This summer I wanted to go to Paris for my husband's 50th birthday. But, with Red quickly approaching his senior year of high school and his 18th birthday, we decided that it would be a better to invest our money in him and his future. We want to do whatever we can to help prepare him for independence. We are pushing him towards his potential to hopefully, get him ready for the world beyond the safety of these doors and his mommy.
I'll admit it. I am his crutch. He would like me to be the other half of his brain so that he doesn't have to think. I want him to live a full-life. I want him to use all of his own brain-power without me to fall back on.
I always thought I looked forward to the day he would turn 18 and then graduate. The truth of the matter is I.am.scared! Freaking out really.
Maturity wise, he is nowhere in the ball park of being ready to be an adult with all of the responsibility that it brings. There are so many details about life that he just does not get yet. His decision making process, impulsiveness, and different way of seeing the reality of the world leaves him with so much more to learn. There are so many social nuances that simply escape him. This is autism.
I am terrified about the potential of his first real male/female relationship --his first heartbreak. It's bound to happen right? I watched my now 25 year-old son go through it. He was clueless as I watched heartbreak heading toward him like a gigantic meteor. It hit him hard, as it does most people the first time your heart is really broken by someone who you think you love. He did get over it, of course...eventually. He doesn't have autism, yet to this very day, he continues to make one bad judgement after bad another, one decision always dumber than the last.
Watching my older son make so many bad judgements only compounds my worries for Red. The older one has taught me that no amount of good parenting in the world, changes the bad decisions that an immature person can make. Red is a smart, talented kid as far as common sense? He has some gaps -little missing links that will make his day to day decision making process just that much harder.
This is especially true when it comes to social and emotional relationships. Red does not bounce back well from rejection. He has experienced so much of it already in his young life, from simple friendships with both males and females. He does not get over it easily when someone is done being friends with him. He fixates and perseverates. He wants to fix whatever it is that he thinks he did to make things go wrong.
The truth of the matter is, it may or may not be anything that he did. Relationships are not easily "fixed". Sometimes, it's just the nature of people --especially, immature people who change like the weather, and have no loyalty, or energy to give a person who is different and doesn't fit in seamlessly to their social norms. Let's face it. People can be crappy.
So we try to keep Red busy --keep him focused on the positives. We redirect his energy toward activities that will help him survive each day and in god-willing, help him with his future. He loves his church...or I should say churches. (He goes to more than one.) He loves his video shooting and editing projects. He also loves working with kids with disabilities.
I found a sleep away summer camp this year that would incorporate many of the things that he loves, and some things that he has never experienced. This camp is about 4 hours away from home, with no phone calls home allowed. Yay me! It is a Christian summer camp designed specifically for kids with learning differences and social difficulties, like ADD, ADHD, High Functioning Autism and Aspergers.
I can not say for sure exactly what he is experiencing while he is there. Nor will I disclose the specific location of this camp since he is still there. I will write more specifically about his experience when he comes home and can tell me about it. I can say for sure that I am so happy for him to have this opportunity. What a blessing!
In the mean time...these pictures are worth a million words.
I'll admit it. I am his crutch. He would like me to be the other half of his brain so that he doesn't have to think. I want him to live a full-life. I want him to use all of his own brain-power without me to fall back on.
I always thought I looked forward to the day he would turn 18 and then graduate. The truth of the matter is I.am.scared! Freaking out really.
Maturity wise, he is nowhere in the ball park of being ready to be an adult with all of the responsibility that it brings. There are so many details about life that he just does not get yet. His decision making process, impulsiveness, and different way of seeing the reality of the world leaves him with so much more to learn. There are so many social nuances that simply escape him. This is autism.
I am terrified about the potential of his first real male/female relationship --his first heartbreak. It's bound to happen right? I watched my now 25 year-old son go through it. He was clueless as I watched heartbreak heading toward him like a gigantic meteor. It hit him hard, as it does most people the first time your heart is really broken by someone who you think you love. He did get over it, of course...eventually. He doesn't have autism, yet to this very day, he continues to make one bad judgement after bad another, one decision always dumber than the last.
Watching my older son make so many bad judgements only compounds my worries for Red. The older one has taught me that no amount of good parenting in the world, changes the bad decisions that an immature person can make. Red is a smart, talented kid as far as common sense? He has some gaps -little missing links that will make his day to day decision making process just that much harder.
This is especially true when it comes to social and emotional relationships. Red does not bounce back well from rejection. He has experienced so much of it already in his young life, from simple friendships with both males and females. He does not get over it easily when someone is done being friends with him. He fixates and perseverates. He wants to fix whatever it is that he thinks he did to make things go wrong.
