Argh why can't husband accept his child has sen issue of somesort

[Woodward23]

Our child is 7and in year 3 since the age of 1 and half, i felt something was different the way he ate and played, he was very delayed with crawling, sitting up, walking, talking and just his general way he acted my initial thought was autism or something along those lines. We was refered to a pead and community pead but after 5 years of being registered with the community peadiatrician and many, many, many tests and assessments all coming back as symptons of not typically autistic traits, we was discharged as not enough evidence for autism and school was in the same agreement but he WAS diagnosed as learning difficulties, speech communication + social delayment and sensory issues. (Originally called global developmental delay but they've changed it to this now)

Now believe me son has came on so much but its a very slow steady progress. His very clever, very bright and a very polite little boy. Not violent or rude in the slightest. His reading is outstanding and he loves doing maths,art and pe.
His social and communication is his main issue he speech is not clear and very mumbly more like a 3 year old, he lacks fine motor skills and has very quick meltdowns when he doesn't understand. His writing isn't clear . I still firmly believe he is somewhere on that spectrum. He definitely has sensory issues noise, texture and mouth(meaning he is sucking or chewing on things )

The point to my post is it seems my husbands refuses to accept his got any sen issues! Weve just been given an idea of a chew toy and his dismissed it saying that's not something we really want to promote or encourage and were then encouraging him to chew more.
"A lot of issues with children is about nature and nature is "what he believes which indo to a point however I don't think ours is this.
School want him to do a sensory work group/finger gym at beginning of school again he doesn't see why that would be needed .
School have put adaptions into place (he is on the sen list)such as an elastic band on the chair legs so that it makes him sit and fidget with that rather than standing up to fidget.
Early in the lunch hall so not too overwhelming
Same for playtime
Special plate to encourage him to eat
1-1 time with a speech therapist

AGAIN he pulled a face about all of this
Its so frustrating to have him not agree there is anything different/wrong with his child. And I don't know how to convince him otherwise! His even said to me he does see a few things that are different that son is like compared to his peers. So surely he does understand there is issues

I really feel for you, OP. My DS (9) has recently been diagnosed with autism after being on the waiting list for a year, but prior to this, his behaviour was flagged up early in his school life. Many things were flagged up, behavioural specialists came into see him at school, but it took us a long time to actually get to the point of even making a referral for an assessment. This was down to two things really, one being that the school just talked about his behaviour and making support plans, but not once did anyone say to me ‘we think your DS may be autistic,’. I think they are not allowed to suggest things outright and put words in your mouth, they just wait for you to come to the conclusion yourself, and with DS being an only child it was a massive learning curve for me.

Secondly, like yours, my DH didn’t want to accept the fact that DS could have autism. He said ‘I don’t want to label my son, he’ll be tarred’. Etc. etc. I had to stand my ground on this. Being the one who does the school run, I am the one who has to deal with the fall out and speak to the teachers at the end of a bad day. I just said that he needed any help he could get and that we would be failing him if we spotted something wrong and didn’t pursue it and he would forever be struggling at school. He came round in the end as he really couldn’t avoid seeing all the traits. It could be that your DH just doesn’t understand the condition? It varies so much. Can you find out who your local Autism support group is (e.g. mine is Autism West Midlands). They can offer support without diagnosis, they have a helpline for advice, webinars you can watch, and just be a great place for information.

You will just have to be strong and advocate for your DS. He sounds a lot like mine. We are now looking at moving him to a specialist school as he is struggling in mainstream. DH was not on board with this when I first mentioned it but he agreed to come to see the school and was really impressed and is now in agreement that it is the best place. Hopefully they will have a place for him after all the application process.

In the end, I just felt that telling my DH that I was pursuing an assessment and the school was more important for my son ultimately than not doing so. Be strong and keep at it.

We went through asd assessment. Most of family were in denial and dh didn't know what to think although he acknowledged I had significant experience at recognising signs. Getting the diagnosis brought an acceptance for dh and extended family so for you I can imagine no clear answer must be difficult . The thing is in some areas ur child for whatever reason is not meeting developmental norms so he needs some scaffolding to help him develop and thrive

Maybe your DH is scared? He doesn’t know enough about additional needs , doesn’t want to think of his child having a label ( and remember some people still have very outdated labels in their mind)
Your ds sounds to have a good school, offering help.Could you agree to things with the school, present it to DH as a done deed and then after a time discuss how the things put in place help your son? It might be a case of he has to come round to reality step by step.

Tricky. I suppose a question that needs to be considered is whether your DH might be neurodiverse himself? Because of strong family associations, it's often true that parents/grandparents/aunts/uncles have an underlying, but often undiagnosed condition themselves.

Funny you say this! because I now see lots of traits and tendencies in husband also amd I've brought this up with him many times to which he agrees but then "he says ive gone my whole life without being diagnosed and what harm has it caused me " done very well in job high earner ect

I have worked as a teacher with children with Special Needs. Fathers are often slow to accept there is anything wrong. One thing is that it's usually the mother's that speaks to the teacher so they don't get to really hear and ask the questions they would like to. When l am talking to parents l always focus first on what the child can do well and it sounds like your child can do a lot. I often find that this helps fathers to relax as somehow they get a feeling the school are against them . I also chat about other children l have seen being helped..no names of course or recognisable details..but it encourages them to see there is hope. So definitely a meeting with the special needs teacher to get him more involved. A lot of it is fear and disappointment and maybe thinking its their fault. When l mentioned to fathers that my own dc had special needs l could see relief as they were thinking she's a teacher and still her dc need help.
Also mothers chat to each other more so if there was some kind of support group you could both go to it would enable him to meet other parents in the same situation.

Also is there an area he would really like your child to be able to do. For example my own ds needed a lot of therapy when young and my dh felt l wasn't accepting him as he was . But when l said it would really help him with sport he was all in as he feels sports are so important for making friends etc. So he was very happy for us to focus on that then.

Hmm yes I think a lot of it potentially could be that. He doesn't like labels and says its how people nature and nature their kids. School is good and do have lots in place already which though he doesn't agree with is willing to let them do.

The thing which his adamant about is a chewing toy like chewallary . He doesn't want to promote that but I've had spoken to me many times and surely that'll help chewing his clothes . Ahh its so frustrating

It could be he's just frightened to admit his child's needs because it means his child is vulnerable and he just doesn't know how he's going to grow up.

When our ds was diagnosed with dyspraxia and sensory processing disorder he got similar school adjustments such as chair bands for fidgeting and chewy toys, and DH just didn't want these visible signs that ds needed help because he didn't want ds to be seen as different and get bullied-or admit he was scared at what it meant for ds's future

Is it ego?