The first week of school holidays was great, Coreys behavior for that first week was so good, but by the second week it all started going down hill.  I don’t know if it was because after that first week they started to get bored, or whether it was because he had a few late nights and was just over tired.  Whatever the reason, the behavior wasn’t good and I was really looking forward to school going back in today.

Trying to understand Coreys behavior is just so hard, perhaps that’s where I’m going wrong, maybe I shouldn’t be trying to understand it and just accept it for what it is.

I need to read the Parenting Guide To Aspergers again, I had a quick read through it when I first got it and then I had a quick glance at it the other day.  Just reading some of the issues that people have with their kids, they sound just like Corey.  The book has different situations or questions given by parents with Asperger children and then the answers to how to deal with those situations.

I must sit down and have a good read through it, particularly those sections that really sound just like  Corey.  It’s good too because it makes you feel ‘less alone’ when you read about others that have similar problems.

Well, it’s almost time to go and pick them up from school so I better get a move on and let’s hope that he had a good day at school today.  The first week back after school holidays is usually not too good, after a couple of days back they get tired and grumpy and it takes a few days for them to get settled back into their routine.

Thanks for reading
Sheryl
www.my-beautiful-boy.com

I’ve been trying to work out if it is because it is the second week and they are getting bored, or if it’s something Corey has eaten, or if it’s because he is just tired.  They have had a few late nights and I do know Corey does tend to get worse when he’s tired.

He really is very bad this last few days and his language is unbelievable, I don’t know why it still surprises me, you’d think I’d be use to it by now.  Ben has been really bad with his teasing too, which of course makes Corey worse, so its a no win situation.  Ben is 11 and you would think that he could try and have some understanding of Coreys behaviour issues, and try to be a little accomodating to them, but he doesn’t he just makes it worse.

You know Corey can sit with me on the sofa one minute and be the sweetest child on earth – then 2 minutes later he’s like a monster, yelling and swearing and if I try and settle them down then he just swears at me.   Then if I’m tired or just had enough, I just yell at him back – then I feel really bad later that I did.

I think I’m just screwed up and I’ve screwed them up too.  It’s only going to get worse as they get older and more screwed up.  I just feel like my whole world is falling in around me.

Asperger syndrome (AS), also referred to as Asperger’s, is a developmental disorder characterized by deficiencies in social and communication skills. The exact cause of Asperger’s is unknown and the prevalence is not firmly established, due partly to the use of differing sets of diagnostic criteria.

Asperger’s is often not identified in early childhood, and many individuals do not receive diagnosis until after puberty or when they are adults.

Teens with Asperger’s are usually aware of their differences and recognize when they need support from family. There are instances where teens do not know they have Asperger’s personalities until they are having difficulties with relationships in adult life.

Asperger’s is a condition in which there is:

1. Impairment in social interaction

2. The presence of restricted, repetitive and stereotyped behaviors and interests

3. Significant impairment in important areas of functioning

4. No significant delay in language

5. No significant delay in cognitive development, self-help skills, or adaptive behaviors (other than social interaction)

6. The symptoms must not be better accounted for by another specific pervasive developmental disorder or schizophrenia

Asperger’s is characterized by:

1. Limited interests or preoccupation with a subject to the exclusion of other activities

2. Repetitive behaviors or rituals

3. Peculiarities in speech and language

4. Socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior and interpersonal interaction

5. Problems with nonverbal communication

6. Clumsy and uncoordinated motor movements

Most adolescents with moderate to severe Asperger’s will show little or no interest in others. They may seem to be totally unaware of their peers’ presence, or they may appear indifferent when peers try to interact.

Some youngsters with Asperger’s get very nervous just with the thought of approaching others and may choose to avoid it at all costs. Their avoidance may appear as if they are not interested in others.
Yet some adolescents with Asperger’s will not avoid interacting with others. They are eager to communicate, though, often in a clumsy, in-your-face way.

