Hi, I'm hoping for a little advice regarding my son.
I'm a mum of three boys. My eldest is 12, has a diagnosis of autism among other things but ASD is the prevailing issue with him. He's in a specialist school.
My middle child, Sam is 9 and he's the one I'm concerned about here. He's behind in several areas at school and always has been, despite extra tutoring. He's a quiet, gentle and sensitive boy but every now and then erupts into violent outbursts where he will throw things around and can take a really long time to calm down. I put this reaction down to the fact that he's seen his older brother behave like this. His brother has frequent, epic outbursts. Sam doesn't have these outbursts anything like as frequently and no where near as long, although he will easily be volatile for a good 1/2 hour to an hour if he's really wound up.
He hates school. Again he always has and I know lots of kids feel that same but he often has an upset tummy when he knows it's time for school. He's mostly good at talking to me and has given no indication of bullying. He has friends and it quite sociable. At the same time, if his friends call round after school for him, he usually doesn't want to see them. He spends hours in his room drawing monsters and mythical creatures or watching video's about monsters. That's his thing and he would usually rather do that than see friends. If I were to try to compare that to my eldest sons obsessions, I'd say looking at it, they're very close. Just my eldest son is just much more forceful in getting me to engage with his interests.
Sam is also very sensitive to sound. I often catch him ducking or covering his ears in reasonably noisy situations. Today his school recommended I get him some ear defenders as they've noticed it too.
My concern here is whether Sam is more than just a bit behind at school and I'm missing something because I've been so focused on my eldest son, who is much more demanding. In fact he is hard work and pretty much non stop. I don't know whether it's autism or something else. I do wonder whether the things that we experience with my eldest are just so much the norm that I don't realise that they're an issue. It would be great to have someone else's view as to whether I should look further into this or whether I'm being a bit paranoid. I'm afraid I'm letting him down.