guest guest]

I think she has been with him for 2 years so it isn't exactly a new thing. But taking a trip is a new thing and exciting and unnerving for them. That may be more the problem. My DD is still a mess when we go on any trips. She also talks constantly or has a meltdown. That is just part of her makeup and I just don't take many trips anymore. When I do she has electronic devices to keep her distracted and that works. I will say though, this might have been a good test of you and your BF's relationship because if he can't hack it, it is better to find out now than after you have had a child with him. None of this is easy for anyone. From: <doyourecycle@...> Sent: Thu, August 5, 2010 9:24:13 AMSubject: Re: ( ) Please help...I am not sure I can take much more

I think you're missing the bigger issue your son is facing and that is having to share mom with her boyfriend and another kid. It would appear that you've not fully considered the impact of your new guy (and his kid) and your son. If your son has problems with expression, I would bet he's unable to share with you how unsettling it is to have this new guy around. Has there been a bio dad in the picture for your boy? How much time does he spend with his bio dad?

Nt kids have a difficult time with a divorce, so I can only imagine that one of our kids must feel hell inside when they can't truly express the pain they feel for not having the other parent in their life. I would honestly suggest you make all the other issues you've brought up to be secondary issues and make the issue that your son is acting out because of the new structure of his family life the primary issue to address. Tackle this issue first and there is the high likelihood that many of the other issues will recede when you are addressing the right problem.

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 9:58 PM, gina9431verizon (DOT) net <gina9431verizon (DOT) net> wrote:

So we left for vacation this morning with my boyfriend and his 11 year old son..my 8 year old aspie is driving me crazy. He has been unbelievably defiant, rude, loud, etc. I am pretty sure he talked 7 1/2 hours out of the 8 hour trip..no exaggerating! Everytime someone talks, he talks over them. He has argued everything.no matter hoe stupid. To top it off, I have a sinus infection and just started antibiotics yesterday, do I don't feel well, which doesn't help the patience any. I'm pretty sure my boyfriend and his son have had enough. It is times like this I wonder why he hasn't ran yet (we have been together 2 years). Why would anyone chose to live like this? I do have an appt to talk about meds..we tried once before, but he developed tics. I am scared to try again and feel guilty..like I am only doing it to make my life easier. Any suggestions on meds? We have to stay away from

stimulant (the very meds I think would help). I need help with tyhe constant talking and arguing. I told him earlier this is the worst he has ever been, to which he replied, "oh no, I've been worse". I mean seriously, how do you deal with that? Everything is my fault or someone elses..he never takes responsibility. I thought I was doing good this time..I made a social story on how to act on vacation, especially in the car. I printed maps, menus, etc. to ward off problems. so far the 1st restaraunt was an issue-they had stuffed animal heads, his biggest fear!

----------Sent from my Verizon Wireless mobile phone- Re: ( ) Re:The future of our childrenAs 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 childrenI 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.SueThe future of our childrenPosted by: "" teamjakob06 teamjakob06Mon 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!

[Guest guest]

Oh yeah.....thank God for video games. hee hee.

Attack and enjoy every minute of life.

Try everything.....protect everything.

RobinFrom: <teamjakob06>Subject: Re: ( ) Re:The future of our children Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 10:27 AMI 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 childrenI 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.SueThe future of our childrenPosted by: "" teamjakob06 teamjakob06Mon 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!

[Guest guest]

I just wanted to tell you that you should not guilty for having your ds on meds.

When my ds was first dx i was unsure about putting him on his meds but after he

was on it for a while i noticed the improvments and it was a blessing it not

only mad things easier for me but also for him. It was the best thing I could

ever do for him hes has had an easier time playing with other children his

anxity is not as bad. It hasnt improved the constant talking and question asking

but he feels better in general. Talk to your doc and see what meds you can try

at some point you may find one that will work with him just dont give up it the

long run you will find that it will all be worth it.

>

>

> 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.}.

>

> 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

>

> 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!

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

yes! But they do become addicted to them...don't know what else to do though.From: and/or Robin Lemke <jrisjs@...> Sent: Thu, August 5, 2010 1:03:19 PMSubject: Re: ( ) Please help...I am not sure I can take much more

Oh yeah.....thank God for video games. hee hee.

Attack and enjoy every minute of life.

Try everything.. ...protect everything.

RobinFrom: <teamjakob06>Subject: Re: ( ) Re:The future of our children Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 10:27 AMI 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 childrenI 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.SueThe future of our childrenPosted by: "" teamjakob06 teamjakob06Mon 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!