Children with Asperger’s are often the target of bullying at school due to their “strange” behavior, language, interests, and impaired ability to interact in socially expected ways to nonverbal cues, particularly in interpersonal conflict. Children with Asperger’s may be extremely literal and may have difficulty interpreting and responding to sarcasm or banter.

Most children with Asperger’s want to be social, but fail to socialize successfully, which can lead to later withdrawal and asocial behavior, especially in adolescence. Teens with Asperger’s often get along a lot better with those considerably older or younger than them, rather than those their own age.

A child with Asperger’s might be regarded by teachers as a “problem child” or a “poor performer.” The child’s extremely low tolerance for “ordinary” and “mediocre” tasks (e.g., homework) can easily become frustrating. A teacher may consider the child arrogant, spiteful, and insubordinate. This misunderstanding, in combination with the child’s anxieties, can result in problematic behavior (e.g., violent and angry outbursts, withdrawal).

Although there is no single feature that all teens with Asperger’s share, difficulties with social behavior are nearly universal and are one of the most important defining criteria. Teens with Asperger’s have difficulty empathizing with others (i.e., putting themselves in someone else’s shoes), and may lack the ability to communicate their own emotional state, resulting in well-meaning remarks that may offend, or finding it hard to know what is “acceptable”.

Teens with Asperger’s may have trouble understanding the emotions of other people (e.g., messages conveyed by facial expression, eye contact and body language). Thus, teens with Asperger’s might be seen as egotistical, selfish or uncaring. In most cases, these are unfair labels because they are neurologically unable to understand other people’s emotional states. They are usually surprised, upset or remorseful when told that their actions are hurtful or inappropriate.

Individuals with Asperger’s do NOT lack emotions. However, the concrete nature of emotional attachments they have (i.e., to objects rather than to people) often seems curious or can even be a cause of concern to people who do not share their perspective.

Teens with Asperger’s may have little patience for things outside their narrow interests. In school, they may be perceived as highly intelligent underachievers or overachievers, clearly capable of outperforming their peers in their field of interest, yet persistently unmotivated to do regular homework assignments.

Some children with Asperger’s experience varying degrees of sensory overload and are extremely sensitive to touch, smells, sounds, tastes and sights. Sensory overload may exacerbate problems faced by such children at school, where levels of noise in the classroom can become intolerable for them. A child with Asperger’s can become distracted, agitated, or even aggressive if unwanted touch, sounds, smells, etc. persist.

Treatment for Asperger’s consists of therapies that apply behavior management strategies and address poor communication skills, obsessive or repetitive routines, and physical clumsiness.

Currently, the most effective treatment involves a combination of psychotherapy, special education, behavior modification, and support for families. Some children with Asperger’s Disorder will also benefit from medication.

A typical treatment program generally includes:

· Social skills training, to teach the skills to more successfully interact with others

· Cognitive behavioral therapy to help in better managing emotions that may be explosive or anxious, and to cut back on obsessive interests and repetitive routines

· Medication for co-existing conditions such as depression and anxiety

· Occupational or physical therapy to assist with poor motor coordination

· Speech therapy to help with the trouble of the “give and take” in normal conversation

· Parent training and support, to teach parents behavioral techniques to use at home

Children with Asperger’s can learn to manage their differences, but they may continue to find social situations and personal relationships challenging. Many adults with Asperger’s are able to work successfully in mainstream jobs, although they may continue to need encouragement and moral support to maintain an independent life.

Teens with Asperger’s report a feeling of being unwillingly detached from the world around them. As an adult, they may have difficulty with getting married due to poor social skills.

On the other hand, some adults with Asperger’s do get married, get graduate degrees, become wealthy, and hold jobs. The intense focus and tendency to work things out logically often grants those people with Asperger’s a high level of ability in their field of interest. When these special interests coincide with a materially or socially useful task, the person with Asperger’s often can lead a profitable life. For example, the child obsessed with a particular computer game may grow up to be an accomplished computer programmer.

