Blog Award

Thank you to my friend @Faithfulma for this blog award.  It is so nice to meet you!  I know I am supposed to post 15 new blogs I have discovered but you are actually the first I've discovered in a really long time!  So I hope my friends hop over to meet you.  Hugs!!

Lately it's been pretty emotional around here with Chaz.  One minute he is doing something to mess with someone but he can't take his own medicine.  When he comes running to me about one of his brothers hurting him, I am careful to hear the whole story.  Turns out that when Chaz came to me tonight crying that his brother hurt him, it was not so surprising to hear that there is another side to it.  Chaz went to go knee Ryan in the butt really hard and Ryan put his leg up to defend himself.  It ended up hurting Chaz and he was really upset about it.  Sometimes, when it gets bad enough and he has all the kids worked up and crying, I have to have Chaz come sit with me or walk along side me while I'm doing chores.  That way everyone can settle back down.  Chaz really is a great kid.  He's just one of those kids that you CAN'T let get bored. 

White Hallways

I wrote a post in my family blog concerning Chaz's previous school he attended.  They had put him in empty hallway all year long without my knowledge.  Your thoughts?  Has this ever happened to your child with Aspergers or Autism?  Click HERE to read post.

Copying Behavior

My friends in the Asperger group on Facebook were talking about problems in school.  It really is hard in dealing with that but I think the key is the teacher.  My son has been through so many schools, it would make my head spin.  I even put him in a classroom where it was contained.  They were trained to hold the kids down and such.  The problem was that some were just really naughty kids and guess what?  Chaz copied the behavior for the whole year.  When I moved schools, I couldn't believe how I found a teacher that was trained to work with Asperger kids for 3 years!  She understood Chaz like the back of her hand.  It was amazing.  He was so calm that year that I never got called to the school the whole year. When I told the teacher was kind of classroom he was in the year prior, she said that was a big mistake.  Asperger kids tend to copy behavior and he was just copying hte other kids!  No wonder! 

Personal Body Space

This is something you'll see regularly of Chaz (on right).  He's touching all the time.  As soon as he wakes up in the morning actually.  He can get the other kids upset in two seconds flat because he'll follow them around and be touching them all the time.  His siblings are used to it but when he does it to his church friends, they don't have the patience for it.  They don't understand him and they just tend to stay away.  Chaz has perfect speech and doesn't talk different from other kids.  He is higher on the spectrum.  This is what really comes out is the touching stuff.  Also, Chaz acts much younger for his age at times.  Sometimes he's my 9 year old boy and other times he's more like a 4 year old.  When he gets upset especially.  I try so much to have grace.  You know what I mean?  You want to realize they are different but then you want to treat them the same as the other kids.  Hold them to the same standard to one sense but then I have to have more grace on him than I would my other kids.  It seems like such a fine balance at times.  When is he being "Aspergers" and when is he being "defiant?"  That's something I struggle with daily.  Even this morning, within one minute of waking up, Chaz was going around harrassing his siblings and the kids were already crying and upset.  I had to make him lay back down for awhile and since he got back up, he's acting more calm.  Not that he slept when he was in timeout but just helping him to relax a little. 

I included two books I thought might help that I want to order myself.  One is for older kids especially. The second is called "Me, Myself, and My Brother With Aspergers."

Making and Keeping a Friend

It's not easy for Chaz to make friends (on left) when he does.  Usually, the other kid doesn't have much patience. Then, there are some kids that just have a calming effect on Chaz.  The twins (one shown in picture) has that affect.  It's surprising because there has only been one other kid that could do that.  His name is Seth and Chaz met him in Kindergarten.  We moved away and Chaz was very sad because they got along so well together.  I remember reading about exactly this topic in Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's.  In that book John talked about only a couple of friends he did really well with but then they would move away and he wouldn't have any friends again.  We didn't want to move away but a house was being built for us and where we were staying was only temporary.  Chaz never got over Seth and still talks about him 5 years later.  Recently, in my other blog, I mentioned our science center trip and guess who we picked up?  We went and found Seth and took him with us.  Chaz was beside himself.  He was just so happy.  Seth STILL has a calming effecting on Chaz.  I'm starting to get what it is.  Seth has always acted very mature for his age.  He is just not hyper in any way.  Chaz does well around older kids.  Not ones that are kind o spastic.  Well, like my other kids.  In general, I have really active kids.  No joke.  So, Chaz being my oldest, gets a lot of influence from the younger kids.  So he tends to act younger for his age most of the time.  Whenever Chaz has spent some time with older kids, he'll come home really mellowed out.  Unless of course he had video games and, well..... that's another blog for another day!