[Guest guest]

DS (14) has been on Strattera for several years and it has worked well. When we tried to take him off of it, we could really see the difference it made. It settles him down tremendously!I would def consider taking it, esp if your son has ADHD.Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®From: "Dana " <roberts-dlr@...>Sender: Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2010 11:31:46 GMT< >Reply Subject: Re: ( ) Please help...I am not sure I can take much more If you don't mind me asking. How long has your son been taking Strattera? Do you give it him at night? My son is 13 and it is a med I would like to try it for him.Thanks,Dana----- ( ) Re:The future of our childrenI 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.SueThe future of our childrenPosted by: "" teamjakob06 teamjakob06Mon 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! ____________________________________________________________60” Plasma for $13.42?NOW: High-Ticket items being auctioned for 95% off retail! Learn more.SwipeBid.com

[Guest guest]

I hear ya. But.....I think we're all addicted to something. If I had the opportunity, I'd watch tv non-stop....and drink coffee.....and eat chocolate. hee hee.

Whatever keeps the peace and makes a person feel good!!!!

Attack and enjoy every minute of life.

Try everything.....protect everything.

RobinFrom: <teamjakob06>Subject: Re: ( ) Re:The future of our children Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010, 10:27 AMI 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 childrenI 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.SueThe future of our childrenPosted by: "" teamjakob06 teamjakob06Mon 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!

[Guest guest]

That's right..this is definately not a new thing as we have been together for 2

years. This is also the 3rd time we have taken them somewhere. I do think he

tends to be jealous if I give anyone else attention, but he has no problem with

just saying, " i am jealous you sre giving bf attention " . He loves bf and his

son, and constantly asks when we are going to do something with them. Sometimes

I think he is just too excited. He's been terribly lately with touching

everything, talking constantly, etc. I honestly am starting to see more adhd

symtoms. It is funny thoughh, cause when by himself he could watch tv or play

computer quietly all day. My son has always done well in the car if he has his

dvd player and ds. however, that just doesnt seem to be the case with bf and

his son. I feel bad for the son cause mine will no leave him alone. he is

awesome with my son though, and i am so thankful for that. his bff is actually

autistic, so he has some understanding. i jut wish my son would play his ds

quietly in the car withy sf's son..even when he was playing it was non stop

chattering, whistling, growling, & so on. I am considering trying the strattera

again, even though i think it made his tics worse. He has been having lots of

tics anyway, & i worry about this behavior at school. they had to isolate him

most of last year cause he cant keep to himself. i worry about him never making

friends acting this way & wonder if im helping by not medicating..

----------

Sent from my Verizon Wireless mobile phone

- Re: ( ) Re:The future of our children

>

>

>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!

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

We all wish we knew whether or not to medicate. I medicate my daughter and just started her on Intuniv 2 weeks ago. Monday she starts school and we are very nervous. I will keep you posted.. to not medicate is not an option anymore. Her birth mother was not medicated, and I am sure was AS (my former daughter-in-law) She began using drugs instead in high school and is still a meth head in California, so she self medicated..I am hoping to prevent that with my daughter (adopted granddaughter).From: "gina9431@..." <gina9431@...> ; sandee C <irsandee@...>Sent: Fri, August 6, 2010 12:57:07 PMSubject: Re: ( ) Please help...I am not sure I can take much more

That's right..this is definately not a new thing as we have been together for 2 years. This is also the 3rd time we have taken them somewhere. I do think he tends to be jealous if I give anyone else attention, but he has no problem with just saying, "i am jealous you sre giving bf attention". He loves bf and his son, and constantly asks when we are going to do something with them. Sometimes I think he is just too excited. He's been terribly lately with touching everything, talking constantly, etc. I honestly am starting to see more adhd symtoms. It is funny thoughh, cause when by himself he could watch tv or play computer quietly all day. My son has always done well in the car if he has his dvd player and ds. however, that just doesnt seem to be the case with bf and his son. I feel bad for the son cause mine will no leave him alone. he is awesome with my son though, and i am so thankful for that. his bff is actually autistic, so he

has some understanding. i jut wish my son would play his ds quietly in the car withy sf's son..even when he was playing it was non stop chattering, whistling, growling, & so on. I am considering trying the strattera again, even though i think it made his tics worse. He has been having lots of tics anyway, & i worry about this behavior at school. they had to isolate him most of last year cause he cant keep to himself. i worry about him never making friends acting this way & wonder if im helping by not medicating..

----------

Sent from my Verizon Wireless mobile phone

- Re: ( ) Re:The future of our children

>

>

>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!

