Let me put this into its full context. For the past two years my son has been in intensive therapy for developmental issues related to autism, for about 24 hours a week, and had Early Childhood Special Education five days a week, so basically therapy was his full-time job. He was diagnosed at age three and had significant delays in independent behaviors, fine and gross motor skills and pragmatic speech. His social and communication skills were in the bottom 5%. It was not clear how well he would respond to therapy or if he would live independently.
Last week, he graduated from speech and occupational therapy because his skills are now at least average in both. Friday, he graduated from ABA and the kindergarten readiness therapy program. Starting Tuesday, we are going from full-time therapy to full-time mainstream public education.
The training wheels are coming off, folks. My boy is kindergarten ready. He can already read extremely well and ever since he learned to write numbers, he’s been practicing writing on his own. His math skills are ridiculous - he easily understands some eighth grade math concepts. He’s incredibly, incredibly smart. I don’t know what we’re going to do with all that. But fortunately they said he could work ahead on his tablet. He’s toilet trained. He can open his own lunchbox. He’s ready.
He has an IEP in place but nobody seems particularly worried about anything. He’s going to have a social skills therapy group two nights a week after school, but that’s pretty much it.
It’s a huge transition. And we have to get up an hour earlier, too. I know it won’t be totally smooth. He was pretty upset to leave therapy because he loves it so much. There’s always that question of how he will do with way, way less individualized attention. He lives for adult attention because he struggles to connect with peers. I am certain he has ADHD and I don’t know to what extent that’s going to disrupt things. I don’t know! But this is an improved set of problems to have relative to the old problems. Two years ago I was asking myself if I would ever have a conversation with my son. Now we talk all the time, about all sorts of things.
This is a very good place to be. I’m so proud of him.
And you should be — and of yourself, because he couldn’t have gotten to this point without you (and any number of others) having his back every step of the way.
That’s wonderful! I see the difference in my students between those whose parents are proactive about getting solutions and those who pin their hopes on the universe somehow taking care of the problem for them.
Speaking as someone whose autistic son is a college graduate, and whose AuDHD daughter is living on her own and working, yes you are lucky, but you made a lot of your own luck and leveraged every molecule of luck you had. Give yourself some credit - it’s allowed! I once said something similar to my own therapist - that I’m lucky with my kids. They could access the therapy we provided. Sadly, not every kid on the spectrum can. Tragically, not every parent of kids on the spectrum is as supportive as they should be.
I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 34 and I just didn’t want my kid to go through something similar, wondering why they struggled for so long and what supports they could have had. I try not to get carried away with it, but it definitely motivated me to get him what he needed. That and my husband who practically dragged me through the year our son was diagnosed. It was an onslaught of insurance battles and evaluations and crazy schedules and we had to talk each other through it many times! Fortunately I married an insurance warrior. And once the kid actually got into services, things evened out pretty quickly. But that was a year. The difference these early years make is one of those things my kid will probably never fully grok, but we’ll go to our graves knowing we made a difference for him, and that’s enough.
And we’re here. Aloha from Bangkok. The wife and I have left Trump’s America for good, and to hell with him and to it. We have a very nice one-bedroom in a high-rise that is only 12 years old in the heart of this city that I love for $372 a month. (No, there are no missing numbers in that rent figure). If the dollar ever strengthens again, the rent will only go down. We expect to move upcountry midyear next year. Again, good luck with those tariffs. Hope you enjoy them.
