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Autism: Looking Ahead To The Teenage Years

July 14, 2013 By

2013-07-06 10.23.30

A few short weeks from now, my older son George will be turning 10. This is a pretty big milestone for any parent. Not only will it launch George into double digits, it will mean that I have navigated the mysterious world of parenting for a full decade. Not just any old parenting, either – special needs parenting.

In his ten years, George has accomplished some amazing things in the face of his autism. I could go on all day about progress and milestones and potential, and I really am proud of his determination. Whether or not he is aware of his disability is debatable, but either way, he works really hard for every single victory. The smallest accomplishments that would go unnoticed in most families are a giant cause for celebration in ours.

The harsh reality, though, is that George still has some challenges, the most obvious of which is his lack of speech. He can talk – he has the physical ability and the vocabulary – but he doesn’t. His speech is mostly limited to requests, although he does occasionally make mind-blowing (to me) statements, like last week when he showed me his “screaming green angry gorilla”, which was actually a Hulk toy.

We cannot have conversations with George. We cannot say, “So, what did you do at school today?” and expect him to answer. His standard answer to most questions that are posed to him is “yes”, even when that doesn’t fit the question. Of great concern to me, if something bad was happening to him, like bullying or molestation, he wouldn’t  be able to tell me about it.

That’s just the speech side of it. Social communication is an issue big enough for its own blog post. And as much as George has made phenomenal cognitive gains, in many areas he still functions well below the level of typical kids his age.

And so, with his 10th birthday approaching, my husband and I are preparing ourselves for the fact that he may not be as high-functioning a teenager as we have been hoping. When we got his report card a couple of weeks ago – the one that says he is “transferred” to Grade 5, unlike other kids who are “promoted” – I had a moment of pure terror at the realization that 8 years from now, he will be nominally eligible to graduate high school. It wasn’t the normal “Oh, how fast time passes” kind of terror. It was fear for George’s future.

Until now, my husband and I have been swirling these thoughts around in our heads, but today we spoke about them for the first time. We talked about preparations that need to be made and programs that need to be sought out. We talked about what the reality of life is likely to be when George reaches teenagerdom, just three years from now. He will not have a peer support system like most kids, and he will always be quite obviously “different”. He will go through the angst of adolescence without the ability to express himself verbally, and if we don’t keep a close watch on him, he might be the target of bullying. Other teens – or, Lord help us, some adults – might take advantage of his natural sweetness and trusting nature.

Talking about it makes it so much more real and so much scarier. It brings tears close to the surface and makes me feel very emotional. It makes me wonder if I, as George’s mother, have been doing enough for him. Is there something I have overlooked, some possibility that I have not explored, some avenue of opportunity that I have allowed to pass by?

Of course, I could be wrong. We could see George’s speech and social communication skills explode one day. I am not giving up, and I am not losing hope. I am simply being realistic so I can equip myself to provide the kind of support George will need as he navigates his way from here to adulthood.

Today, when I was out for a walk with my family, I kept looking over at George with an aching heart. He is my beautiful boy, with the most tender of souls, and I just want for him to be OK.

(This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit to the author.)

Filed Under: Adolescence, autism, Childhood, Future, Teenage Years Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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Teen Series Part 5: Teenage Life

November 15, 2012 By

Over the last month or so, we have heard from three teenagers about how they think, what their dreams are, and what they want us “old” people to know about them. I am wrapping up the series the same way I started it: with South African teen Alex Zeeman. Today, she gives us a candid view of life as a teenager. Here are her words, uncut and unedited.

People think that the life of a teenager is easy, that we have no worries or, that we care not what the world thinks of us, that we’re unscathed by the world around us ……..

But the truth is that we, you, me and all the teens in the world feel, think and care what the world thinks of us.

Sure you get the rebels, people pleasers, the nerds, geeks and freaks, the jocks, athletes and bullies you get the popular and even little miss OR mister perfects …… people think that teen life is the PINICLE, the ABSOLUTE best stage in a humans life ……

But they forget, they forget what it was like to be mocked, bullied and ridiculed just because you had a higher IQ than those around you or what it was like to have no say in the way your life progressed or even what it was like to be everyone’s favorite, some may think that being popular is easy, sure for some it is, some thrive in the adoration of others …..

