the sun is shining-- crawl out of that log

It's a sunny wintery day here on the prairie today, so I'm coming out to say hello and continue my discussion about dealing with my son's autism after he was diagnosed.

What made dealing with autism difficult for me, was the uncertainty. There were no guidelines that could be counted on. With other children, there are those step-by-step parenting books. At 6 months, they'll be crawling. At 1 year they'll be walking, etc. With autism, I wondered if I would be dealing with meltdowns when he was 15 years old. What can I expect? It was disconcerting.

Lately, I've been amazed at the number of books that are available on ASD (autism spectrum disorders) and PDD (pervasive development disorders). At first, I thought "This is GREAT! There's so much help out there now." There was literally nothing available that was useful when I was helping James. The theories of Leo Kanner and Bruno Bettleheim that pointed the finger at "refrigerator mothers"  (blaming us for autism) were so demoralizing! They made a hard situation even more difficult. Bernard Rimland later tried to clear our names but by the time I found his theories, I'd quit reading in disgust.

This year, I started reading......and reading......and reading......and reading...... I thought "This is exhausting!" I have a Masters of Education in Counseling & Human Resource Development and my mind was reeling with jargon and conflicting facts and data, even though everyone seemed to be an expert and touted research based theories. How can you wade through this (especially without a background in education) and still have time to do what needs to be done? I think it may be worse than having nothing!
So I'll try to be a comforting, reassuring presence available here to you if you need me. Don't let them wear you down, your child doesn't need fixing. He needs your time and attention and the world's acceptance and understanding. It'll be ok.
Hugs,
Ellie