The outcome for children with Asperger’s Disorder is generally more promising than for those with autism. Due to their higher level of intellectual functioning, many of these children successfully finish high school and attend college. Although problems with social interaction and awareness persist, they can also develop lasting relationships with family and friends.

Mark Huttenlocker, M.A. is a family therapist who works with parents of strong-willed, out-of-control teens and preteens. If your child is out-of-control and you’re at your wits end, then feel free to use Mark as your own personal parent-coach. Get permanent solutions to your child’s behavior problems within 15 seconds from now by visiting his website: http://www.MyOutOfControlTeen.com

A Message from Mark-

“Dear Parents: For many years now I’ve been running a very successful “off-line” parent program, but I wanted to take it a step further. I wanted to reach out to parents worldwide and help them discover that there really is light at the end of the tunnel. That’s when I came up with “Online” Parent Support (OPS). Since its launch in 2004, OPS has overwhelmed users and success rates have been phenomenal.”

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_Huttenlocker

I have one friend who has 3 kids the same age as my 3 and they are all quite good friends.  Her oldest is having a birthday in a couple of weeks and she keeps going on about how her son doesn’t really want to invite Ben because Ben doesn’t get on well with Corey.  That really annoyed me, they are supposed to be friends and she is supposed to be my friend and yet she thinks it’s quite funny that her son doesn’t want to invite Ben.  The fact that Ben doesn’t get on well with Corey has got nothing to do with their friendship or his birthday party.

They did the same thing to Corey last year when it was her middle sons birthday, him and Corey and very good friends and yet they didn’t invite Corey to his party.  Then they would keep talking about it in front of us and on the day she would send me text messages of her sons birthday cake – why would you do that???  If you don’t invite someone to a party you don’t keep talking about it and sharing those things about it to them.

Maybe I’m over reacting, but these things and a few others its just making me feel like they aren’t really true friends.

I know Corey is hard to deal with, he drives me crazy, but I hate seeing other people starting to dislike him and Ben because of his behavior.

I wish I knew what to do differently!

I have no idea why but there is starting to get a bit of a pattern.  It is often a Wednesday when Corey is ’sick’.  Today it is a headache.  I spoke with his teacher this morning and there isn’t really anything that we can think of that happens at school on a Wednesday that he might be scared off.

The other thing is that he came home yesterday and told me that he had a bad day and he was angry at a few people, his teacher being one of them.  They did skipping yesterday and he was ok doing single skipping, but then they did the long rope with 2 people holding it and one skipping in the middle.  Last time they did this he tripped on the rope and fell and was very embarassed and so he didn’t want to do it yesterday.  He flat out refused to do it and walked away and he was angry at his teacher for trying to make him do it. 

I can completely understand where he is coming from here as I was just like that when I was a kid too.  I remember doing exactly the same thing in high school but it was hurdles.  I refused to do the hurdles as I was just scared that I would trip on one and embarass myself, so I ran off and sat next to the fence and just flat out refused to do it.

So I’m not sure if it is because he had such a bad day that he doesn’t want to go today or if it is a ‘Wednesday’ thing or if he really does have a headache – who knows.

Let’s see how he is tomorrow I guess!

Last night he was being really awful.  He wanted to play pool when it was time for bed and I was telling him that its time for bed and to go and brush his teeth.  Then he just told me ‘no, I’m going to have another game of pool’.  Of course that just rubbed me up the wrong way completely – I mean, I’m his mother and I’m telling him to go and brush his teeth.  I’m not asking him if he wants to go and brush his teeth, I am telling him to go and do it.

For him to just tell me that he wont and that he IS having another game of pool just really made me mad.  So of course we had a big argument, all the way to the bathroom and while he was brushing his teeth.  That’s where I made my big mistake.  I had basically won the argument, just by the fact that he was in the bathroom brushing his teeth, and I should have left it at that.  But the more he bad mouthed me, the more I had to keep arguing back with him and in the end it was just stupid, no sense arguing.