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

when my son tried that medication, we was very dizzy and told me he felt drunk...as if he knew that feeling. And in school he was sooo hungry I had to send extra food with him so he could eat during class. And he slept a lot. I mean a lot. We did not know what to do with ourselves. If the side effects had not been so bad. I feel this med may have worked for him. Today we decided to give Concerta another try. Very scared he has tried over 10 meds in the last 5 years. He has been off meds since April and slowly getting worse. We are revisiting because swollowing pills was the issue back then. Still very scared to see what the day has in store for us. I will say Vyvance was a miracle drug until about being on it a year and he developed stomach troubles etc...Growth has always been an issue

too. Does anyone know how to get weight on a kid. I have tried everything. He is so little the size of a seven year old and he is starting middle school, I am very worried.>>>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.}. >>>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>>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! >>>>>

[Guest guest]

A nutritionist might be able to help you with weight gain issues. When my son

was an infant, he was pretty skinny and we saw a nutritionist who helped us

learn ways to sneak extra calories into his food. Our insurance covered it, we

just had to sign up for some free wellness program they had (because most kids

who go to a nutritionist need to lose weight, not gain it). There is also an

excellent book by an author named Ellyn Satter called " Child of Mine: Feeding

with Love and Good Sense " . It is sort of boring, but it has good information.

Bridget

> >

> >

> >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.}.

> >

> >

> >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

> >

> >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!

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

>

[Guest guest]

Well, another bad day on vacation. This time we ended up back @ the hotel.my

son sleeping while I sit crying. The final straw was in the car..he was picking

on bf's son (who is 3 years older by the way). I kept telling him to stop

hitting with a toy or I would take it away, when he did it again (as he always

does), i told him to give me the toy. After arguing, he finally threw it @ me.

At this point bf was trying to find somewhere to pull over as I wanted to sit in

the back seat to keep him from picking on bf's son. Bf says something to him

about throwing the toy @ me & picking on his son. My son says he will just

punch Bf's son in the face. Bf tells my son that if he hits his son he will

have to deal with him, to which my son replies that he would just punch bf in

the face! So, when we get pulled over, bf pulls my son out of the car and is

visably upset. He sends my son over to me as he realizes how mad he is.....in

the meantime my son kicks rocks on bf's car. I finally just tell bf to take us

back to the hotel where I told my son to take a nap. There is no point talking

to him...he doesn't listen anyway. Bf came in and apologized, started crying

with me @ blaming himself for part of the problem. I get so torn because I get

that mad @ my son too, so how could I expect him not to. I get jealous of bf &

mad at him cause I feel like he has the perfect child & hardly has to do

anything. I work my butt off & mine is a total brat. I wonder if it is just my

parenting? I dont enjoy being a parent!

- ( ) 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!

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

>

[Guest guest]

It is not just you or your parenting. It is hard enough dealing with an AS child in a structured home environment, let alone out of routine on vacation. I am on my second day of vacation with our family and I am exhausted! I think the kids are having fun, but it's taking a toll on me. To keep things running smoothly takes a lot preparation and constant monitoring. I do get jealous of people who have "easy" kids who can just enjoy a vacation. It's hard not to feel that way. I just want to tell you - you are not alone!SuzanneSent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®From: "gina9431@..." <gina9431@...>Sender: Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2010 21:26:50 +0000< >; bridget<beanniferj@...>Reply Subject: Re: ( ) Please help...I am not sure I can take much more Well, another bad day on vacation. This time we ended up back @ the hotel.my son sleeping while I sit crying. The final straw was in the car..he was picking on bf's son (who is 3 years older by the way). I kept telling him to stop hitting with a toy or I would take it away, when he did it again (as he always does), i told him to give me the toy. After arguing, he finally threw it @ me. At this point bf was trying to find somewhere to pull over as I wanted to sit in the back seat to keep him from picking on bf's son. Bf says something to him about throwing the toy @ me & picking on his son. My son says he will just punch Bf's son in the face. Bf tells my son that if he hits his son he will have to deal with him, to which my son replies that he would just punch bf in the face! So, when we get pulled over, bf pulls my son out of the car and is visably upset. He sends my son over to me as he realizes how mad he is.....in the meantime my son kicks rocks on bf's car. I finally just tell bf to take us back to the hotel where I told my son to take a nap. There is no point talking to him...he doesn't listen anyway. Bf came in and apologized, started crying with me @ blaming himself for part of the problem. I get so torn because I get that mad @ my son too, so how could I expect him not to. I get jealous of bf & mad at him cause I feel like he has the perfect child & hardly has to do anything. I work my butt off & mine is a total brat. I wonder if it is just my parenting? I dont enjoy being a parent!- ( ) 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! > >> >> >> >> >>

