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2 November 2010

Noticing

Nipper's (often challenging) behaviour and idiosyncrasies are normal to us. I wondered how long it would be before other people noticed that some of the stuff  that he does isn't 'normal'. Well it seems that it's taken about six weeks of being at school and now some of the kids are noticing.

We arrived at school quite early yesterday and so had to hang around in the playground. A couple of the older kids were chatting about breakfast and Nipper, being a friendly little chap, joined in and said "I had Shreddies for breakfast today". The other boys didn't respond directly to Nipper but laughingly said to each other "Nipper talks funny" and then "Yeah, Nipper talks gibberish". In this instance Nipper wasn't talking funny or gibberish. In fact he was doing really well at joining in 'normally'. So, at some point these kids have come across Nipper most likely trying to join in by going into his 'super-hero' mode and attempting to chat by talking a bit of gibberish because he can't quite keep up.

I'm not sure what to think or do about this - if anything at all? I'm not in denial about Nipper's Asperger's, quite the opposite. When everyone was telling me that he was 'just a boy, awkward, stubborn', etc I knew that something else was going on. But this just really brings it home and I'm not sure how to handle it.

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7 comments:

  1. Well my aspie son is 9 and I'm still trying to get a handle on this. He's great at making friends, just not good at keeping them, he's realised this now and listens to me when we discuss how he will handle social situations such as phone calls and play dates. I found it upsetting when I found out how other kids were treating my boy, I hope you're not finding it too hard to cope with.

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  2. Oh, that's a tough one. You want people to understand what the issue is, but you don't want him to be singled out for any negative attention either. It must be harder as he is still so little and probably doesn't understand himself? Because J was a bit older we did explain to him, in the simplest terms, that his brain works a bit differently, and last term he took in a book to share with his class. I would guess that Nipper's classmates don't even notice, but maybe a word with his teacher is in order?

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  3. I can't imagine - whenever my kids mentions that someone hasn't been nice to them at school it breaks my heart - and I have to suppress the urge to sort it out for them...

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  4. Im sorry I dont have any real knowledge of Aspergers though I have seen tv programmes about it. I thought Rachels comment was great and I was thinking maybe having a word with his teacher. Hes so young it must be difficult for him to understand X

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  5. I think the challenge of seeing other children respond differently and simply knowing the everyday stuff is a challenge for your own child are two of the toughest parts of having a child "on the autism spectrum" as the Drs like to call it.

    All I can say is, you and lovely Nipper keep good company. I've found the most fabulous families live on that spectrum (not that I'm biased or anything ;-). It gets better as they get older but whilst they are little, go with Rachel's advice - speak to teachers. Sometimes you have to push, and push and push but he is your son and they have to accept it's your job to advocate for him.

    MD xxx

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  6. THis must be very hard and I'm sure, as the others have said, talking to the teacher must be a good start. I remember when my children were at primary, they all seemed to take for granted the handful of children who were different in some way. The kids were much better than adults at accepting differences. They were all very matter of fact about it - you may find that it doesn't take too long before most of the children are including him. You'll have to hope that the teacher is onto the ones who don't, who probably have problems of their own.

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  7. Just out of interest did Nipper notice that they were laughing at him? We have told J (in very basic simple terms)that he has Aspergers and sometimes his brain works differently to others but that was only because he knows that he's a little different and asked questions.
    I think the advice that everyone has already given is probably where I'd start, talking to the teacher for example. We also bought J a book called Some Kids Have Autism. It's a very simple book and he's read it with us a couple of times now and seems to take in what the book says.......

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