Then after it, I felt really bad, he’s just a kid after all.

But then this morning, he was acting like that again and then my feelings of feeling sorry for him just disappear. 

Corey thinks the whole world is conspiring against him I think.  Everything that happens has to be somebody doing it to him.  Things can’t be coincidence or just completely unrelated to him, he thinks everything happens by someone trying to be nasty to him.

For example:  this morning the kids were getting ready for school and Corey was getting stressed because he couldn’t find his shoes.

So instead of calmly looking for his shoes, he starts carrying on blaming Ben (his older brother).  It’s all Bens fault.  Ben has hidden them from him just to get him in trouble. 

He really believed that Ben had hidden his shoes from him to get him in trouble.  I tried to tell him that he was wrong (big mistake) and that the whole world is not against him, but he just had it in his head that Ben had hidden his shoes.

Anyway, I went to help him look for his shoes and I went into his bedroom and there they were, plain as day, sitting in the middle of the floor in his room.

The worst bit is, I still think he really believes it was Bens fault anyway.

It is really hard to be nice to him when he acts like this.  I know these are just little things, but when these sort of little things happen constantly, it just really wears you down.

Fingers crossed he will be in a happier mood when I pick them up from school this afternoon.

“Why does he get everything”

“He gets everything and I get nothing”

I’m sure you can imagine what it was like.  After buying the shin pads he whined and cried for just about the rest of the day – “Why does Ben get everything?”

So I told him that because Ben was getting this stuff that perhaps I could put the jacket on layby for him and then it would take a few weeks to pay it off and then he will have it.  Of course that still wasn’t good enough, he wants it NOW!  After all, Ben is getting everything NOW!

So that night we talked about it with his Dad and we decided that we would put it on layby and that he had to make a real attempt at improving his behavior for the next 3 weeks.  If he has made a good attemt, then he will get the jacket in 3 weeks.

So, the jacket went on layby last Thursday – 6 days ago and his behavior…….  well he is trying I’ll give him that much.  There have been a couple of times when he’s been arguing or yelling at someone and I’ve told him to walk away and he did – usually he just ignores me and keeps on yelling.  There have been a few of the real anger moments and a few times when he has spoken nastily to me and each time I’ve just calmly said ‘remember the jacket’ and he’s apologised straight away.

I know that when he gets the jacket that he will probably just get really bad again, but at least we can see that he is putting in an effort.  I know it isn’t easy for him so at least he’s trying.  He can be such a good kid when he wants to be, but unfortunately we are seeing less and less of that good kid, so if we can get some times such as these when he actually tries to be good, then that’s something.

We still have 2 weeks left before he gets the jacket so hopefully it will be a reasonably good 2 weeks.  If he can do it then he deserves the jacket, I know it isn’t easy for him.

So here is our update……..

Corey is now 9 1/2 and is still causing us a lot of trouble. His language is terrible and he still has a lot of anger. I went back to our GP and asked to be referred to a paediatrician since the psychologist and psychiatrist really hadn’t helped us all that much. Even though they seemed quite good, they just didn’t really help.

So the paediatrician did a full physical exam on Corey and full blood tests and other than finding what we think was a lollie in his ear, everything else was normal. He then referred us to another psychologist for a full psychiatric and academic assessment – he was quite surprised that no-one had done a full assessment on him yet and this new psychologist was very surprised too that it hadn’t been done already.

This psychologist is Dr Lindy Petersen and she is really, really good. I can’t believe that she actually got Corey to talk to her and he likes her so is much more comfortable with her. She spent some brief time with me getting a general run down of the problems we’re having and then she brought Corey in for the assessment while I waited in the waiting room.

Then my husband and I went in for another appointment a couple of days later to get the results.

