how would your asd child react?

[thriftychic]

i discovered our guinea pig had died this morning , weve had her 5 years.
ds (13) doesnt know yet and i dont know what his reaction will be. this is the first time weve had a pet.
he is currently being assessed for asd , obviously they are all different but i am wondering whether having asd would make you more or less likely to be really upset.
i fear he may have a massive meltdown actually

Well, how did he feel about the guinea pig? Because I think that is a big factor in ownhe will react

Was it his guinea pig ? Did he have a connection to it?
In my experience this has been the main difference when we have lost pets .
The cat dying was a bad one because we got her before ds was born but she was very much his cat ( she was orrible really ... She only really liked him )... He couldn't imagine the world without her.
Hope it's not awful for your boy :-(

ye there was a connection, we had two , now just the one. we had photo books made one time with lots of pictures of the guinea pigs in them which he still has in his room. ds1 and ds2 have always liked to make tunnels and things for them in the summer . doesnt pay them quite so much attention in the winter when they dont go out in the run though.

When DS's pet triops died ( I know its not the same - but the nearest I can compare) he was very upset for a few days. We had to clean the tank out and put everything out of sight for him ( mind you they died after he changed the water so he blamed himself which didn't help). We had to have a funeral for them in the allotment (well at least DH did - I didn't have anything to do with it)
When DH's dad died, DS was upset, but also very matter of fact - ie he was ill it was expected and he was gone so there was nothing he could do.
It was really strange the difference between the two.

aww your poor ds blaming himself

ds1 (who isnt diagnosed but i am sure is aspergers) didnt show any emotion when my nanna died , which surprised me and then when he heard steve jobs had died ( the founder of apple) he absolutely broke his heart. he was 15 at the time and it was the first time i had seen him cry in years. He has always had an obsession with all things apple though.

I de read to think how ds will react if anything happened to his dog. When he had a simple op and slipped into coma due to anaesthetic he was beside himself and said if he dies he is going to kill the vet. Spent the next day not going school and just sitting with his dog by the fire under a blanket all day.

when his grandad died he was so matter of fact and when his sisters hamster died he was intrigued said awesome and could he look!

Dd3 was very upset when Dd1's hamster died. We had to have a funeral in the garden and she made a little cross out of lolly sticks.

We just went with it as she obviously needed to do it. She still talks about it and TBH I havent had another pet because she was so upset.

Dd1 didnt flicker though!

Sorry meant to say ,it's that your guinea pig died and I hope your Ds's arent too upset.

thanks , it didnt go too well really but could be worse! am currently hiding upstairs while ds2 plays his xbox .

He shouted at me and stormed off out the front door when i told him , clearly upset.
was worried for a while as to where he was and then when he got back i tried to explain that i knew how he felt and it was ok to be sad etc and tried to give him a hug .
he was telling me to leave him alone and not speak to him ,all angry like it was my fault , i told him i also felt sad and had done all day and he said 'welcome to my world' put his headphones on and started playing xbox !

DS - HF ASD -got 2 guinea pigs when he was about 7. He was entirely responsible for their welfare and care and was quite attached to them. We went through a whole range of experiences with them. 1st off, we thought they were both girls! Wrong. One morning DS went out to check on them before school and came running back shouting "Mummy, there's a baby guinea pig in the hutch" LOL!!! We then had to have the male culprit operated on. So more trauma!
The new baby guinea pig only lived for 6 months and one morning DS came running in to say "Mum", there's something wrong with the baby". It was as stiff as a board - but I explained and he went off to school and told everyone his baby G Pig had died.He took it quite well really. We had a little funeral after school and buried him in the garden (the GP not DS). DS read out a poem, we sang All Things Bright and Beautiful and laid some daffodils on the 'grave', and that was fine fortunately the neighbours were out at the time. When the 2 adult Gps eventually died, DS took it all in his stride and buried them both in the same spot with the baby (we even had to put one of them in the deep freezer in a box wrapped in newspaper for a few weeks as the ground was frozen solid in January!!!).

So basically, we just told him the truth as each event happened and he coped with it fine. I hope your DS is able to cope with his loss too.

Sorry thrifty just seen your post where you said you have told him and he didn't take it too well. Hopefully he will calm down soon.

lol bigblue at having to put it in the deep freeze ! ds2 seems to have got over the shock now and is much better. with ds2 anything unexpected that is not in his favour seems to have him going off at the deep end.
he seemed so mad at me you'd have thought id killed the guinea pig myself ! hey ho think i will see if i can coax a hug out of him now