It is two weeks in to the new term at secondary school for my son and so far he is enjoying the experience .I will be visiting the school soon so I can get some feed back as to how he is settling in . Puberty and Autism ,I am slowly discovering are not a good mix . It is hard enough for your average teenager to communicate with out also being on the spectrum. For his whole life in times of frustration for my son I have adopted the 'hug tightly until it feels alright again ' method . And to date it has worked very well and teenager or not I will be continuing with this probably until I can hug him no more.

If an autistic child seems numb to their emotions then it would follow that some serious thawing out , is required. For me ,I just pour on extra love . Understanding what is going on in his mind when he is coping with difficult situations is near impossible I assume he is thinking on several levels trying to understand how to live in this world with autism and also trying to understand what it might feel like not to have autism which is a wish of his ,that he has articulated.

He came across a website with information on the benefits of cannabis oil  (illegal in the UK)How it had greatly improved the lives of children with seizures , and also shown to help children with autism. The facts about these benefits are becoming more and more widely known , so much so that the pressure on governments to do something about the legal status of cannabis is mounting daily .

What is significant to me , is the fact that he is actively searching for a cure or some kind of aid to help him with his autism . In just over a year he has gone from recognizing he has autism to trying to cure his autism. That tells me that he is finding life difficult and he would be happier  if he were more like the other children he shares his life with .

I have always celebrated his difference and never thought about a ' cure '. I have always been aware of  the fact that life is difficult for him but then I always thought he was coping well and accepting the challenges ahead . I see his cognitive skills deepening and with that he is becoming more understanding of what he is going through for me although it has been a long and hard road it has been fascinating to witness his progress , what has always seemed most obvious to me is that his autism , very much shapes his character to think that there is a cure is hard to think about , I think more research is needed .

My son is  fast approaching the end of his time at primary school ,and it feels like I am along for the ride . I am sure it is the same for any parent when their first or only child moves from primary to secondary , the fact that my son has autism does present some different challenges . Having witnessed my son's reaction in situations that he is uncomfortable with , the reaction were he completely shuts down , does not talk or move even , were he feels his best course of action is to close all communication with any human even me,( at the worst of times). It is with some trepidation that I look forward to this transition .

It has been some years now since his last dramatic reaction as described above . But the memory of these reactions have  never left me. In many ways they have influenced my parenting because when he is afraid I am afraid and I do not feel it as keenly as he does .I think it is fair to say I am on high alert for any such reactions because coaxing him back to this world with minimum damage control is a delicate and very stressful challenge .

Obviously he is older now and more experienced he has learnt, by developing his own coping strategies , how to handle situations where he feels a (melt down ) approaching.

Children can and do hold their parents to ransom in certain situations, when it is a battle of wits for who gets their way , and I have always been wary of this wondering if my son's very dramatic reactions were in fact genuine . As the years pass and his reactions mellow it has become increasingly more difficult to ascertain if these melt downs are a result of his autism or him just wanting his own way . Generally  as a rule of thumb, if his behaviour seems unreasonable , like any parent of any child, I react accordingly, but in certain situations; for example , I have been left trying to explain to a very determined child , why it really is not so important that his music practice is done at the same time and for the same length of time every day and why on music lesson days practice can be done.

This type of conversation leads nowhere  .On certain things my son is immovable and when our exchanges of ideas and opinions is achieving little or nothing I bring these conversations to a halt.With the words ' we can both think about this and talk about it some more on another day'.

Giving us both an opportunity to regroup and hone our arguments, but what makes perfect sense to me seems completely off the chart to him . I have made a promise to my self not to play the autism card , as now he knows he has autism , I want him to reason things out without being told 'well that is your autism making you feel or think that'.

Every time I read something about autism ,about a professional who has worked with autistic children and adults for years and years. I can not but help conclude that they know very little about what it is they have been studying for all those years. I read what they have to say with keen interest , in the hope that I will glean some  piece of information that will give me a better insight into what is happening in my son's mind. But find myself only a little bit wiser .Although there are exceptions .

In my experience , the people who have the deepest understanding  of autism and what is going on in the autistic mind are the people who spend real time with them . Helping with  eating or dressing or bathing and so on . Just the basic day to day things that need to be done , day to day. They might not have degrees and they might not be able to articulate as well as a Dr or Professor but their understanding of the children and adults in their care is far in advance (I feel ) of the so called professionals .

Data gathered over many years tells only a small part of the story , I am sure . Never have I heard a professional talk about the emotional side of things and to me the emotions are everything , the emotions are what drives the behaviour. Off course it is understood that a calm environment creates a better atmosphere for any one with autism, there is evidence that the autistic brain is wired differently ,with all the research that has been done it is possible to predict the behaviour of an autistic child or adult .There are tried and tested methods of helping autistic people have a better cognitive grasp on the world and the people in it. But no one can tell us where is comes from  or why it is here,( not definitively anyway )

My only real qualification is my experience. And with that I can deduce only that our world of today is full of stimuli to the point of over saturation and perhaps unbeknownst to us a growing child in the womb of it's mother is picking up all of what is going on outside it's safe temporary home. Only for this to continue after birth (relentlessly). As to why it manifests itself after 18 months of the child's life, must have something to do with just growing . But there is no PHD after my name.

