Harbl the cat... only a very different man... TLDR

[blacksmithden]

Hi Harbl. Send jwirecom109 a message and have him send you an account reset, or what ever gets done in the background to get back into your account.

You're in the right province for help with autistic kids. Alberta is under a court order to provide help through various programs. You and your wife have a LOT of work to do yourselves on top of it. I won't kid you there. You are going to see multiple doctors. You'll have assessments done, ect to get an idea of the severity of her autism. Once you have a formal diagnosis, you're going to set her up with an FSCD (family services for children with disabilities) worker. They are going to set her up with IBI (intensive behavior intervention) therapy. It's probably called something else by now. A therapist will come to your home several times a week for x number of hours and work with your daughter. There's no "one size fits all" therapy program. They will do things like place her in a corner on a chair with a table in front of her so she can't escape and do various learning and speech activities with her. They may or may not ask you and your wife to participate. One thing to remember as well. Your family doctor can be a good resource for signing forms and such. They won't be a specialist with autistic kids, but if they know your family, he/she might be able to save you time waiting to see some specialist just to get a form filled out. Your family doctor can sign that stuff and have it recognized just like any other doctor as long as they're comfortable with doing it. Just know this. It's very important that you guys do your part to help out with what is going to be a long process. NO MATTER WHAT, support your wife in this. Go to appointments. Do your share of the paperwork. Praise her for doing her part even if she doesn't praise you for doing yours. You think you're stressed ? I guarantee she is just as stressed, if not more. Sometimes she will have a breakdown and be brought to tears. Sometimes it'll be you. Sometimes it will be both of you. NEVER forget that you're a team, and you are both fighting the same battles.

When she gets to school age, you will need to contact the school before hand and work with them to decide what program is the best fit for her. Keep an eye on it, and don't be afraid to be a little pushy. You are in for a lifetime of being her advocate. If you're being stonewalled by a school bureaucrat, you will have to get pushy. An example of that is when they were ignoring their legal obligation to do an assessment on my oldest son. They will say that it's going to take a long time...they're underfunded....blah blah blah. Offer to get them all the help they need to get things done. I understand Mrs School Principal. I can get you all the help and funding you need. Please give me the name of your immediate supervisor downtown and the name of my school trustee. I'll file a formal human rights complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Board citing that you are not making reasonable accommodations for a disabled person , and I'm sure they will be more than glad to help you out. They will try to play it cool, but believe me. You just, in no uncertain terms, informed them that they are pounding on the head of a nuke and they had better get their shit together.....and they know it. The old saying "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" is the absolute perfect description of how things work when you're raising autistic children. Do not turn the other cheek. ALWAYS remain polite and professional, but sometimes, you will HAVE to be merciless in order to get things done. It's sad, and it's also reality.

Another time, this dipshit powertipping hag of a bus driver didn't want to have to drive down our street. She tried playing the safety card, saying she couldn't turn around in our cul-du-sac (pure BS) and she wasn't allowed to back up the bus to turn around. Instead, after 5 years of picking our kids up at the house, they wanted my wife to walk out with the kids every single day and stand out on the main road that divides our subdivision from the next one over. This went back and forth for a while until I finally had it out with some supervisor at the bus company. She said that they would have a safety inspector come down...their word was final....blah blah blah. I said GREAT ! Let's get this over with so we can get down to talking about how you're "failing to make reasonable accommodations for disabled people ! OH MOTHERF-----. A quote right off the front page of the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal web page !!! This guy knows his kid's rights !!! DAMN !!! Never had another problem with the idiots after that (thank you to Foxer for reminding me of that gem).

Raising a kid with autism is all about finding resources for them....and they aren't easy to find. We never had a damned bit of luck with the Autism Society. I can't stress this enough. NETWORK WITH OTHER PARENTS. They may know of a program you didn't, and vica versa. Ask your FSCD worker about what's available in your area. One thing that really helped 2 of our kids was a program called Chatter. It really helped them with speech and language as well as how to interact and converse with others. That will be something she can get into further down the road though. You're at the beginning. KNOW THIS !!! Your daughter WILL learn and improve with time and effort. Also, you do not have to live to be 120. When she's 18 she will receive government funding. Depending on how she matures, and what level she reaches, she my live in a full care group home, and assisted living setup, or who knows...she may become a functioning adult. I still have hope that my oldest boy will live on his own someday. The younger two, my daughter, and my adopted son, will be dependent adults all of their lives. My wife and I have made piece with the idea because that's reality.

I touched on this earlier, but I'll touch on it again. You and your wife need to support each other. Sometimes frustration will win out, and she may lash out at you. Don't turn it in to a full blown brawl. She's only human, and sometimes she will need to vent....and that's ok. People may stare at your daughter if she's having a melt down. So what. I remember once in Costco, my daughter was having a melt down and some guy made a smart ass comment. Holy shit. I thought my wife was going to kill him...and I was going to let her while I kept an eye on the kids. LOL. Personally, I just ignore society's idiots.

Although it's important to bring your daughter out with you to different places like stores and restaurants, don't think you have to all the time. Send your wife out shopping by herself....or at least encourage her to. Tell her to take as long as she wants because you'll be at home looking after things. The best thing we ever decided was that we weren't going to let our kids get away with bad behavior just because they are autistic. Yes, it took a LOT of work, but our kids are now well mannered and very polite. We can take them anywhere now without the worry of them acting like out of control animals. They WILL learn...it just takes longer and requires more effort. I cant count the times when my daughter started having a melt down in a restaurant and I had to take her, sometimes kicking and screaming, out to the car while my wife and son finished their meal. Sometimes it only took her a few minutes to calm down, and sometimes it took hours. Meh....whatever kid...but you will NOT be allowed to act like that in a restaurant or any other public place and get away with it. Sometimes you will take her somewhere, and she will just lose her mind for no apparent reason. My daughter used to lose her shit if we even drove by a Shoppers Drug Mart....the lumber aisle at Home Depot was another one.....and the noise from the cash registers in a Walmart would drive her bat shit crazy. In time, taking her time and time again, eventually, she grew out of it. Autistic kids are hyper sensitive to some things. Sometimes the everyday sounds, lights, smells, whatever, that you and I just tune out.....to an autistic child, it's like the volume button on EVERYTHING is set at max, and they do not have the ability to tune it out any more than you have the ability stop your heart or fly around the room by flapping your arms. It's not in their makeup. With time, effort, and patience, they can be desensitized but usually not completely...but enough that they can get through it.

Now that the kids are older and quite independent (get themselves ready for school, make their own lunches, ect) I've taken on a different job. I'm now working 2 weeks on, two weeks off in remote mining camps. I'm currently typing this to you from the Diavik diamond mine here in the territories. I was worried about how my wife would handle it, but she seems fine with it. I should mention that she's not out working a regular job right now. My pay is enough that she doesn't have to, and quite frankly, I don't want her to as long as she's the main person looking after the kids. If the stress ever does get to be too much for her, I'll pull the pin and get an in town job again. For now, it's working for us.

I'll be glad to give you advice, so feel free to ask. It might take me a while to reply depending on where I am. Sometimes the internet goes out here for a day or two, and at the best of times it's slow as hell.

Just remember....you're not raising an alien who is never going to progress. She may never be a rocket scientist, but if you keep working with her, and never give up, she will steadily (all be it slower than other kids) progress....and the more she progresses, the easier your life gets. Lots of work in the early stages pays dividends later on. Never EVER give up...and above all else....support your wife in every way possible.