If you had an autistic child would you feel offended if he/she was not invited to a birthday party of a child you know

[TartWithAHeart]

Well would you?

He just sobbed shiny. In a way that I've never seen anyone sob before (except me in my losing it moment ). It was dreadful. It was like seeing all my grief in front of me, but then having to try and deal with it as well.

Gess - it is awful looking back sometimes and sometimes thoughts about the past catch me totally by surprise usually at somewhere inappropriate like the supermarket checkout and I want to burst into tears! Even now I sometimes think this can't have happened to me and I will wake up and it will all be different - and it is nearly 4 years now since we got medical opinion that Ds2 was developmentally delayed (we still have no diagnosis but that first consultation had a similar effect).

My dh sobbed too. Awful. he just sat and sobbed and said "I don't want her to ever be unhappy, let alone this". She was 4 months old.

recently i cried just because i saw a 'babbling baby'...none of my 3 babbled....and its something as daft as that that sets me off.

its also hard when your toddler grows past the 'not sharing stage' and becomes the 10 year old that 'should be able to share by now'.....
or still lies on the shop floors having what look like toddler tantrums- and just walking away makes it worse.

and then being told by social services that your childrens disibilities are not severe enough to warrant help.

My Dh realised long before the dx- I fully beleive thats what triggered the depressive episode that cost him his job etc. He ahsn't accepted it with ds3 though yet, keeps saying 'but it can't be..' or 'he'll just catch up...', as it was a regression this time around it hit me ahrd too but within a few hours of being warned of the dx by the Paed- dread to think what will ahppen when we get teh final written dx for ds3.

Peachy, having just gone through this (no, that's not right, we are still going through it) my heart goes out to you and your DH.

My DH was absolutely stopped in his tracks when I told him about your family (I hope you don't mind) - he just kept saying "But that's just like us...".

If there is any support, listening ear, place to mutually rant, we can offer to you and your DH...?

I can't read the whole of this thread, by the way. I am in a flakey place at the momoent anyway and I can't revisit these issues now.

Tart, my short answer to you is yes, gutted. But nowadays it takes more than people like you to get me down.

HITC- that;s one of the most painful things I've read on here. At 4 months old

It was both awful and very touching. dh didn't bond with dd immediately after birth (long story, difficult birth, I think he shut down and suffered some kind of PND) so when he said that I was immensely touched. I think he fell in love with her when we were in hospital and he suddenly realised how much she meant.

sorry this is totally OT now.

Ours was more gradual.. DS has still got no main diagnosis at 7. And in the early days it was easier to feel positive because DS was such a loving happy baby/toddler. I fell apart initially with all the "why me" stuff and "how can I possibly have another child with serious problems when "everyone" around me seems to effortlessly churn out "normal" child" (completely inaccurate of course.. but that was the way I felt for a short while until I snapped out of it helped by DH who I have always leaned on so heavily for emotional support)

DH held it together through all of this.. for years.. saying "DS is DS.. we'll manage.. look at all the positives" but these days his attitude is such a lot different. I suppose 7 years of sleep deprivation has had its effect as well but he is much less confident, has panicky episodes, is on anti depressant and seems to despair of DS. This is not the man he was when we met. Part of it I think is that the two of them had/have a very close relationship and now each physical blow that DS lands on DH is like a emotional one as well. Whereas I just shrug it off a bit more.

We have just had a copy through of the paeditrican's review report from his appointment last week when we both sat in her office and told her we couldn't cope. I so CANNOT imagine the couple that we used to be saying that about our own child. She has written that half an hour in DS's company exhausted her (the doctor!) and that he was attacking us as she tried to talk to us and that she recommended much more support and urgently.

I wish I hadn't let DH see it. He has been down all day. I think he thinks we are failing DS.

oh terrible though. It was when dh lost it that I realised how much he adored ds1 as well. It was sort of out there to see. UNtil then it had been me driving assessments, worrying about it, talking with friends chewing up the emotions. I'd sort of forgotten that he would be as upset as me.

Yes, I think we do forget they care sometimes when it tends to be us that 'deals' with it all.

Message withdrawn

'Tart+heart' I did invite the destructive child (lets call him K) to my second son's party because I felt sorry for his mum and him and I projected what I used to feel with my first son when he was seldom invited to parties onto them. From what I can tell, K is just a pickle in school (mild literacy difficulties perhaps) and at home. Mum is sweet but weak and has little control over him and he is obviously a child who needs a supernanny type structure. I am pretty sure there is no specific SEN to explain his destructive behaviour as the school are very good at picking that up but obviously I could be wrong there.

Mum kindly invited Son 2 to K's party along with 10 other kids. Because of K's previous behaviour at school (had been naughty when in year 1 but I think he seemed to calm down in year 2) only 2 of us replied and went . My son had a lovely time and K seemed from what I could tell in the 5 mins I saw him) a happy little boy at a family type do in his own house so I returned the invite to my son's football party.