[Guest guest]

It's NOT your parenting. My child was the same way. It is so exhausing. We can't even vacation with others. Perhaps next time just go with your family. For us, vacationing with others was too rough. We needed to be by ourselves just incase our girl got out of control. It was more peaceful for her too. She played with kids that she met in the pool at hotels, and then we could make it short and call it a day, ya know. You poor thing. I know what your going through. Your a great parent. Your child is sick and the behavour is not willful. It is so easy to get mad at them, I know. They can be so mean. My girl was so annoying and nasty. She is medication now and really starting to get a bit better after ten looooong years. Is your little one on anything? Don't be too hard on yourself. We have too many other people that will do that for us. :0)On Aug 7, 2010, at 4:26 PM, gina9431@... wrote:

Well, another bad day on vacation. This time we ended up back @ the hotel.my son sleeping while I sit crying. The final straw was in the car..he was picking on bf's son (who is 3 years older by the way). I kept telling him to stop hitting with a toy or I would take it away, when he did it again (as he always does), i told him to give me the toy. After arguing, he finally threw it @ me. At this point bf was trying to find somewhere to pull over as I wanted to sit in the back seat to keep him from picking on bf's son. Bf says something to him about throwing the toy @ me & picking on his son. My son says he will just punch Bf's son in the face. Bf tells my son that if he hits his son he will have to deal with him, to which my son replies that he would just punch bf in the face! So, when we get pulled over, bf pulls my son out of the car and is visably upset. He sends my son over to me as he realizes how mad he is.....in the meantime my son kicks rocks on bf's car. I finally just tell bf to take us back to the hotel where I told my son to take a nap. There is no point talking to him...he doesn't listen anyway. Bf came in and apologized, started crying with me @ blaming himself for part of the problem. I get so torn because I get that mad @ my son too, so how could I expect him not to. I get jealous of bf & mad at him cause I feel like he has the perfect child & hardly has to do anything. I work my butt off & mine is a total brat. I wonder if it is just my parenting? I dont enjoy being a parent!

- ( ) 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!

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

>

[Guest guest]

We're not enjoying being parents either - can see why a parent walks out (even

if not fair on other parent).

Our boy is very stroppy and defiant today - he's had a little too much

salicylates (in fruit) which makes him very negative and oppositional.

Wonder if he will ever improve. Yesterday was quite a good day, but we have

plenty of bad days

Miranda

> > >

> > >

> > >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.}.

> > >

> > >

> > >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

> > >

> > >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!

> > >

> > >

> > >

> > >

> > >

> >

>

[Guest guest]

Thank you so much! We actually have an appt on wed to discuss meds again. We

tried a year or so ago, but I gave up due to side effects (mainly facial tics).

It is a year later and the tics are as bad as ever, so I'm not going to let that

bother me. It's just nice to have someone to vacation with It is just my son &

I, as I can't get my family to go anywhere. Before my bf, I had hardly taken

him or done anything with him. It's like someone on the board

said....everything is a battle to get them to do things, but once they do it

they often love it! This just makes me worry we could never be in the same

household together. We have talked about marriage and living together, but who

could live like thus every day? I'm sure it would be a little better at home,

but still! I find myself thinking I was wrong to ever start dating!! My ex

left me for one of my best friends, so then I start hating him for leaving me in

this position (although I would never want him back). I just can't see how

anyone could tolerate that behavior, except for the bio parents. I have a

feeling my ex' gf is often annoyed and mean to my son (well, from what he tells

me). I start wondering if my bf is just not the " right " guy, or wondering if I

am expecting too much from him Would any guy really not be bothered by this

behavior? Then I have a pity party for myself and think I should just stay

single the rest of my life

----------

Sent from my Verizon Wireless mobile phone

- ( ) 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!

> > >

> > >

> > >

> > >

> > >

> >

>

>

[Guest guest]

Is he on medication too Miranda?On Aug 7, 2010, at 10:36 PM, baileybear64 wrote:

We're not enjoying being parents either - can see why a parent walks out (even if not fair on other parent).

Our boy is very stroppy and defiant today - he's had a little too much salicylates (in fruit) which makes him very negative and oppositional.

Wonder if he will ever improve. Yesterday was quite a good day, but we have plenty of bad days

Miranda

> > >

> > >

> > >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.}.