The truth of the matter is, it may or may not be anything that he did. Relationships are not easily "fixed". Sometimes, it's just the nature of people --especially, immature people who change like the weather, and have no loyalty, or energy to give a person who is different and doesn't fit in seamlessly to their social norms. Let's face it. People can be crappy.
So we try to keep Red busy --keep him focused on the positives. We redirect his energy toward activities that will help him survive each day and in god-willing, help him with his future. He loves his church...or I should say churches. (He goes to more than one.) He loves his video shooting and editing projects. He also loves working with kids with disabilities.
I found a sleep away summer camp this year that would incorporate many of the things that he loves, and some things that he has never experienced. This camp is about 4 hours away from home, with no phone calls home allowed. Yay me! It is a Christian summer camp designed specifically for kids with learning differences and social difficulties, like ADD, ADHD, High Functioning Autism and Aspergers.
I can not say for sure exactly what he is experiencing while he is there. Nor will I disclose the specific location of this camp since he is still there. I will write more specifically about his experience when he comes home and can tell me about it. I can say for sure that I am so happy for him to have this opportunity. What a blessing!
In the mean time...these pictures are worth a million words.
 |
| Snorkeling |
 |
| Appears to be some form of Martial Arts |
 |
| Kayaking |
 |
| Blue is not happy that Red found an audience for his singing! |
 |
| Red with one of the Camp Counselors Visiting from China |
Logging you in...
Adelaide Dupont · 285 weeks ago
And for those of us who knew and appreciated these points in high school to a greater or lesser extent - always good to have a refresher and feel them through the current and future generations who we survived to be able to see.
I especially appreciated points 5, 7 and 10.
And young women not settling or settling down yet is a good thing.
"It's never too late to live our dreams" - but it may be too early for some of them!
And 8 of course.
nicole · 243 weeks ago
Risa · 230 weeks ago
LAH · 221 weeks ago
Maira L. Coral · 216 weeks ago
I was looking for information for my Multi-Genre Disability Research Project from my Early Childhood Special Education class on the web, when suddenly I came across your blog. I started reading this out of curiosity and I want to tell you that as you said yourself, you will not be Amanda Gorman, but you managed to make me shed some tears, perhaps because I felt totally identified with your words, especially in the part that you speak of your son. My son also has Asperger's syndrome, he is 19 years old and he is in the second semester of College. Also like yours, he takes classes from home, likewise my eldest daughter is also taking college classes from her room. At the same time, that I work as a preschool teacher from my kitchen through a computer, my husband sleeps in the room during the day because he works at night. Also in the afternoons I myself take virtual school classes. I am a 51-year-old Latin woman who began to learn the English language as adult, so maybe you find some deficiencies in my writing, however, I was very moved by how proud you express yourself about your son. Referent your mother, I liked the humorous tone that you give when your talk about her, so I did not want to miss this opportunity and stopped my assignments for a moment to let you know that your words do make a difference, since they reach the heart of at least those who have opportunity to read you. I want confess you that is the most long I have written to someone I don't know, because your words inspired me, thank you...
Gavin Bollard · 209 weeks ago
Thanks for this post. I've been very distracted of late and so this was how I found out about our friend Kate. Kate's struggles were very real but they were so constant and so wide-ranging that it was difficult for people around her to address them. I think it's going to take a while longer for me to process all this.
I learned so much from Kate because she was always quick to point out the many injustices in the world. In her glory days, she was very much a crusader and she cared for everyone. Over the years, as her situation took its toll, I came to realise that it was the fact that she couldn't be put in a single specific category, that made the system fail her. She needed help that they weren't set up to provide.
She needed more care and she needed to be less alone. I'm so sorry that this has happened.
For a long while we were corresponding almost every day but a couple of months ago, I realised that she had become so stressed that nearly every interaction I had with her was starting to trigger her. I backed away to give her a bit more space. She only had a little time that she could stand to be online and there were too many things that she wanted to do in that time. I thought that by taking a step back, she could reach out to more people who might be geographically closer and able to assist.
Kate was a beautiful soul and she will be sorely missed by all of us.
diyalabs6192603 11p · 192 weeks ago
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Spoil your cat · 122 weeks ago
Many of these living arrangement aren't good, and many of the people who run those places really don't have the residents' best interest at heart. Those places are like old age homes and foster homes, where you sometimes hear horror stories. They're hard to trust. But then there are good ones, of course.
The best thing for an autistic adult is either to go on living at home or working and renting an apartment and living independently, but that isn't always an option.
Duncan · 112 weeks ago