I read The monster inside my son, on Salon.com today. Is this the fear, the dread, the worst case scenerio of every parent with an autistic child? I know a child right now whose family is trying to figure out what to do about his aggression. The article describes a sweet, dreamy child who grows up to not be able to live in the world, who grows up to harm his mother and scare his siblings. I could check the stats on this one -- what percentage of autistic kids grow up so violent that they must life in institutions, but what good are any percentages that would say 10%, 20%, etc., if you child is the one, then the chance was 100%.
I can be very reasonable, and I can also hope and pray real hard. There but for the grace of god . . . Let's just hope for that grace.
Both David and I have notice Julia looking at us, trying to get us to look at her, and just smiling. It is silly, it is very young. Sometimes she talks about falling in love, and I wonder if she is falling in love with being with us.
We worked together today on homework. She hasn't wanted to do it for a few days and I have not pushed it. I want to work regularly but I also want to her to want to do the work, to enjoy the work, and to give her a bit of slack when she has busy days. But then we do not get as much done.
We went over alphabet sounds and then the -at words. It did not go quickly, but not as slow as last time. When we finished pronouncing the words, I had her write down each one -- like a spelling test (not bad to introduce this concept for the future) -- and then read what she had written. Tonight when I put her to bed, I took out a book that uses lots of the -at words. Julia was thrilled that she recognized the words and could read the title without my saying it first.
Julia's behavior was good this weekend apart from church this morning. She decided that she wanted to stay in the classroom before class began and I wanted to see the beginning of the service. She started yelling and I took her aside and held her. We had to do two holdings before she could go into church, and we did get in, albeit just before the kids were asked to go to their classrooms. Is it testing? I wondered if it was today. Does she want to see how far she can go having her own way? The anger was not as intense but the physical part is still impulsive.
1 comment:
That article is absolutely horrifying. I can't even go there mentally. Our son is now 11 and is doing very well but the battle has been long-fought and I guess all we can do is pray that our kids stay on the path to recovery from this awful thing known as autism.
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