I have to say he was hard work - particularly in the last 45 mins . He was very loud, boisterous, wrecked the singing of Happy Birthday and this was more pissoffing because his mum was there and did absolutely nothing. K was also being racist (aged just 7!!!) to one of my son's friends. I found it really tricky as to how to manage the behaviour because his mum was sat there completely passive. (I am really strict with mine - but it's a tricky line to follow with other people's children). I have to say that my eldest son who has complex HFA would never have behaved in that way neither would any of the ASD kids that we know apart from one who sometimes gets a wee bit hitty when overexcited but whose mother would have intervened immediately and dealt with any situations.

BUT the upside is his mum felt included, her child had finally been invited to a party. She now greets me like a long lost friend in the playground (nobody used to talk to her ). Perhaps K developed his social skills. My son had a lovely time as did his friends who knew it was just K being K and he didn't do anything (apart from the racist bit which is clearly learned behaviour from somewhere and that I only found out about afterwards)that was untenable - he was just super loud and boisterous.

So good luck with your family party. I think you have been very thoughtful to provide a 'chill out' room. Unlike 'K' least your friend's son has a sound reason for any of his 'behaviour'. His parents are on a learning curve just as all parents are on what triggers their child off, what they can do, how long for, the 'blow up' signals. So yes you might get some plant pots overturned (perhaps move them????) and maybe for your own sanity move a few precious bits if you think you need to for practical purposes but it will be worth it for that fact that your friend will hopefully feel included knowing that her 'old life', before the diagnosis, is not completely disappeared into the ether.

Have just been unpacking yet another box and found a diary I wrote during DS1 and DS2's babyhood. Read DS1's first - just made me cry with laughter - all the funny things he used to say, like calling the loo roll a 'wee-wee steamroller' and marmalade 'Lady Marmite'. And then I read DS2's - full of stuff like 'at 13 months can really tell us what he wants...lots of emphatic pointing...follows DS1 around all the time'.
And that made me cry too, but not with laughter . It's the little 'car crashes' that get to me - you think you're coping and sorted and then something like that happens and you realise you're not.

Sphil

I stopped keeping the diary for Ds2 and Ds1 once Ds2's problems became apparent - it used to upset me writing it.

Is that true RnB about 80 per cent of couples? Just had a dx of aspergers for my ds who's five - have had LOADS of rows with dh about it...scarey

Yes, so did I Saker - which is why I'd half-forgotten I'd written it. It peters out when DS2 was about 2 - I've just written across the whole of one page 'Lots of notes elsewhere now'. Interestingly though, you can tell from reading it that something's not quite right from 16 months onwards, even though I had no idea when I was writing it. I start talking about DS2 becoming 'more distant' from DS1 and how he 'prefers to look at books by himself rather than being read to'. I interpreted this at the time as 'fiercely independent'! 16 months is when DS2 had his MMR btw....and he also had an extremely severe bout of chicken pox, a hospitalisation for asthma with steroids poured into him...all of which is taking this post miles away from the OP, but it just makes me think, and feel so frustrated. The diary makes it seem as if I had an NT child, and then I didn't - which might not be true, but that's how it seems.

Sphil - I find it's difficult when you look back to be sure what was actually true and what you interpreted. I have video of Ds2 waving at the age of 1 but he won't even try to now (he just says "wave wave" when I suggest it!) However I have never felt he regressed - I always knew that something wasn't quite right with Ds2 from very early on so I always felt slightly uncomfortable writing about him. I remember desperately counting the number of words he knew at 18months and 2years compared to Ds1 (who talked very early) and also noting that unlike Ds1 who learned names of objects, most of Ds2's words were names of family members, even referring to DS1 as brother which seems surprisingly social. Dh recently revealed to me that he had been concerned as early as 2 months when he noticed his legs were floppy. I also noticed he pointed late although fortunately I didn't realise the significance of this at the time otherwise I would have probably cracked up!

One of the things that annoys me is that as a baby Ds2 cried constantly in the car, in the pushchair, in any kind of travelling motion. He also used to rock his own car seat from any early age really violently and loved the baby swing. Knowing what I know now that he has big problems with balance and vestibular function this all makes sense, and actually is quite common in children like Ds2. I told the health visitor at the time and of course she just made some comment about him growing out of it. I suppose it was too much to expect that she might have read enough about child development to know that it could mean more, or to even go and look it up and find out if it could mean more. Also I suppose it is too much to expect that knowing as she does now that Ds2 has these difficulties that she might remember it next time a mother says that her child cries contantly in the car. I regret so much not having got Ds2 to a private OT at the age of 1 or 2 instead of been fobbed off until he was five when time is starting to run out.

Anyway am rambling as you say well off the thread title.