Referall to social service for autism courses/services.

[peppajay]

I saw my GP today as I am finding it hard to cope with family life at the moment. My son has aspergers and my dh refuses to help with the kids so I do everything and I feel mentally exhausted-she was very good but very quick to prescribe antidepressants. She has also said she will refer me to social services as they can help with autism services and parenting courses etc but I didn't know social services offered these type of things and I am worried I am Going to be judged as a mum now- I wasn't aware social services did this type of thing.

Thanks for that - I am hoping they will be able to help as I am finding it really hard now and i am sometimes having to start restraining him when he gets angry. I try to make things easier for him by doing things that I know don't stress him out and changing routines in the house to keep him calm but this is seen as giving in to his whims by my hubby. I am going to try and not take the antidepressants and I am going to try and cope by more positive thinking and wait for the counselling have been offered. One day when I am stronger and more confident in myself i hope i will have the confidence to leave him.

peppa I don't think I've had exactly the same problems as you with my dh, but taking DD to appointments, managing her and the other DC was definitely seen as 'my job' (although I work outside the home too). Since DD had a major crisis DH has really stepped up, become much more involved and it's made a big difference. I was close to breaking down, and told him so.
I think one of the problems for us was because I was the one doing all 'the work' with DD, DH lacked knowledge and felt removed from the difficulties. Having a higher level of professional involvement helped us, because it involved DH, so perhaps getting SS involved will be a positive thing for your family.

Seems to me what you really need is a husband management course rather than a parenting course!

More seriously help social services might be able to offer is a small amount of respite (probably not more than 1 or 2 hours a week) or referrals to charities that can offer advice on parenting children with challenging behaviour. We did find the later useful but it was very much geared to the specific problems we were having with my children rather than general parenting advice. A charity called Spurgeons worked with us. Our experience was positive and whilst they might not have had the resources to help as much as we / they would have liked there was never any criticism of what we were doing rather that it was a very difficult situation for anybody to cope with.

It also helped that dh was on board and prepared to give their suggestions a trial. It is going to be very confusing for your son if you and your dh use different approaches and may escalate behaviour whilst he is under your dh's care. I am wondering if your husband would be more willing to give different strategies a go if it was for a trial period with some sort of monitoring of results e.g number of meltdowns a day or whatever behaviour he finds particularly irksome. If you are anything like us then the latest incident can overwhelm the progress that has been made so writing it down helps you to see that you are moving forward.