But to me, I personally think that “POPULARITY” is just too much hassle. Why you ask well, the answer is simple you always have to watch what you say you must walk this way, and wear that …… to be “PERFECT” to me means to basically be a robot, the way people look at you, talk to you and even interact with you dictates the way you look, act, speak, walk and even think ….. I mean teenage life is hard enough as it is why burden your-self with the added responsibility of being everybodys  favorite or by lashing out at people who just want to help you ….. There is too much in life that we have to worry about …. WHY ………

If every one tells us that we are kids, do we worry about what we’re going to be studying in 3, 4, 5 years we’re young but we act like were 40 ….. If we’re kids we should act like it we should have FUN, we should laugh and cry and do STUPID, STUPID things with our friends because the role of a child, of a teen is TO BE STUPID!!!!!

So if you want to be 20 when your 16 then act it, wear the shortest skirts you can find, sleep around with whomever looks at you the right way but DON’T get mad at the world when your decisions get you hurt, don’t lash out when you find yourself in a dark, dark hole with no escape because if you want to act older, then you should be able to face the problems, worries and stress of an older life ……..

Teens should be teens.

We are not children but neither are we adults so we either think like a child and so are usually categorized as such or we think like an adult and are categorized as such …… But we NEVER think as a teen you shouldn’t worry about the future ‘cause that’s what parents are for …. You shouldn’t worry about the past ‘because that’s what the dead are for ….. You shouldn’t even worry about the present ‘cause then you’ll never LIVE!!!!!

So think about what I wrote comment about it, and spread it ‘because it might not help you but maybe it’ll help someone else…….

Sincerely yours
A.E.Zeeman

(Photo credit: James Laurence Stewart. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: Alex Zeeman, Guest Posts, life, National Health Blog Post Month, Teenage Years, Teens, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , ,
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Teen Series Part 1: “We’re Not So Different Than You”

October 15, 2012 By

As a parent, I spend a lot of time trying to get inside my kids’ heads. I try to see things from their point of view in order to understand their motivations, and hopefully parent them in a positive manner. As they grow older, though, it becomes more complicated. Kids develop more of a sense of individuality and they strive to find their way in this world. Our children become teens who feel misunderstood and unrecognized. They have a sense that no-one is really listening to them, and hearing what they want and need.

And so I invited teens to send me their thoughts. I am genuinely interested in hearing what they have to say. These people are a crucial element in society. They are our next generation of educators, police officers, medical professionals, tradesmen and government representatives. They are the ones who will be parenting our grandchildren and steering the direction of society. We have to hear what they say. We have to try and understand them so that we can help them reach their greatest potential.

Today, I am thrilled to introduce you to Alex Zeeman, a South African teen. Here are her words, unedited and uncut.

My name is Alex Elizabeth Zeeman I am 15 years old turning 16 in October. I live in Cape Town South Africa. I love to read, I love
animals, school (I know weird right? 😛 ), playing pc games, watching movies, anime, manga and of course hanging out with my friends.

You asked us to write what we as teens feel or fear, basically you asked us to help you as adults to understand us, but in truth we’re
not so different from you. We think worry and fear the future. We get scared, make mistakes and yes sometimes what we do is quite stupid, sometimes what we say is quite stupid and yes sometimes what we think or how we act is quite, well simply, stupid. But we are teens. I know that’s not an excuse, but it’s as close to one as I can give.

Being a teenager, I personally think, is one of the hardest stages in a persons life. Teens get all the reality checks and “hard lessons”
that shape us into the adults that we will become. Teens experience a thousand heartaches and heartbreaks in 7 short years. We cry a lot, we shout a lot, and occasionally we hang out with the wrong crowd.

Teens are basically hormone driven destruction machines. Everywhere we go we bring some sort of grief. It’s not like we try to, it’s just
what happens when you have a hormone filled adolescent in a confined space for an extended period of time. I know what I’m saying may not be all that helpful but I’m not a teen that has experienced even a fraction of the pain that some teens have. I haven’t gotten so low that I’ve given up. I haven’t been given up on. I haven’t been abused or wronged. I haven’t been hurt, well I have, but not irrevocably.

