To ask for help connecting with/understanding my autistic child?

[FranticallyPeaceful]

My son, now 11, has Aspergers and I’m really struggling.
My perfect baby boy, he’s the most amazing man I’ve ever known. He’s sweet and hes kind but he’s so overwhelmed by everything.

I’m not going to lie I get so frustrated at times, he’s so difficult to understand and his behaviour (repeating, talking about the same things, forgetfulness, lack of awareness, etc etc) slowly grates on me. I want to be better for him but honestly it’s so difficult to connect to him now because he’s older and I’ve unintentionally pushed him away (by trying to get him to “behave” before I knew, thinking it was behavioural issues I listened to teachers.). I always knew he was unique but I never knew why.
When talking to him it’s like he glazes over and goes into his own world and I honestly don’t know how to find a way in to his world.

He’s wonderful and I’m failing him and I really feel out of my depth, meanwhile he’s struggling in a world he doesn’t understand and I don’t know how to guide him through it.

His thing is computers and I try restrict them... do I stop? Should I let him on them more? I feel like I’m taking his little world away from him when I take his laptop off him and I’m just making his rabbit hole deeper by forcing him into the world he isn’t comfortable in even more.

Can anybody help me? Are there support groups online for things like this? Are there any books? Is there any approach I can take with him that would help?

I don't have advice but bumping this for you. Maybe try posting in children's SEN section. Lots of very knowledgable mums there.

My ds is 5 and I can relate to everything you're saying. I'm constantly in a battle of wondering if I'm being too soft or too hard on him. Am I mistaking tantrums for meltdown or meltdowns for tantrums?

I can connect with my ds over typical 5 yr old things like we play cars and roads together but I've no idea what the future holds or how things will be when he's 11 like yours. It's so tricky parenting a child with ASD.

I found that going for some councilling for me helped massively because it helped me accept I was struggling and realise that I was basically “grieving” for the child I had expected to have rather than enjoying the one I do have. If that makes sense.

Since doing that I have also accepted going to local parent carers support groups which again is helpful as they get it!

National autistic society is good for signposting to local help. Don’t be too hard on yourself, but do find some support for you because that will help you to help your child.

IMO the best thing you can do is to get to know him, as he is, not as you hope he might be. Can you set aside an afternoon where he gets to choose an activity to do with you (even if that's showing you things on the computer in excruciating detail) where you just go along with everything he says - let him choose what to do, what to eat, how to talk, everything. Nothing needs to be achieved and he doesn't need to behave perfectly - he can just be himself completely with you and you have to just accept everything he does (barring anything really bad of course!). Part of the difficulty will be that on some level he'll have picked up that you don't approve of some of what he does so even though it doesn't seem like it he will be trying (and failing) to modify his behaviour around you (and probably getting wound up about it too, which only makes it worse). If he has some time with you where he can just be himself you may find that a lot of the difficulty just melts away - that you understand him better and that he feels more comfortable.

Read a lot of similar posts on SNChat and SNChildren.

Check out strategies for calming his anxiety, understand any sensory issues, impulsiveness, overwhelm, how he processes information etc.

Read as much as you can.

Stop listening to teachers and anyone else with their "consequences" for "bad behaviour"

Learn to parent the young man you have, not someone else's idea of how they think he should be.