Autism Spectrum Disorder

[jimhines]

So a little while back, I was pondering how much to publicly share about family, particularly my children.  There was a reason for this.

Today we received confirmation from my son’s school that he meets their criteria for ASD — Autism Spectrum Disorder.

It’s not completely unexpected.  My wife is a practicing counselor.  I’ve got a degree in psych.  Both of us had noticed certain behavioral issues.

Jackson¹ is a brilliant little kid, and he’s very high functioning.  He is who he is.  A note from the school doesn’t change that.  What it does is gives us a way to make sure he gets the help he needs in school.

Next steps are to meet with the school this afternoon, and to talk to someone about a medical diagnosis.  (If he meets the school’s criteria, the odds are very good that he’ll meet the medical criteria as well, since the schools … well, since it costs them money to provide special ed. services, they’re motivated to minimize the false positives.)

I’m still processing this, and probably will be for a very long time.

I’m not asking for advice, and I’m not currently in a space where I’m interested in hearing it.  If you decide to comment and tell me what I should do, there’s a very good chance your comment will be deleted.

He’s a good kid.  I know he’s going to be okay.  I know the rest of us will, too.  But it’s hard right now.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, so I’m going to just share a picture.

(This was from two years back.  Jackson was sick.  It’s one of my favorite pictures.)

—

1. That’s the name he chose for himself for Daddy’s blog ↩

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Comments

[synecdochic]

I totally grok the "I cannot listen to people pontificate at me", so I shall simply say: Good luck with the medical diagnosis, and with processing time -- it's a tough thing to come to terms with. Best wishes to you and your wife, and to Jackson!

[jimhines]

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm a bit twitchy about unsolicited advice at the best of times. This morning? Not a lot of patience there...

[synecdochic]

Oh, I understand so much.In my case the unsolicited advice is usually aimed at me, and medical, and I usually want to strangle somebody.

I have a few friends who have children with autism, ranging from the mild to the severe, so if you'd like to be put in touch with them to ask questions of someone who's been there, just let me know. You have all my good thoughts.

[wyldbutterflies]

You know what? It is what it is and if you think he is brilliant, wonderful, magical, a-ok - then he is, no matter what. Heck, he could have been born blue polka-dotted with three eyes and a toothy grin and he would still be daddy's son (and knowing your fantasy worlds, you'd probably still love him as much). :)

It will all work out. Really, it will. You know why? Because he seems to have a strong family.

Well wishes and thoughts your way.

[jimhines]

Thanks. You know, given the health troubles he's had, I'm surprised he wasn't blue or multieyed. (He did turn orange at one point, but that was a baby food issue -- too much carrot.)

[branchandroot]

*hugs you* Knowing it'll be okay doesn't always help a lot. Yeah.

[jimhines]

Thanks. We just got back from his IEP meeting with the school, which helped a lot. The support people they have in place all seem to be pretty good, and we spent an hour and a half just talking and planning how to help him in kindergarten.

Sigh. This means he should do great when I bring him to his first SF/F convention, right? :-P

[xap]

*huggs*

[shinryou]

My youngest had ADHD and ODD, everyone even strangers were always trying to tell me how to'fix' him. Annoying as hell it was. I never felt he was broken and needed fixing, I just needed to learn how to to see life from his point of view so I could help him deal with all those oh so helpful people.
(((Hugs))) I know just how the processing gpes.

[jimhines]

So far, people have been pretty good about not trampling the advice boundary on this one. I suspect there shall be some frustration on this in the future, though. People love to give advice. Especially when it comes to parenting, for some reason...