> > >

> > >

> > >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

> > >

> > >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!

> > >

> > >

> > >

> > >

> > >

> >

>

[Guest guest]

No meds now, we have an appt wed to try again. We tried a year or 2 ago, but I

gave up due to side effects. One thing bf and I concluded today is he is

showing off for my bf's son. They do not get to hang out together a whole lot

since we have them on opposite weekends...and my son loves him. Bf's son is

awsome with my son and I love watching them together (when my son is not being

obnoxious). I just had a talk with my son in private about not showing off for

my bf's son and that he doesn't think disrespecting your mom is cool. I've

reminded him of our talk twice since getting back in the car (we our on our way

home from vac). So far, he reponded both times. Guess we will see. Does

anyone else experience this with their kids? How do you teach them to act

proper around my peers? After this trip, I see why he is constantly isolated @

school and was sent home from boyscout camp 2 out of 3 days!! I worry he will

never have any friends...I have seen his peers avoid him because of this

behavior. Most kids will not be accepting I will be happy to be homed....no

more, " I will go if it's not in the sun " (he makes himself sound so wimpy and

doesn't even care). No more, " I can't eat those chicken nuggets, they are to

hard in th middle " or " too chewy " . Ahhhh, the comforts of home!

----------

Sent from my Verizon Wireless mobile phone

- ( ) 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!

> > > >

> > > >

> > > >

> > > >

> > > >

> > >

> >

>

>

[Guest guest]

hang in there, . Anytime you step out of the routine, it's going to be difficult for many of these kids. You have to allow extra time and energy to dealing with your ds. I mean, car trips with NT kids can make a parent go crazy! So it's small wonder we can have more stress with it than a typical parent might have to deal with.

A few things we learned: make up a bag or box of "to do" items for the child. This is obvious to many, but it is essential to keeping the kids occupied and not fighting together. Get him a small MP3 player and load it with songs that sooth or entertain him, depending on his age. Then he can put in his ear buds and enjoy himself. Lots of word find books if he enjoys that - books to read or color, if he enjoys that. The Nintendo DS was an essential tool for our boys. Well, years ago, it was the "gameboy" but now it's the "DS" and a laptop. For our older ds, we would get him a new game before a long trip and it would keep him busy for a long time. Also, we had a tiny tv back then for movies. We could tape episodes of "Mega Man" and my ds would be very entertained for the longest time. Today, you can get those small screens and a dvd player. It is worth the cost, IMO.

Also, stop more often than usual to stretch his legs and burn off some energy. Make sure he is well fed in the car. A hungry kid is a kid waiting to slug his brother. lol. And just like you were trying to do - stop him before he gets out of hand. Pull the car over and separate him when he can't stop on his own. Don't give it time to see if he will do it on his own. Sounds like he escalates his own emotions to match everyone else's and you don't want him beating up you or the car.

And finally, it's not you! Parenting these kids is really difficult at times. Some kids are naturally easy going and other kids are not. Kids with AS often have a lot of problems with self-regulation and behavior. So it's going to be harder to deal with that.

Roxanna

Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

( ) 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!

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

>

[Guest guest]

Perfectly said, Wilma.

Attack and enjoy every minute of life.

Try everything.....protect everything.

Robin

Well, another bad day on vacation. This time we ended up back @ the hotel.my son sleeping while I sit crying. The final straw was in the car..he was picking on bf's son (who is 3 years older by the way). I kept telling him to stop hitting with a toy or I would take it away, when he did it again (as he always does), i told him to give me the toy. After arguing, he finally threw it @ me. At this point bf was trying to find somewhere to pull over as I wanted to sit in the back seat to keep him from picking on bf's son. Bf says something to him about throwing the toy @ me & picking on his son. My son says he will just punch Bf's son in the face. Bf tells my son that if he hits his son he will have to deal with him, to which my son replies that he would just punch bf in the face! So, when we get pulled over, bf pulls my son out of the car and is visably upset. He sends my son over to me as he realizes how mad he is.....in the meantime my son kicks

rocks on bf's car. I finally just tell bf to take us back to the hotel where I told my son to take a nap. There is no point talking to him...he doesn't listen anyway. Bf came in and apologized, started crying with me @ blaming himself for part of the problem. I get so torn because I get that mad @ my son too, so how could I expect him not to. I get jealous of bf & mad at him cause I feel like he has the perfect child & hardly has to do anything. I work my butt off & mine is a total brat. I wonder if it is just my parenting? I dont enjoy being a parent!- ( ) 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! > >> >> >> >> >>