REBOG - Please Don't Let Me Get Dirty!!

Reblog fron 4/27/11
You know how most kids are into playing in the dirt and mud and making messes. HistoryBoy was not like that. He would NOT touch a finger paint. He hated digging in the sand at the beach. He loved playing in the ocean but he had to wash off the sand. If he got food on his hand he had to wipe it off. 

These were all big clues to a larger sensory issue, but we always joked that he got my mom's clean freak genes. These are issues that can be worked on with most kids. We kept trying working with fingers paint. Here was something I tried. I used a paint with water book and let him dip his finger in the water. His fingers stay relatively clean and he colors. He thought it was neat. It is all in the baby steps. 



He finally got to the point now, where he will use fingers paint but he has to be allowed to wash his hands off as soon as he is done. And we let him not feel it was an issue. He didn't like having his hands dirty, so I had wipes or he made trips to the bathroom to wash his hands. It is what made him feel comfortable. Now he loves puddles and splashing, although he is usually wearing his sneakers at the time. Sand is something that he found out sea turtles build nests in so it must be cool to play in. Again, baby steps. We all take the world in in our own way.

As a Note: HistoryBoy nows loves to paint.  He doesn't like his hands majorly messy but it's ok if some paint get on him.  I pointed out that he wasn't the neatest eater sometimes, with his shirts or pants catching what missed him mouth.  He laughed and joked that his body was making up for his hands not wanting to be be messy.  Those baby steps are making me smile each day.

I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave a comment or email me at teenahope@gmail.com

Blog Reboot! ASPERGER'S SYNDROME IS NOT A DISEASE!

Over the next few weeks you will see new posts interspersed with some of my old writings to rejuvenate my blog for you (and for me!) To remind me WHY I started this all in the first place

Starting with today, (Originally published 4/23/11)

ASPERGER'S SYNDROME IS NOT A DISEASE!

   I heard someone today refer to Asperger's as a disease. Asperger's Syndrome is very high functioning autism. People who have Asperger's are generally socially inept and immature for their age. They also tend to obsess over one or two things that interest them and not much else. Social interaction is very difficult for kids with Asperger's. 

   They tend to bore other kids because of their single minded obsessions, and thus get picked on a lot. They also get easily bored or frustrated with other kids because they cannot understand why the other kids could care less about the difference between the Titanic and its sister ship the Olympic etc. Also, people with Asperger's have a hard time understanding body language and facial expressions. This makes it difficult for them to realize that other people want to end a conversational topic, or have a turn to talk, or whatever.

   It's hard to watch your child struggle. I try to get my son to talk about how he feels to make it easier and he tries and then suddenly he changes topic to an airplane disaster and I know he is done for now. He works on self-control and how to control his outbursts and meltdowns but sometimes he can't. We've worked on visual clues that is a work in progress..., he is still MUCH better with verbal clues, like Hey let's talk about something else. But when talking about feelings when he is done, there is no getting more out of him when he doesn't want to talk about it. When I push, I can feel him edging closer to a meltdown, so I let him go back to his comfort zone for a bit and try again later.

My son is awesome. Being diagnosed with Asperger's doesn't change that. He is still the same smart, sweet, silly boy, he just adapts differently, and sometimes needs helps adapting to the world around him. As he has gotten older he needs less help because we are teaching him coping mechanisms.

   So, when you are out in a store today and you see a mom with a child that is melting down, don't judge or question her parenting skills (I used to be that mom and HistoryBoy was that kid overwhelmed but the hugeness of the store and number of people and huge amount of noises) Be grateful that is not your child. Ask god to give her the patience and strength to handle what god has given her and help her handle her child's fears.

I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave a comment or email me at teenahope@gmail.com

Healing the Hurt

I remember History Boy coming home from school not understanding why the other kids weren't his friends.  He thought of them as his friends.  I think that says it all. He sees everybody as good, or at least he used to.  He is getting used to being bullied and knows that those children are not his friends.  It is especially hard when one of the children used to be his friend several years ago.  They were in all the same classes and go along great.  Now the child calls him names and History Boy is at a loss.  What did he do wrong?...

How do I tell him and make him understand that he  did nothing wrong.  I can say it a hundred times but he still has to deal with it.  I have tried to help him with facial expressions, hoping he'll be able to tell when someone really doesn't want to hear what he has to say.  However, trying to turn off the flow of information in History Boy once it has started is virtually impossible.  I love that he loves to learn and wants to share his knowledge.  I'm a teacher, the teacher in me rejoices, but the mom in me knows that this is what hurts him. This is what makes it hard for other children to understand him.  Most kids don't want to know about WWII, the Titanic, Pompeii and other such topics.


