when I have just REALLY realised that my child does indeed have special needs, please don't...

[BumptiousandBustly]

Tell me that is probably just that he is "so bright, he just can't relate to other children!" That is a) not true, and b) NOT A GOOD THING

Tell me that you know someone who had that, and "THEY managed to work in a garden center!" - I have no problem with the idea of either of my children working in a garden center, but I don't want to think, at the age of 4, that that should be the sum total of his life's ambition.

"reassure me" - by telling me that I am wrong, he is totally normal, your child also displays many of the same behaviors and You are not worried, and that he will grow out of it all!

a) He is (very sadly) CLEARLY not NT. b), your child DOESN'T display the same behaviors - or you would be tearing your hair out too, which means that it ISN'T TRUE that you can cope with those behaviors and I can't. c) he is actually getting worse, not growing out of it.

ALSO do you not understand that by dismissing my concerns you make me feel worse and like I have to justify how bad my Darling DS actually is.

Finally PLEASE let me be sad, for a little while, that my son is going to have a much harder life because of how his brain works - without saying things like "he is still your little boy!" I KNOW THAT, AND I LOVE HIM AS MUCH AS EVER, BUT I AM SAD BECAUSE HE WILL HAVE A MUCH HARDER LIFE BECAUSE OF HOW HIS BRAIN WORKS.

Rant over, hope I haven't offended anyone, please feel free to add any of your own.

Sadly it doesn't ger any better. I am fed up with hearing 'it's just normal teenage behaviour'. No it isn't. Most teenagers don't want to get out of bed in the holidays but not because they can't face the rituals their OCD makes them go through in order to use the toilet, wash and dress. Even professionals who know him have been guilty of this.
And although you get used to adapting your expectations for your Dc. it does overwhelm me from time to time. I don't compare my two much as they are very different, but when I got DD's school report this week, mostly glowing with one minor problem and compared it with Ds's from two weeks ago, I wished life was as easy for him. He is equally bright and enjoys school but just has so many more difficulties.

Great post, OP.

You sum up brilliantly how I feel. Thank you for helping me to feel
less alone with some of my frustrations.

Thankyou Zonedout.

Can I add: pre-school today "you will be very pleased to hear he played with two children today! - you should arrange a play date with them, now you can go home and try to stop worrying!

AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

If one more person claims they know all about autism because they saw Rainman, I will rip off their arm and beat them to death with the wet end.

Same will happen if they tell me how 'they' are all really geniuses at maths.

Savantism is not autism.

and if you ask me what their special skill is, you'll be told they can fly.

and if my mother says to "trust in them" one more time, she can trust that she'll get my boot up her arse.

And stop telling me that you think I'm brilliant, amazing and you don't know how I cope. You think you're complementing me but actually you're insulting my children.

And don't tell me that your child's tantrum because they can't have a lolly is like my children's meltdown. A tantrum is not a meltdown.

Oh, and stop asking if every abusive or horrible man could be autistic (mners I am looking at YOU! ) autism does not = arsehole. arsehole = arsehole.

HecateTrivia I thought the same thing with someones post on a thread this week, very insensitive and ignorant of them.
Wondering if someone with pedophile tendencies had special educational needs? Is there a correlation between paedophelia and SEN?? is there fuck.

This is my MIL's idea of reassurance .... "It could have been worse - when he was born we all thought he was going to be a vegetable"!!

.......and ladies [and gents] lets not foget the 'only special parents get children like this, they only 'go' to those that can give them that love and care', what total crap, I love my daughter - who has no issues [other than being 13!], BUT I love SEN son because he is my beautiful boy - not because he has en effing disability. Note: only people without disabled/SEN children use this one!!

Oh yes to alllll of those!

But my absolute biggest pisser offer is...... we are all a little bit autistic

no we are fucking not!

Or how about 'have you tried (insert the bloody obvious), that helped my neighbours dogs budgie'

The well meaning I can stomach, but its the comments that are thinly veiled judgements that get on my tits the most.

My all time faves?

Have you tried a proper bedtime/breakfast/bloody obvious routine?

All kids do that (so why is it mine is in the 1.5% that need a statement for it?)

Isn't there medication for that?

Everyone is on the spectrum somewhere

They all get there in the end (I have 2 cousins & a sister who never 'got there')

He's got his shoes on the wrong feet/top on inside out.

ah yes, the give him 3 months (in school ) and we will sort him out. apperrently the head says that to a lot of parents patronising idiot

really? how about the 8 months he has already had in school nursery?

what about having a mother who hhas exactly the same training as the teacher and a lower ratio.

sorrry, meant to add that ds has not been diagnosed though has shown enough taits at appointments for him to be sent for assessment to consider/rule out asd.

I am in the maybe it is, maybe it isn't phase... but if it isn't that it is something...

traits

redwhite - been in the is he/isn't he phase for 5 years. In that time I've concluded he certainly isn't NT lol!

This has actually given me a laugh, because I've had most of them.
Telling me about famous people, Bill Gates, Einstein, Jane Austen etc who may or may not have been autistic is no consolation whatsoever and has no bearing on anything.It's like saying "Margaret Thatcher was a grocer's daughter and she became Prime Minister" as if that makes it a possibility for every grocer's daughter.

I think I've been fortunate in that I haven't had the comments that some of you have ( at some of them!), just the usual stares and what not.

I did have one incident with a friend's child, they had come over to play and DF's child had brought a 'cars' bag full of cars with.

DS's favourite thing in the world is cars, especially 'cars' cars (?), so he went straight for the bag. Cue intense screaming from DS when they tried to take it off him, DF then starts saying to his son 'don't worry its ok, I know its not nice when other people take your things looking very pointedly at my now hysterical DS.

They know he has ASD. They know he loves cars. Why antagonise him by bringing them with and then not allowing him to play with them? Why make that stupid comment when they know he doesn't understand they are not his and why he can't play with them.

I was so angry I could have slapped him!

Later that day I cried to DH because it hit home that this is not going to be the first time that people didn't understand him or treated him like he was a second class citizen because he doesn't function like they do. I cried that it wasn't fair he had to put up with that attitude from people.

It was only a small incident really but it just really upset me.

After they had gone DS was fine, laughing, smiling and happy. I'm still learning how to deal with it :)

Bump...Bustly: great post, how old is your child?
My ds is 7 and I think we have finally stopped getting that sort of "reassuring" comments from people, but it used to be incredibly annoying when he was younger.
I remember father in law saying "he will grow out of it when he starts school".
yeah sure...

One that both of my parents have said on different occasions - "nothing that a good hiding won't sort out"

Another one I heard my dad say to my sister in law a few years back - he has no discipline.....

My dad thinks that my now 20 year old severely autistic cousin was doing it all for attention when he was first diagnosed at 18 months old and makes no secret of the fact he hates the boy. He has zero patience.

Timetoask he is 4! So just at the stage when at least some of it can't be down to his age! We haven't told extended family yet, as we don't have a diagnosis yet and wanted to be fairly sure first. But we are expecting pretty much complete denial!