His IQ (I can’t remember the exact score) is normal, except in one area where he scored quite low – it is the area for emotional/social stuff. Then his academic assessment came back good also, he scored at around the level for 10 1/2 year olds, so he’s about a year ahead academically.

Dr Petersen said that the emotional/social area where he scored low, that most Aspergers kids score low in that area.

Next we discussed ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) and she said that he doesn’t have it. The criteria for an ODD diagnosis is that they need to have about 4 of the 8 symptoms and Corey I think has 7, but the reason he doesn’t have it is that the other half of the criteria is that they show these symptoms all the time. They are disrespectful and defiant with everyone, all authority, even at school, which Corey isn’t like that at school. At school, he would be too scared to say ‘boo’ to his teacher. So that rules out ODD for him, even though he does have the symptoms but just at home.

Dr Petersen has been doing this for 30+ years and she said she can get a general feel for things when she’s talking to kids and she definately got a bit of an ‘autism spectrum disorder’ feel with Corey although only mild. He hasn’t officially been diagnosed but she does feel that he has mild Asperger Syndrome.

Once again though, he passes the criteria quite highly in one section of symptoms, but is only borderline in the other section. One section involves social skills, lack of empathy, that sort of thing and that is where Corey scored quite highly, he has a definate lack of empathy and social skills. The other criteria is the obsessiveness and repetitive behaviors, which Corey is not as high on, he does have some obsessive behaviors but not overly obsessive.

I have felt for a long time now that Corey has Aspergers and although not diagnoses both the last pyschiatrist and Dr Petersen have said that he has mild Aspergers.

The other thing she said about his symptoms and the ODD symptoms is that it is quite common for Aspergers to have the ODD symptoms at home but not at school. They hold all the anger and frustration inside when they are out in public and when they get home they explode (exactly like Corey). It was really good to hear her say that actually because everyone else we had seen seemed to think he didn’t have a ‘disorder’ because of the fact that he was good at school. They said if he had a disorder he wouldn’t be able to control it any time and he would be like that at all times, but according to Dr Petersen many Aspergers kids do keep it in when at school.

She discussed with us that since Corey lacks empathy that it is pointless trying to discuss some things with him. Even though he does something wrong, it is almost impossible to get him to see that he has done wrong (which is so true with Corey), so she said we are really wasting our time when we try to make him admit he is wrong because he just doesn’t see it. She said that is something that will never change.

Her main advice for us to try over the following six weeks (off when we saw here) was to try and ignore a lot of his behavior. Ignore 90% of the behavior and address the worst 10% that just can’t be ignored. This is because she believes a lot of his behavior is to get a reaction from us, or to get our attention – particularly when he calls me names and argues with me – he wants me to argue back.

I can see where she is coming from but at the same time we have found this really difficult to do because it is really hard to ignore a lot of what he does. He often kicks the doors and walls, slams doors etc which really annoys my husband as he has spent so much time and money working on our house so how can we just let Corey destroy it and ignore it. It isn’t easy.

I do believe Dr Petersen could possibly be the one to help us with Corey, however, for those 2 sessions it cost $900. Admittedly we got back $500 through our health fund but it still cost us $400 for 2 sessions. When it came around to our next appointment we just didn’t have the money to go so we had to cancel it. It is really unfortunate you know and a bit sad that we finally find someone that we think could help and we can’t afford to take our son to her.

All I want is for my son to be good, to stop being so angry all the time. I want him to get better now, before he is 16 and its too late.

Along with his anger he has a lot of nervous tension too, lately he’s started cracking his knuckles when he’s nervous but it has gotten to the stage where he is just doing it all the time. He really reminds me so much of myself when I was younger – except for the anger.

Anyway, I’m going to stop now because this post has gotten quite long. I will try and get back in here more often to post. Please feel free to leave a comment or if you’d like to share your story on our blog just use the contact us link at the top and send us an email.

Take care
Sheryl