He always wows adults with his knowledge and his willingness to learn more about a topic.  He can watch video after video or read book after book about the same topic. To the right is a pic of the book he is currently reading. It is three books in one, Marine Mysteries and Dramatic Disasters of New England, Sea disasters and inland catastrophes, and Pirates, Shipwrecks, and Historic Chronicles. Sound like History Boy anyone?  LOL.  He can converse with adults about such topics, although his opinions are if he watched it or heard it on the History Channel, it must be true, so... watch out. He constantly amazes me, but that still doesn't give me the answers I need to help him.

Here is an article which has some helpful info in it. I found it comforting to know that at least according to these tips, I was doing what I needed to be there for him, even if it doesn't feel like it.



Below is one of the pics I used with History Boy to help with facial expressions.
If it helps you too, you are welcome to it.

Emotions Handout (below is a pic of what it looks like)

The Good, the Bad and the Video Games...

Technology is a wonderful thing.  We can do so much, so much faster, it is amazing.  Yet it has its drawbacks. In our household we have a PC, an iPad, 3 laptops, and 2 smartphones.  This means that there is more technology than people in our home, unless our pets start learning to log on.  And that list doesn't even include the gaming systems.  It is too much?

I am addicted, I know I am, especially to social media.  Facebook and Twitter are my drugs.  I am trying not to pass this on to my son, but he has been using technology since he was less than 2 years old.  I think its build into his DNA.  LOL.  I know it can be a bad thing, especially for a child with obsessive tendencies. SO I try to limit myself, so he sees it. Angus is just as bad as HistoryBoy though.  As soon as a new game comes out that he is interested in, he gets it and plays it until he beats it.  I sort of lose my husband for days or weeks, depending on the difficulty of the game.  There goes our family time and alone time...

I won't say I have never played them.  In fact there are some I love and still play but I know what my limits are (or should be).  I try to play when he isn't home, so I am not taking away *his* time with me.  However, he doesn't see it that way.  He wants to play the games and finding the balance is very difficult.  How much is too much?

Being a Mom

I love being a mom. I don't know if I can ever say that enough. It is a hectic, sometimes thankless job, but watching him grow and change everyday is AMAZING. He has grown from a child who struggled everyday to handle noises, distraction and generally being overwhelmed by the world to a tween/teen who know what his limitations are.  

• He can say Mom I NEED to get out of here now when he can't handle the situation or is going into sensory overload.  
• He can tell me Mom I need another pill, my medication is wearing off and I need it to help me stay calm.
• He has his own tastes in movies and music that are no longer just listening and watching what I do.  
• He is a compassionate, caring, loving young man who wants to help and will help anyone who needs it.
• He has a love of music that is wonderful to see and a beautiful voice to match.

I am profoundly grateful that God gave me such a wonderful present, even if I wasn't quite ready for it. He knew what he was doing and I can't imagine my life without him.

Aspie Obsessions - Part 5

This #5 in a series of blogs about HistoryBoy's Asperger's obsesssions.

If you read yesterday's blog, you will probably realize I was grateful for a lull in the last obsession. He went from disasters into wanting to know everything there is to know about ships, and planes, mostly dealing with World War II, hence his HistoryBoy name. Although I guess it could apply as early as his obsession with trains, LOL.

He knows all about World War II. He knows battles inside and out, especially naval battles. He knows the names of all these Japanese ships that I can't pronounce. He knows which planes bombed which cities, which planes bombed which carriers, which carriers were sunk. My mind boggles at the thought of sorting and storing all this info. He lives and breathes WWII. He creates battles with legos and Matchbox airplanes mimicking WWII battles. He creates HUGE battleships and planes of legos and then destroys them only to rebuild and do it all over again. One of his current favorite books is the Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft of World War II. He also own two other encyclopedias of aircrafts and ships and one on submarines. We went to the neurologist and the doc asked him if he was such a WWII buff what was the name of the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. HistoryBoy looks at him and tell hims "That's too easy, It was the Enolagay (I don't think I spelled that right) a B-29 super-fortress." And he then went on to describe the type of bomb dropped and the devastation it caused. My HistoryBoy.

