My Delightful Little Boy

 

Image Credit: Jayson Kingsbeer

There was always something, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

From the young age of 12 months, I knew my oldest son, who is now three was always a little different in some way. He had certain habits and traits and he liked to do things a certain way. These tendencies however, were often only noticed by me.  

My son is a little boy who is absolutely petrified of certain noises. A little boy who needs his socks to sit perfectly across his toes, who asks me to cut off every tag on every piece of clothing. There is a look of horror on his face as he watches his little sister enjoy every morsel of her Nutella sandwich and paints her entire high chair with chocolate. He wonders how anyone could possibly be so messy. After all, he could eat an entire ice-cream cone without a single drop hitting his hands.  

He is a beautifully energetic and enthusiastic child who loves the great outdoors. He will pretend and play with anything to do with fire trucks or fireman; so much so that his imagination takes him into a world of his own where he will violently push his sister aside to ‘protect’ her from the smoke which only he sees.

He is incredibly gentle and affectionate when it comes to playing with siblings yet can ‘lose it’ hysterically if somebody pushes his perfectly lined trucks out of order.

A little drool on his toy car from his baby brother can bring on a flood of tears and he will refuse to touch his car again until it is all wiped off.

He loves his routine and if things are changed this often rattles him. He insists on wearing flannelette pajamas in 40 degree heat because that is what he ‘usually wears’. He insists on his room door shut opposed to letting the cool air conditioning flow in, because this is how he usually sleeps.

A worried look can follow him around and he often carries an anxiety as to when he will get to spend his next night at Grandma’s, whom his loves visiting!

In trying to get him to copy the pronunciation of certain words to help improve his speech, my 2 years old echoes each word perfectly in the background, while his little mouth tries hard to form each sound.    

These were all somewhat ‘small things’ which we never attributed to much. My husband and I just though he may simply have had a preference to liking things clean, neat, ordered and done a certain way.

Nothing however, troubled me quite as much as having company over. I love having and entertaining friends, but this ALWAYS sent him into a frenzy. I could never understand his drastic shift in behavior. No amount of gentle affection or threats could distract him from the fact that he was surrounded by people.

One day, when his excited friends from Mothers Group came over for a play, he told me there were too many people in the house and he did not like this. During that visit he played up so much and nearly destroyed parts of the house that I became quite desperate as to how to deal with the behavior. What saddened me the most was the way he immediately apologised after the visitors left; as if he was so sorry for what he had done.

I knew something wasn’t right, I felt it strongly in my gut. I realised my child was suffering from some sort of anxiety and had trouble being around others; behaving in the way he did was nearly beyond his control and something was definitely stressing him out. Although I did not understand why, I knew it wasn’t normal for any child to become this distressed. I picked up the phone that afternoon and started looking for help.

While waiting to see a pediatrician, alarm bells started ringing in my head and I began to wonder if my son could have Autism. I jumped onto the internet and started researching some of the signs, traits and behaviors of these children. ‘No eye contact, poor social skills, funny with textures…’ were some of the things I read. This did nothing but confused me even more! I wondered if there was any child out there who had amazing eye contact and did not mind having scratchy tags on their skin.

After seeing the pediatrician, he was referred onto a psychologist as they believed there was reason enough for an Autism assessment. Around a month later, we found out he did have Autism!

Finally, things made so much sense. The conventional methods of disciplining never worked with our son from day one. Simple issues were intensified and tantrums worsened by certain ways of handling them.

Today, we are slowly learning how to manage his behaviour and take the necessary steps to calm him down as soon as he begins to get anxious. We try to remove him from situations which cause him to become nervous or agitated. As a result he is so much calmer and happier, especially in a crowd of people.

The support I have received from other mothers and the understanding from people we have told has been overwhelming! There is so much help out there and endless resources to assist in dealing with particular needs.

I guess I am writing this article for two reasons.

Firstly for any mothers out there who may have been told by others with the best intention at heart that ‘all kids are like that’ or ‘it’s just a habit which will pass’, know that you have a powerful instinct as a mother and that you should trust this maternal instinct you have been blessed with. Seek professional help if you believe this is the way to go as it is the best thing I ever did.

Secondly, knowing that my little boy has Autism has helped me to understand him so much better and to see things a little more clearly from ‘his world’.

Even though we still have our challenging moments and will continue to, I can now take a step back to understand a little of what he is going through and help him the best I can.

It has definitely brought our family a lot more peace.

 

Originally posted 2014-05-22 05:22:27.