THE RANDOM FACTOR

I think the biggest thing most people do not understand is why parents of autistic children look so frazzled. It is not because they make us loony. Or they are horrible children. Its the random factor. They can be sitting so quietly or playing with a smile. Then BOOM instant freak out. I WANT BUBBLES!!!!!!!!.. the problem is she doesn't want bubbles actually. She is hungry. But doesn't realize what that means. So she tells us she wants bubbles. Or a bath or to go out side.

The whole process of trying to understand especially non verbal autistic children and give them what they need is enough to put most into a panic attack them selves.

Every minute of every day from 5 am till 9 pm is a ticking time bomb of a loving little girl and boy who any moment is going to blow up over something that to you and i doesn't even matter.

My son is especially bad at this. He will be lining something up and because he cants get this one block in EXACTLY the right angle and tilted EXACTLY the way he wants " it might be off by 1/1000th of an inch.", My son will go ballistic. He will start screaming and loosing it. Eventually he even throws all the blocks on the ground. Then he picks them all back up calm and collected and starts setting it back up in typically EXACTLY the same way.

What I am referring to in this post I'm calling "THE RANDOM FACTOR" Its something that all autistic families have to deal with.

So.... how do we deal with this.. We don't, we work with them and love them and sit patiently with them when they have these meltdowns over what might think to be trivial. But to them it means life or death. It truly is the END of the world for them that that block did not line up exactly right. In some cases like my daughter its communication. most children even non verbal would simply lead you to the fridge. When Isa wants a drink she takes you to the back door or to the bath tub. When she is hungry she makes you rock her or demands bubbles.