Obsession for HistoryBoy are all cycles. I know I forgot a couple of obsession in there. He went on an animal obsession somewhere in there, I forget where it started and ended. We still own several encyclopedia of animals and alot of books on reptiles, his favorite type of animals. He also liked dinosaurs for a while. Now I should say that I am not saying to anyone that your child should have changed obsessions from one thing to another as mine has, if your child only has one obsession and has stuck with it. That is great or maybe not so great for you, I guess it depends on the subject and your tolerance of it. Maybe HistoryBoy's ADHD has made the difference on that point. I do know that it does not level the intensity with which he obsesses. I do not clain to have all the answers or any of them, I only have one child and that is HistoryBoy and he is my learning curve on the subject. Talk to you tomorrow.

I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave a comment or email me at teenahope@gmail.com

Aspie Obsessions - Part 4

This #4 in a series of blogs about HistoryBoy's Asperger's obsessions.

So Thomas, trains, and the Titanic... and we are only around age 6 or 7. LOL HistoryBoy amazes me each and every day with his mind and his recall of facts and events. From the Titanic we cross a bridge into other disasters. Did you know the Titanic has two sister ships that both sank? Did you know that the ship, The Carpathia, that rescued the passengers from the Titanic was sunk (I think) two years later? We went through months and months of him looking watching videos and reading stories about Titanic's Sister Ships and other ship disasters. He had to have more and more info on ship disasters.

Then it went to air disasters. He learned all about the Hindenburg, And thanks to a Myth Busters episode, HistoryBoy got even more excited because they showed why they paint helped the dirigible burn and it wasn't just the hydrogen even though the hydrogen was highly flammable. He has watched the history channel videos of the Hindenburg.

Then, since he was only 1 when it had happened, HistoryBoy didn't really know about alot about 9/11, until he came across a video on the history channel and watched it and became obsessed with knowing all about it and all the details of the planes that crashed both into the World Trade Center and into the Pentagon. He became an overnight 9/11 mini-expert.

Then someone gave him a boy about Rome and he learned about Pompeii, and needed to know all about volcanoes. From Pompeii he learned about Mt. St. Helen's and he kept looking up new volcanoes and eruptions to learns new facts. He wanted to learn about any kind of disaster natural or otherwise. He wanted to know about and learn about it.

I have to say this one drove me nuts because I try to avoid listening to death tolls in accidents and disasters. I hate to think about it, and that is what he wanted to talk about. As you know with your Asperger child, if they really want to tell you something, there is no stopping them. It is like a geyser pouring out of them, and they will explode if the information doesn't come out. It's like trying to stop a natural disaster. LOL

I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave a comment or email me at teenahope@gmail.com

Aspie Obsessions - Part 3

This #3 in a series of blogs about HistoryBoy's Asperger's obsesssions.

I've talked about HistoryBoy's obsession with Thomas and trains. But I haven't gotten to the good stuff yet. I am not sure but somewhere around age 6, I don't even know HOW, HistoryBoy became fascinated by the Titanic and everything that went with it. I have to say I knew the Titanic sank way back in the day and lots of people died but that was really the extent of my knowledge. I am not a history person, I do not know why, I have always loved Math and Science and while History is not excluded from those subjects, it just never grabbed me unless it was in a movie. LOL. So I was in for one heck of a learning experience.

Every book that he saw in the library he had to read about the Titanic. Every book he saw in Barnes & Noble he wanted to read and believe me we own quite a few of them.. Every documentary on the History Channel (there are several) he had to see as well. Did you know Orlando has a Titanic exhibit? HistoryBoy did. He found it and asked us, begged up, and pleaded with us to take him to it instead of a day at Disney World. This is my kid. It was a neat Titanic tour, about an hour long, I think, so if you need a break from the parks, this is something educational you can do. I think it was on I-drive, if you *are* interested. You can look it up Titanic: The Experience Orlando, or something like that.

Now I purposely kept Matt away from the movies of the Titanic because I really didn't think he was ready for all that. I mean what 6 year old really is. But he saw my mom had the VHS version of the James Cameron version of Titanic (which is 2 VHS tapes) and begged to watch it. So we sat down one afternoon to watch it together. He sat through it and cried through the whole end of it. He gave the 2nd tape back to my mom and said he never wanted to see that half again but he was going to keep the first half. I think it was one thing for him to know all the facts that 1500 people died in the sinking of the Titanic but the visualization was a lot to take in. The special effects of the James Cameron version were more vivid than any previous version and he has seen 3 or 4 other versions of Titanic since then.

While this particular obsession had abated somewhat, (you will see what I mean in tomorrow's blog) he still retains all this info. How do I know because his neurologist just asked him about the Titanic and he gave him a fifteen minute run down of the Titanic from the building of it to its sinking. The doc was impressed by his thoroughness. LOL. As am I ALWAYS!

