My 3 year old is on the autism pathway. As a baby I look back now and he was fairly easy, always smiling and happy. From the age of 1 and a half-2 things have been hard. I have no safe place to talk about this but I feel like I don’t have a bond with him anymore. He hates me! He always hits out at me. Across the face as well and it really hurts. He refuses to do anything like tidy up, pick anything up if he drops it. It’s like it physically hurts him to be told to do anything and he screams. I am ‘grieving’ the child I imagined, I’m grieving him as a baby when he faced no difficulties. I feel like I am not the parent I thought I’d be. I’d love nothing more to take him shopping or for a drink and cake..the cinema. Just something. He runs away, doesn’t listen, he would happily walk into oncoming traffic. He has a horrific piercing scream which scares other children. Can’t use reins as he refuses to walk if I dare go in the opposite direction to what he had planned in his head. Things are getting harder. I’m at a loss. I don’t know how to manage his behaviour. I feel like I’m failing him. At the moment no one can come to our house because he screams when anyone comes in that’s not us. He refused to get in the car before because his grandad was in the car as we were giving him a lift. No one else can physically mind him apart from my mum and I want to work more hours apart from the 10 hours a week I do. Full days of nursery are too much. He only does 9-12 4 days a week. Do things get easier? Does anyone have any strategies they perhaps used? His understanding is not the best but not bad. For example he doesn’t understand why we can’t do things so if a shop is shut he won’t understand it’s shut but he understands get me your shoes.
His speech is purely single words and not a lot. Thank you x