Author: Super Autism Mum

An idea that came up at the final meeting of the preschool placement, was the idea of having a sensory box. Our son likes to chew things alot and puts pretty much everything in his mouth, and he likes the feel of things, in particular the reversible sequins. He loves moving them back and forth.

Preschool suggested having a box of sensory items that was readily available to him when he needed sensory relief.

For his birthday in July last year, I made up a box of items I picked up on Amazon and eBay and also some bits and pieces I picked up from Home Bargains. You don’t need to spend alot, I didn’t. I put them in a gift bag and he loved it! I done the same at Christmas and will do the same for his birthday this year.

Here are a few ideas:

Our carer’s centre ran a Lego Therapy course tailored specifically for ASD. I was intrigued by this, so put my name down to attend.

It was ran by a lovely woman who has set up her own company doing this. I thoroughly enjoyed the course, who wouldn’t enjoy a morning of Lego!

Our son wasn’t interested in Duplo, in fact I have just recently sold the 3 sets he had on eBay as they were brand new and never looked at. I am very keen to get him interested in Lego as everyone loves Lego.

The course told us how it can improve their focus and help with their imagination, something that people with autism struggle with.

Game ideas:

• Make a Lego target for Nerf guns to hit off
• Spot the difference – make 2 shapes/pictures with a difference in one and find the difference between them
• Spot the difference – take a photograph of a shape/picture then make it differently and spot what the difference is
• Make your own instructions – take photos on the iPad to incorporate the iPad into play with Lego
• Make 2 identical boxes of Lego pieces, but have one piece missing from a box, engage by saying “your blue piece is missing, would you like mine”

After discussing game ideas, we were split into groups of 3 and asked to name ourselves:

1. Engineer – the person with the instructions who tells the supplier what brick is needed
2. Supplier – the person with the Lego pieces who gives them to the builder
3. Builder – the person who puts the pieces together

We then had to work together to make the Lego items, in our group we had a house, car, dog, table and chairs to make.

I started as the builder then moved on to being the engineer. It was really difficult to describe the bricks to the supplier:

• Flat white one row four dots
• Thick green two rows six dots
• Blue four dots on top and slant to the left

Try this – it’s not as easy as you think it will be. But we managed it, and it showed us how difficult it can be following instructions from descriptions just like our children do.

I bought Elf on the Shelf a few years ago when I was in New York but I never used him the year I got him. The more I thought about it, I didn’t think our son would understand what was happening, so I put him away and we got him out this year.

The concept of Elf on the Shelf, is that Santa sends the elf to our house on the 1st December to watch the kids and he reports back to Santa on Christmas Eve, but each night when the kids sleep, the elf gets up to mischief! This involves parents trying to think of 24 things for the elf to get up to – thankfully there are a million ideas on Pinterest!! The kids are not allowed to touch the elf as this removes the magic.

I know that our son would struggle a bit with this concept, so we altered it slightly and made it our own. He arrived the morning after the Christmas tree went up – 9th December. I found a message board to use:

Elf on the Shelf Writable Board

The morning he arrived, he sat beside the tree and I just wrote, “Hello, Santa sent me to visit you”. Our son just looked at him, not really bothering with him. The next morning we hid him in the cupboard with the DVD’s. When our son got up, we said “Where is the elf?” He then started to look for him!

He found him, then put him back under the tree where he was. We continued to do this until Christmas day. The elf was hiding in the Christmas tree, on top of a photo frame, in the fridge sleeping in his yogurts……… He is supposed to go back to Santa on Christmas Eve, but we kept him and put him on our son’s presents on Christmas morning as if the Elf had brought them. It worked out well and hopefully next year will be even better.

I was shown this a while ago, but didn’t appreciate it until recently. Written by American author and social activist Emily Perl Kingsley in 1987 about having a child with a disability:

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away…because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But…if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland.

It’s the most wonderful time of year again! Christmas trees are popping up all over now, I’m sure this weekend will be a popular weekend for trees going up 🎄

When I was a little girl, I remember being out with my dad and playing ‘spot the Christmas tree’ where we had to find all the trees in houses and see who could find them first. I tried to play this with my son driving home last night but I couldn’t get him to play. It made me sad. I remember the excitement of Christmas when I was young and was so excited to experience this with my own child but his awareness is just not there. He loves to look at all the lights, so I was slowing the car down to let him enjoy them, but I couldn’t get him to engage with me to play. It could just be that he was enjoying looking out the windows and seeing lights. Maybe next year he will play with me. In the meantime, I will enjoy spending time with him looking at lights.

I’m trying to stop focusing on what he isn’t doing or can’t do, and focus on what he is doing. It’s hard when there is a whole world of fun out there I want to share with him, but we will take it a step at a time ♥️

I have now successfully put our son to bed twice on my own with no daddy – go me!!!

I think (hope!) that the phase of only letting daddy put him to bed has passed.

Another challenge defeated, bring on the next!!!

I received a phone call from school on Monday afternoon to say they were running a Makaton Course in school for the teachers and they have a couple of spaces free if I want one. Of course!!

I attended school all day Tuesday and Wednesday for the course and loved every second.

We learned the background to Makaton and around 200 signs. Now I just need to keep practicing!

Join their Facebook page: Makaton Central

https://www.makaton.org

School are teaching the mainstream children Makaton and all their teachers are learning it which is AMAZING! It raises more awareness and understanding throughout the whole school.

Daddy is going out with his friend today. Normally they meet up later on, 6pm ish, but today they are meeting at 12pm and getting lunch. He hasn’t seen him for a while so I’m glad he is getting out to relax and let loose.

This would normally fill me with dread. I used to be so anxious when left with our son on my own. But now, I can’t wait for a day just the two of us, I’m so excited!

I have joined a few private Facebook groups for support and guidance. I read the posts regularly but don’t often comment as normally by the time I read the post, someone has already commented on what I was thinking too!

I have asked a couple of questions on the pages too and had some good feedback so it’s worth joining some pages to realise you are not alone and others are going through what you are.

The pages I have joined are:

• Autism Support UK: Parent & Carer
• UK Sensory Processing Disorder Support
• Autism Spectrum Disorder, through my eyes discussion group
• Bricks for Autism

I recently read a post by a woman that had been out with her son at a fireworks display and started talking to the lady beside her. She mentioned that her son had autism, to which the lady replied, oh he doesn’t look autistic. The woman commented that she was really upset at this comment and asked the group, what does autism look like?

When I initially read the woman’s post I agreed with how upset she was as I would have been upset too. To me, the lady was pointing out that he looked ‘normal’. Then I started reading some of the comments and my thinking turned around. I commented on the post and said be proud of your son tonight as he was coping so well.

Since buying the Playmobil police station, every Playmobil advert that comes on TV, he says ‘I want that’

Its great that he recognises it, and I love that he is showing an interest in something. I checked eBay and put a few bids on some sets, not wanting to pay too much. I didn’t win them but saw a playground set listed on Gumtree and it was still available so we collected it. He played with it a bit longer than the police station!

Then I remembered that last Christmas I bought him the Playmobil water park. This was the first toy that he spent a bit of time playing with, putting the people down the slides and splashing in the water, so I brought it back out again and he played with it some more. Not for a great length of time, but it’s a start.