They say parenting comes with no guidebook, and that’s true…but OTOH, maybe common sense isn’t so common either.
I’m not here to judge anyone: I have two ASD kids and am ASD myself. That shit is hard.
One of the good things I did as a parent is enrolled my kids in a year of Montessori based pre-school. They teach the kids to clean, cook, use keys, use locks, look at people when talking, put beads on a string, brush teeth and hair, make cups of tea, use scissors etc. I know Montessori is seen as a sort of hippy-dippy thing but my experience has been the exact opposite. Don’t get me wrong, I still had to take my eldest to Speech Pathology but they (the school) laid a good foundation.
One thing to mention that might help you: ASD kids have whack bodily perception. They literally have to be taught that “feeling full bladder” = “need to go pee”. It seems insane but they just don’t…notice it, until too late. The don’t understand the body sensation.
Lot’s weird little body quirks like this.
Anyway, good luck to you. I always think to myself “be kind; everyone one is fucked up one way or another”
I actually agree with you. My twin nephews are high functioning though. However, their outbursts, communication skills and stuff are just quite delayed. Their math is absolutely amazing though. When they were around 6 they knew their times table up to 13. I taught them quite a lot myself with long division, fractions, 2D-3D formulas of shapes and a few formulas I thought were fun like the sum of natural numbers. All by 8.
The bathroom thing is hilarious because the eldest learned later than the youngest but the youngest just doesn’t understand he needs to go until it’s an ABSOLUTE EMERGENCY. lol, so many close calls and umm … “accidents”. I also had to teach their parents that they shouldn’t give them a full glass of water every night because they seem to consistently wet the bed.
I hate judging parents, so what you’re hearing is a total outburst of 3-5 years of living with them and just getting so exhausted – like I’m a single guy living in London and every week would be something new to me. I literally put so much time and money because I saw the parents not putting the required effort for these types of kids …
(sorry more ranting …)
They both love watching K-Dramas (as they should). However, they would watch it till like 2-3am on a Friday. Weekends they would sleep in until 2-3pm. They used to keep the kids up until 1am-2am because “they” were up. After I got there, they finally put the kids to sleep at a reasonable hour like 9pm. However, on Saturday morning the kids would be up at 7am and they would just sleep in. My brother would wake up fix the kids some breakfast and then hand the kids an iPad and then go back to sleep himself. Bear in mind he doesn’t wake up until afternoon, so the kids would have an iPad for 6 hours or so before the day started for them. There’s a lot more where the mum was working or gaming in her room all day (my own mum and me would be taking care of the kids) … she would leave the room to say “goodnight” to the kids and then she would go back to her room. My brother would do the same. I don’t mean to demean their jobs but I don’t think any job requires you to stay at your computer THAT long and I’m a programmer.
Also my brother wouldn’t buy the kids “books” because they don’t know how to read yet. They didn’t understand the concept of reading to your kids until I did it and they felt embarrassed.
Honestly, parenting really isn’t easy. I feel as though it was simpler in my parents generation because it feels like every parent needs to monitor their kids far more now. Also, if it was easy, I wouldn’t be helping this much to get them out. I still love them all (even the parents I’m trashing) and I wouldn’t have traded this experience for anything. Seeing the kids learn and pick up things and the bond they have with me is priceless.
They say parenting comes with no guidebook, and that’s true…but OTOH, maybe common sense isn’t so common either.
I’m not here to judge anyone: I have two ASD kids and am ASD myself. That shit is hard.
One of the good things I did as a parent is enrolled my kids in a year of Montessori based pre-school. They teach the kids to clean, cook, use keys, use locks, look at people when talking, put beads on a string, brush teeth and hair, make cups of tea, use scissors etc. I know Montessori is seen as a sort of hippy-dippy thing but my experience has been the exact opposite. Don’t get me wrong, I still had to take my eldest to Speech Pathology but they (the school) laid a good foundation.
One thing to mention that might help you: ASD kids have whack bodily perception. They literally have to be taught that “feeling full bladder” = “need to go pee”. It seems insane but they just don’t…notice it, until too late. The don’t understand the body sensation.
Lot’s weird little body quirks like this.
Anyway, good luck to you. I always think to myself “be kind; everyone one is fucked up one way or another”
I actually agree with you. My twin nephews are high functioning though. However, their outbursts, communication skills and stuff are just quite delayed. Their math is absolutely amazing though. When they were around 6 they knew their times table up to 13. I taught them quite a lot myself with long division, fractions, 2D-3D formulas of shapes and a few formulas I thought were fun like the sum of natural numbers. All by 8.
The bathroom thing is hilarious because the eldest learned later than the youngest but the youngest just doesn’t understand he needs to go until it’s an ABSOLUTE EMERGENCY. lol, so many close calls and umm … “accidents”. I also had to teach their parents that they shouldn’t give them a full glass of water every night because they seem to consistently wet the bed.
I hate judging parents, so what you’re hearing is a total outburst of 3-5 years of living with them and just getting so exhausted – like I’m a single guy living in London and every week would be something new to me. I literally put so much time and money because I saw the parents not putting the required effort for these types of kids …
(sorry more ranting …)
They both love watching K-Dramas (as they should). However, they would watch it till like 2-3am on a Friday. Weekends they would sleep in until 2-3pm. They used to keep the kids up until 1am-2am because “they” were up. After I got there, they finally put the kids to sleep at a reasonable hour like 9pm. However, on Saturday morning the kids would be up at 7am and they would just sleep in. My brother would wake up fix the kids some breakfast and then hand the kids an iPad and then go back to sleep himself. Bear in mind he doesn’t wake up until afternoon, so the kids would have an iPad for 6 hours or so before the day started for them. There’s a lot more where the mum was working or gaming in her room all day (my own mum and me would be taking care of the kids) … she would leave the room to say “goodnight” to the kids and then she would go back to her room. My brother would do the same. I don’t mean to demean their jobs but I don’t think any job requires you to stay at your computer THAT long and I’m a programmer.
Also my brother wouldn’t buy the kids “books” because they don’t know how to read yet. They didn’t understand the concept of reading to your kids until I did it and they felt embarrassed.
Honestly, parenting really isn’t easy. I feel as though it was simpler in my parents generation because it feels like every parent needs to monitor their kids far more now. Also, if it was easy, I wouldn’t be helping this much to get them out. I still love them all (even the parents I’m trashing) and I wouldn’t have traded this experience for anything. Seeing the kids learn and pick up things and the bond they have with me is priceless.