Communication is HARD!!!! Pre-teen stage is HARD!!! But especially with a son with autism. FAIR WARNING This is going to be a brutally honest post about the challenge of communication when you have a child with autism. The last few days have been rough both on him and me. The combination of the preteen personality and hormones flaring up and the bluntness of a child with autism is overwhelming. The frustration for both of us has arrived. This is a brand-new stage and to be honest, it scares me. I have no idea what I am doing. I have no idea what to correct and what to give grace to. I have no idea sometimes where the dramatic responses are coming from suddenly. Communication and emotional processing are difficult for children and preteens with autism, and it was never so evident than the sudden arrival of this new stage. Boy am I not prepared for this!
David and
I have always had a close relationship and I pray that will always be the case.
Right now, it is becoming hard on this mom’s heart when he feels overwhelmed
and doesn’t know how to express himself without having a complete meltdown.
When I say meltdown, I mean he has started to shut down when things get tough.
For instance, we were playing monopoly together and we were having a fun time
together. Everything was going great but then it was my turn to pick a
community chest card. On the card it said I had to pay $50 but he did not
understand what I said. He kept insisting I had to pay more. I tried to explain
why I did not have to and how the rules were different than he was saying and
then he realized he was wrong he immediately went to melt down mode. Melt down
mode has started to go straight to, "I am just a loser. I am so dumb.
There is no purpose in playing if I can’t understand so I am just going to
never play again. I argued about something for absolutely no reason. So
dumb." When I tell him he can choose his attitude he says, "well I
choose to never play again." Then he proceeds to hit himself in the
head repeatedly. He says it's his response to him feeling like he is dumb. Now
normally, parents can tell their children “You can choose your attitude"
but with David I have learned very quickly that it doesn’t work. He will take
it literally and always choose the negative thinking that is ok when he is in
the middle of the overwhelmed moment.
Sometimes I wish that I could
just go right into his brain and see all that he is thinking and be able to be
a perfect communicator....but isn’t that every parents wish? I wish it was that
easy. But then if I were able to do that how would I continue to learn how to
trust the Lord to help me be the best mom to David? He is the great
Communicator and the perfect Father and knows every thought inside of David's
head and he will guide me and show me how to respond in each situation. This
journey can be hard. When you have a child who is high functioning, and it is
not obvious to many people that he is on the spectrum it can be even more
difficult to find people who understand. It also can be really frustrating to
the kid too because all they are trying to do is communicate in a way they know
how and they don’t understand when it comes across as rude. They don’t know why
they misunderstand people, and they don’t understand why they are getting in
trouble for what they say. So, in those moments is when grace is needed.
Patience is needed. A soft answer and slow to respond attitude is needed.
Prayer is needed to know exactly whether it is just plain rude or them not
understanding how to communicate in a healthy way. That is where it gets hard.
It is then when I make those mistakes that I have to give grace to myself and
let him know that Mom is learning just like him. It is then that I see the
calmness in him return.
More on how to calm them and
what I have learned about what works for David....it may help you too! :)