My son now is very aware of his autism, he started to ask me about it a couple of months before his 12th birthday, many adults with high functioning autism say they would not have it any other way . But not so my son. On more than one occasion he has either written or said he would like to find the cure for autism . If any one does, there is no reason why it should not be him . He is after all in the eye of the storm .

All through his young life I have looked forward to the day when I can ask him about what it is that goes on in his mind , why he chooses to do the things he does why he can't eat certain foods ,why he does not seem to have any sense of urgency about one thing (getting dressed for school) but gets extremely excited about another ,( bringing the correct P.E. kit to school ).

' Dad ! Dad ! you forgot my P. E. clothes , you MUST get them and bring them to the school'
'As you wish my son '

Although he is voicing some of his feelings and concerns about his autism, to date he has not been able or perhaps willing to explain to me what is going through his mind .He does however lament the fact he is not the best at anything among his peers. I feel he is being a little hard on himself , but this feeling of his does give me an indication that it is not always easy being him.

There is no doubt in my mind that he has the keenest of intellect and he can think himself out of difficult situations, brought on by his autism . A simple example would be making eye contact with new people he meets , it is obvious to me when I watch him in these situations , that he is working very hard to overcome this difficulty. Another good example is when he feels a panic coming on, in a situation where his immediate future is uncertain . He can talk himself to a calm place, and this is not something that has happened over night he did not wake up one morning with this amazing ability, this is something he has learnt. In my opinion that indicates a very keen mind indeed.

Well it was a tough day but we got through it, I exaggerate .It was a tough 45 minutes, let me explain. I had already primed my son for his first trip on a bus alone.First we took the journey together with me pretending to be an innocent by stander ,occasionally pointing out land marks on the way and finally showing the stop he should get off. The next step was to see him on to the bus then wait at the other end to make sure he got there in one piece , this he did with aplomb. he actually took it a step further and waited for me at our front door.

Full of mixed emotions I could do nothing but kiss his head and proclaim how proud of him I was. It has made me reassess his progress and understand better the pigeon holing aspect of his character ,seems each task is approached with it's own set of emotions and that his processing of the semantics of any given task are stored neatly in his computer like brain .

 Over the years his confidence in his abilities has grown and so he has always been willing to re approach  something that he has found difficult in the past , it seems he is able to fine tune his personal assessment of his abilities and with encouragement (important) he will try again. A good example is tying his own shoe laces . I had always bought him shoes with Velcro fastenings (something that is proving more difficult as his feet grow) but peer pressure, and his obvious sense of style led him to asking me to buy him converse lace ups no less. He struggled with the laces for many months but he persevered and eventually he learned to tie them. He was careful not to wear them to places where he might have to remove his shoes .

Which suggests to me a much deeper cognitive understanding than I had thought he had. Like any human there is a lot going on in his mind the problem he has sometimes, which is also a benefit, is steely like focus .Any time I interrupt him from the particular task he is focusing on he can get quite upset, needless to say  his calm returns quickly.

As he grows and learns it seems his depth also increases and I am discovering that by pushing him and showing him he can easily grasp what it is I am trying to teach him he can eventually complete the task (recently he made toast ) .I just have to repeat my self many many times before he finally understands what it is I am putting across. Experience is key in all learning, feeling an emotion for the first time is daunting but returning to that emotion and recognizing it,s effect can lessen the impact.

My son is now 12 years old . We agreed that at this age he would officially move into his bedroom, after much discussion !  I was trying to understand his need to continue to sleep in my bed even though we no longer slept together and we both agreed that 12 was a good age for him to sleep in his own room . I have  slept in his bed in his bedroom since he found the confidence to sleep alone , that was about a year ago. For the life of me I can not truly fathom the reason for this. I am pretty sure other boys of his age crave the privacy of their own room and go to their rooms at the earliest opportunity. It has created a situation in our house where neither of us really have our own space.

For most of my son's short life he has had trouble sleeping , to him it would appear it is an activity he can sacrifice for other pursuits. It took many years to establish a routine for him , my understanding of this is that he had no problem being asleep ,just getting to sleep was his greatest challenge. If you have ever lain in your bed feeling very tired but unable to fall asleep you will have some inkling of what my son goes through on a nightly basis as a matter of routine. I think the feeling of loosing wakefulness and gradual slip into sleep genuinely frightens him. Our bedtime routine is my attempt to make the transition into sleep as calm and soothing and undaunting  as is possible.

          As he grows older he becomes better at coping with the feelings he experiences, whilst falling asleep. And on nights when I am not with him , (I have managed to leave him for a total of 3 nights, he slept very successfully at my brother and sister in law's house)  when he is forced to go to sleep on his own, he has managed well but I can sense his relief when I return and we go back to his routine. He also does not like to fall asleep in complete darkness ,not unusual for any child.

As the years have passed in his so far short life I have thought long and hard about his sleeping habits, and although it appears to me that the act of falling asleep is fearful to him . Actual sleep is something he welcomes. He has many dreams which he is excited to tell me about . Very gradually, he is learning how to cope with the process of falling asleep on his own. He is better able now to reassure himself that he is safe and that no harm will come to him should he allow himself to succumb to sleep. I do feel he is still fearful of falling asleep but the brave lad he is ,has taught himself a coping strategy.With a little help from his Dad.