Mine is bipolar, ADD, gifted (bright), and beyond exasperating. He might kill me yet.
Would it be all right with you if I told another HL fen that you also have an autistic child as she does? Her's in his 20's, so she has already been throught all the hell you will have go through. But I wouldn't betray her confidence any more than I would yours.
Having a child with special needs is so utterly exhausting as to be mind-blowing.
I cannot tell you how many special ed individual education plan meetings I have suffered. There are children at my son's school who think I must be one of the teachers there because I have been there so often.
You have my total sympathy and compassion. If I can help in any way, let me know.
Thank the gods that he has a pretty mild case. Autism is ... difficult. As a psychologist, I identified two in my son's kindergarten class, but they both had serious problems.
Do you have to put your son in public school as I had to do with mine because I cannot afford private (though if I had to do over again, I would have mortgaged my *soul* to get him into private school)?
Public schools want the parents to bear all the burden of coping with the disability. They are not as flexible as I would wish, though some teachers are wonderfully helpful.
He's in a special class in a public school so far, for 3 hours in a day 5 days in a week - it's a state program here. The school he's attending as a day care - preschool right now seems to be good, at least I can see good results, so I might leave him in it (they have classes for older children). It's private, but affordable. After that we'll see. There is plenty of options in Chicago and I might even homeschool him if my parents will be here by that time.
I am so glad to hear that what you have available is affordable. The schools my son would have gotten the most from where about $15,000/year. Eeek. But I would have found some way to pay it if I had known how little sympathy or concern his disabilities would get from some teachers. But you know, I think being bipolar and ADD musters less sympathy than autism. Many teachers think ADD is an excuse and not a disorder. They don't believe in it. But it is real and he has it and the bipolar makes it worse.
Well, I was an Asperger's in a Soviet school when no one had any idea that such a diagnosis exists. So I have some idea about how bad it can be. He will not go into public school if I have any doubt about his preparedness for it.
I was never diagnosed - there was no such diagnosis then. Soviet psychiatry didn't bother with such niceties. :) But I fit the description 20 out of 20. I'm 34 now, you didn't see my social skills when I was 15 or even 20. :) I learned them, and it was a bloody hard work, but I still have problems here and there.
Tell me about soviet psychiatry. I passed my foreign language graduate exam in Russian, based on finding three scientific articles in Russian in the area of psychology. All were bogus except one.
I am so sympathetic. You must have worked very hard.
I didn't really have any other options - the society there is much less forgiving than here. But at least I have a living proof :) that such things can be compensated. So far doctors are telling me that he might compensate to a normal level by the late teens. No prob. So he'll have a long childhood, so what?
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Would it be all right with you if I told another HL fen that you also have an autistic child as she does? Her's in his 20's, so she has already been throught all the hell you will have go through. But I wouldn't betray her confidence any more than I would yours.
Having a child with special needs is so utterly exhausting as to be mind-blowing.
I cannot tell you how many special ed individual education plan meetings I have suffered. There are children at my son's school who think I must be one of the teachers there because I have been there so often.
You have my total sympathy and compassion. If I can help in any way, let me know.
Hugs,
diane
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Do you have to put your son in public school as I had to do with mine because I cannot afford private (though if I had to do over again, I would have mortgaged my *soul* to get him into private school)?
Public schools want the parents to bear all the burden of coping with the disability. They are not as flexible as I would wish, though some teachers are wonderfully helpful.
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I am so sympathetic. You must have worked very hard.
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