But yes adults sometimes don’t get what teens go through every single day. How hard it is to get up in the morning to go to school.
Sometimes the very thought of looking into the same judging eyes can be quite tiring, quite scary. For me the bravest people on this planet are teens. We face so much, and yet we are treated as children, we’re thought as being children but we’re not. We don’t think like children, we don’t act like children. Teens grow up much, much, much faster than children. And sometimes yes we are a tad immature and sometimes yes we do do incredibly stupid things but more often than not we want some kind of recognition. We want to be seen, we want to be heard. My happiest moments are when my parent say that they are proud of me. I love making people proud of me. But for some teens the only way that they can be seen, or heard is by doing incredibly stupid things, by acting incredibly stupid.

I’m not an expert, I’m not a shrink, I am simply your average teenager.

I cry, I laugh, I get angry and frustrated and stressed. I love and I hate. I’m not a bad person but teens aren’t. More often than not we’re
simply misunderstood.

These aren’t anybody else’s thoughts, these are mine. These are my views and this is what I think, if it helped I’m glad, if it didn’t
well at least I tried.

(Photo credit: Ava Weintraub Photography. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: Guest Posts, Teenage Years, Understanding Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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Autism And Adolescence: Preparing For The Storm

August 1, 2011 By

I was educated in the 80’s at a girls-only Catholic school that was run by nuns. The school was high on academic excellence, and a high percentage of its graduates went on to achieve some pretty impressive things. At the same time, though, the school fell flat where it came to life skills training, and many of those people who wound up in noteworthy careers also struggled in various areas of their personal lives.

Throughout high school, I frequently found myself being summonsed to the principal’s office. The principal was a mean old nun named Sister Elizabeth, and she hated me simply because I was not a clone of my cousin, who she had taught at a different school several years previously. Every visit to her office was the same, regardless of what alleged infraction had sent me there. First, Sister Elizabeth would ask me why I couldn’t be like my cousin, and then she would put on a grave face and say, “Whether you throw a teaspoonful of mud or a bucketful of mud, you’re still throwing mud.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

I mean, I was the shy, socially awkward kid in my peer group. I wasn’t exactly a trouble-maker, and when I did hit a difficult patch in eleventh grade, my troubles were directed towards myself, and barely caused a ripple beyond my immediate group of peers. I was never caught smoking under the bleachers, I never swore at a teacher, and I never had a pack of condoms fall out of my pocket while running down the hall. Interestingly enough, the person who all of this did happen to was never, to my knowledge, sent to see the dreaded Sister Elizabeth.

What the school laughably called “sex education” happened in the form of a couple of talks given to us by outside counselors when I was somewhere around tenth grade. The talks had the following central theme: if you have sex before marriage, you will undoubtedly go through teen pregnancy and a life of poverty and deprivation, and your child will be a juvenile delinquent addicted to drugs, and when you die you will go to hell.

We were given some very basic information about the different forms of contraception, and then told not to use any of them on the grounds that they were a sin. The only acceptable forms of birth control, we were told, were abstinence and the Rhythm Method (which, of course, was reserved strictly for marriage, because of the whole going-to-hell thing associated with sex).

In retrospect, the timing and the subject matter of these sex education talks was kind of funny. By the time we had to listen to them, most of my peers had been sexually active for at least a year and probably knew more about contraception than the people delivering the talks. To my knowledge, there was only one teen pregnancy in my peer group, and it happened after we had all graduated high school.

Things today are very different. Kids are maturing physically at a younger age than my generation did, and for the most part, society seems to have let go of the notion that teens just shouldn’t have sex. There is an acceptance that they are going to do it anyway, so we may as well equip them with the tools and knowledge to do it safely. I am all for that, although I certainly wouldn’t want my boys to be experimenting with sex until they have reached  a certain level of emotional maturity.

The question that is plaguing me is this: how do I deal with this topic where my son with autism is concerned? He may only be turning eight in September, but time flies, and before we know it he will be entering the world of pre-adolescence. His physical maturation will far outpace his social development, and I worry about the time when he will have physical drives that he will not be emotionally equipped to deal with.

And so I have decided to start seeking out resources and advice on this topic now.

That way, when the storm of adolescence hits, I may have a fighting chance of helping my son navigate his way through it all.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alamosbasement/3661120171)

Filed Under: Adolescence, autism, High School, life, parenting, School, Sex, Sex Education, Social Development, Teenage Years Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,