Family!

[sansissu]

I have just been told that the way to help my DS cope with meltdowns is to force him to stay in a noisy social situation that he can't cope with until he has one. Apparently, he'll learn how to cope that way. The family member in question is obviously missing out the fact that the ambulance would need to be on standby to cart the injured away. I can't believe that after all this time (5 years after diagnosis) they still don't get it and think that me warning them we may have to leave early is pandering to the selfish child's whim. had to rant somewhere, this seemed the best place!

if he isn't self injurious leave the family member in charge of him for 30 minutes and turn on the DVD player, Hoover, alarm clocks and a few noisy you-tube videos in the room

ignore them(lot easier said than done) and see how you can work on slowly desensitising him as much as possible and make his life easy

Hi sansissu and welcome to the board. This is absolutely the right place to rant. Loads of us have similiarly stupid relatives and yes it could drive you mad.

I used to have visual reminders in my house to help Dd3 get through her day. I have now changed them to visual reminders to my family that she has autism and they should keep their opinions to themselves!!

Good luck

Ha my house is full of visuals for the benefit of family members!!!
Ds no longer needs them at home but I know that if I remove them in the eyes of my family he will be cured .

Was just reading this and wondered what you mean by having visuals round the house? thanks

thanks all! you made me chuckle and feel better (I was beginning to doubt myself), and thank you for the useful suggestion too in the first response (can't see names while typing in this app! sorry! ). family just drive you nuts, don't they. We mentioned having to go to this social event to DS this morning (a wedding, by the way) and were met with immediate door slamming and school refusal. I'm not sure we should even try to force him to go. It will be a long and boring day for an NT kid, and DS is 10, so beyond colouring books and normal distractions and knows from bitter experience what a wedding involves. Lots of waiting around found ceremony, photos, food, lots of people, uncomfortable clothes, heat, noise, changing venues from ceremony to reception. It's an aspie nightmare from start to finish. Hoping my in laws might be able to look after him but then I have to battle with bride because she wants her whole family to share her special day whether they like it or not (cue stamping of bridezilla's feet). Families.

*waiting for ceremony etc. stupid predictive text

Don't force him to go if it'll be too much for him.

Say once and once only to the bride that it's too much for him to attend and then don't get drawn into any explanations. I no longer apologise for leaving events early etc and find that over time this approach works better than trying to appease people who will never "get it" anyway & will then rush to blame me if DS does say something tactless etc, etc.

Even my SIL (who interprets ds2's meltdowns as showing off) has accepted that it is no-one's interest to force ds1 and ds2 to attend my nephew wedding. A shame as they were actually pageboys at his brothers wedding a few years ago - how things change. Hopefully, we will start to move in the positive direction again soon but for now we are picking our battles and a wedding is no place for a confrontation.

Thanks again. I am taking your advice and not going to force him. If we can't get in laws to look after him, I'll just go on my own and he and his dad can have a boys' day of mine craft and lego. She will just have to lump it. It's nice to be able to come here for input from people who do get it. Thank you!