I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave a comment or email me at teenahope@gmail.com

Aspie Obsessions - Part 2

This #2 in a series of blogs about HistoryBoy's Asperger's obsesssions.

Yesterday I talked about Thomas the Tank Engine. Well from Thomas, his interest stayed with trains but branched out to real steams trains and then to any type of train in general. This interest started with finding out that some of the Rev. W. Awdry's trains, author of the Thomas stories were based on real trains. While wandering through Barnes & Noble, HistoryBoy found a book entitled The Illustrated Book of Steam and Rail. It is a reference book, 512 pages, lots of pictures, lots of words describing each picture in detail. In this book, HistoryBoy found a picture of the the real "Stepney" engine.

Can you imagine it, a 4 year old poring over this book and getting so excited over it? Adults are looking at me with amused glances thinking that the poor child doesn't know what he is looking at. I am thinking "Oh no, not again." I know I am in for a completely obsession, except now instead of hearing about Thomas, I am going to learning about rail gauges and rail lines and how fast this one goes, when they started production of a particular train and when they stopped making it.

Thankfully he found the book in their bargain book section so I am not against buying it. Usually the books he really loves are SO expensive. I mean, really, what reference book is cheap to buy? Thankfully he does love the DK Eyewitness Series which is relatively affordable, so I can buy one here and there for him, and he can ask for them as a gift for his birthday for Christmas from a relative and get it.

And I was right, I learned about narrow gauge, standard gauge, mountain gauge and high speed train like the bullet train. I know there are probably some I have forgotten too because, thankfully, this obsession has subsided somewhat, but when some breakthrough on speed records for trains (like the bullet trains) or some new patents for design, he knows about it somehow. How I amnot sure, he just says he heard about it and knew. (Does he have train ESP?) And needs to look it up and get all the new info on it so he can be up to date. And we still own the Illustrated Guide to Steam and Rail to look up anything he may have forgotten.

Until tomorrow...

I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave a comment or email me at teenahope@gmail.com

Aspie Obsessions - Part 1

So after yesterday's blog I remembered that I am a mom and while cabana boy would provide a delightful diversion, my Hubby is gone at work 12 hours a day. Who is going to take care of HistoryBoy? So I figured I should head home. LOL. See I am in a MUCH better mood today.

So I decided to start that series of blogs is going to be about HistoryBoy's Asperger's obsesssions. I am not sure if they are made better or worse by HistoryBoy's ADHD. I would like input from others on this if you have any. Thanks.

Why do I call him HistoryBoy? If you know HistoryBoy, you don't have to ask that question or maybe you wonder why I picked this one out of the others I could have.

At 18 months old, he discovered his first love/obsession, Thomas the Tank Engine, so I could have called him ThomasTheTankEngineBoy, but that is a little bit of a mouthful. LOL He saw all the videos, and I do mean ALL, each and every single one of them. He knew when the new ones were scheduled to come out. He reminded us endlessly less we forget and didn't pick it up for him to see. I think I could have recited the videos backwards if I needed to by the time he was through with them. He still likes to watch it sometimes if he is flipping through channels and sees Thomas is on. Thanksfully for my sanity this obsession has ababted. Thomas, James, Percy and the rest used to haunt my dreams with their pranks and life lessons.

He also knew all the books. I think the book/video tie-ins are huge here and he loved them. He first learned them by being read to and watching the videos and then watching the videos that went with the book. He had them memorized. If I skipped a word when reading to him, he corrected me. Then reading them himself once he could read. He had to read EVERY Thomas book that existed. If I new one came out, he had to get it. I had to learn to avoid book sections of store which are my favorite sections for a while. We have thankfully passed the Thomas book stage as well.

Along with the videos and book HistoryBoy knew (and still knows) what year each engine was released as wooden or ertl or tomy brand. He could tell you if the train was re-issued as a special edition. He had to get a Thomas the Tank Engine Wooden Railway Yearbook each year to make sure his collection was up to date and see what had been discontinued. He needed to know, as if it was as important as breathing. The trains were also what he asked for for gifts for Christmas and Birthdays and if he got money, that is what he bought with his money. I think we own enough Thomas trains to build our own train yard. To this day, if there is a new train issued, he has to check it out, and tries to convince me to buy it for him or he saves up his money to buy them. And just when I think this particular obsession has abated and I put the trains away because he is most definately obsessed with something else, he says, "Mom where did you put my Thomas trains?" Sigh...

I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to leave a comment or email me at teenahope@gmail.com