That last post was heavy. But I think I have mentioned before that this Autism stuff is just that...heavy! I went back and read over my past posts and I feel that I need to elaborate more on this schooling...where he's been and where he is now. I'm pretty tired today so I'll save that for next time. Since Mother's Day, I have felt very sad and down. I'm hoping this will pass but there are still some tough issues to work through.

The issue on my plate for tomorrow is a meeting with the school counselor to talk about Simone. Poor little Simone. She is so understanding and gives into Alex a lot. However, her level of understanding is what we are working on. Over the past 2 years she has asked some general questions about Alex but it seems that since they have been in school together this year that her questions are more frequent and she is wanting to know more about why he is different. She is also trying to understand why we do things or let Alex do things that she doesn't get or isn't allowed to do. A perfect example is:

I've finished reading the book "The Explosive Child". It talks in the book about having 3 baskets. One basket is issues/rules that you will not waiver on and are willing to send your "Explosive Child" into a meltdown over...example would be a safety issue. There is another basket with things that you want to get to the child understand but the child may not be there yet or you need to work on it for a while. Then there are things in the third basket that you just let go. Not worth it. Other children would get these things but in the big picture these battles are not ones you need to waist your energy on. An example of basket No. 3 for us is that Alex has an extreme sense of direction. When in the car, he wants us to go home a certain way from the Y so he can go over the train tracks in town 2 times. So, he tells us when to turn, etc. Anyway, I was joking with him on the way home that I wasn't going to turn left, instead I wanted to go straight. He starts chanting, left, left, left and Simone starts chanting, straight, straight, straight. Anyway, if I had gone straight it would have turned into a meltdown and it just isn't worth it. When we got home, Simone wanted to talk to me in "quiet". She started crying and said that she didn't understand why we always go the way Alex wants to.

So there you have it....how to talk to a 6 year old about Autism will be the topic of the day tomorrow.

I often wonder when Alex will start to figure out that he is "different". Okay...one issue at a time please!