This blog is about my amazing daughter Amy. Amy has Asperger's syndrom.
As a parent the job is yours to encourage, coach, help and guide this fantastic child. You learn to react to her using your mind, rather than your emotions. to try and approach everything she does whilst trying to see things as she might, prepare her for situations, think and plan ahead, and catch her when she falls.
Amy is doing really well. A lot is written about these special children and their day to day struggles. About there not being a place for them in our society. About schools not being able to provide for them. And you realise how lucky you are that your Aspie met the right people along the way, got the help SHE needed and how we have been able to create an environment in which she thrives. And she gets stronger, every day. Of course she has her difficult days. She can be incredibly sad about being different. She most certainly has her struggles. But she continues to grow. And that is al her own doing, her determination to succeed, to wipe out as many differences as she can, whilst respecting herself for who she is. I would like to share her story. Her story is a story of success and it shows how great things can happen, even with a pervasive diagnosis like 'autism'.
And it is a pervasive disorder! Not just for the person herself, but for everything and everybody who is involved with her. As a parent you become your child's interpreter. Autism is invisible. Society has expectations of your child, which she cannot fulfill. You have to defend your child and your actions regarding this child. You have to relay to your child what is expected of her. And tell the world that Asperger is not an autism light disorder. But you get stronger. It takes up most of your time and energy, but Amy has given us the courage to carry on. Once we had learned to look at the world through her eyes, wearing auti-glasses, we could see the possibilities within her limitations. We learned to look at what was possible, not at the limitations. Surely but slowly we could adjust those boundaries.
For us, the answer was to go back to the drawing board for Amy. To scratch everything we had done so far. We went back to basics, made sure she felt safe again and then started the built up, never putting pressure on her. We learned how to lead from one step behind. Ever adjusting, being creative within the possibilities so it suited her. And ALWAYS remembered that every child with autism is as unique as another child, with or without autism: Once you have met a person with autism, you have met a person with autism! Everyone is different in their own right.
