Wow you are not alone …….. seriously when it comes to support it’s just non existent oh wait if your rich it is but as a single mum also it’s beyond hard the hardest job I have ever had to do I do it because they are me and I am them my gift.
If my Autistic /ADHD son wasn’t with these needs I wouldn’t of become a stronger woman I wouldn’t of left my job because the school couldn’t cope with his needs he would still be in school including breakfast club and after school as I was a full time working single mum.

Since I deep dived in to his needs and learning how I can best support him I have woke to the real world and it’s not pretty the support doesn’t exist! And when you think you crack the code of routine and boundaries these kids flip it back on you with some new style.

And don’t get me started on PDA!

To all the mums struggling with themselves there mind set health and happiness we are not the first to survive we have others before us who got through it god will only give us what we can cope with.

Make sure you get that you time, bubble bath, Starbucks and 5 min quiet time, breath and prey sleep don’t stay up even though you just want you time sleep instead before you know it there be teenagers then adults ❤️

This sounds very familiar to my son who is 7. The melt down over a treat or snack at meal times he might be really hungry and needs dinner earlier or it’s his way of letting go of his emotions he’s been masking at school.
My son used to do this I didn’t have a clue how to deal with the melt downs but over time you understand how to make boundaries so they can have there moments in a safe place to them they feel ok to open up.

Maybe talk to him while making a snack try of healthy options when he comes home from school give him 10 – 15 min of your attention I found this really helped with my son eating and talking is healing

With the stuff at school like always trying to be the yes person I would talk to the teacher but also check in with your son as this maybe a sign he feels unsafe to express his opinions is there a strong dominant relationship between another class mate or is there the start of bullying maybe or might not be but it’s worth an investigation.

I’m year two of being single mum now and have a demanding 4 year old completely my fault as I’ve been giving so much attention to my 7 year old as he’s had huge amounts of trauma to heal and is being diagnosed with Autism / ADHD so we had it all blast out when he started year one at school aged 5 bless him he’s done so well but it’s only because I went through trauma I know how he was feeling a little bit and I made that my priority over schooling.

Trauma affects us all differently xxx

Sound like my life

Like all techniques need not work for all kids. Unfortunately it didn’t work in our case.

We know that we should respond and not react, we tried saying give me 1 min. But my daughter will wait for less than 5 secs and start creating a scene saying “oh no.. this is taking too long.. 1 min is over.. you are not talking to me”. “i am bored, play with me or give me something”. “I want to talk to them”, if we give the call while talking to friends, then next requirement is “can i have video call?”, if video call is turned on then she takes over the conversation and keep talking on and on for ever, from showing toys to telling what we ate, when she woke up, she time travels and tell about all that she could remember, get every toy/book and make a mess to show it and won’t let others keep the phone. After continuous reminders she will say bye. Or we have to say, we will take her out. Then she will say, I am going out with my parents bye talk to you later.

What we realized is she is bored most of the time. That boredom gets to peak when we are busy with our work and doesn’t involve her. She thinks she can have a phone/TV/iPad or can have a video call with someone on phone, so she can tell all the stories to them.

1. We completely avoided all phones, tvs, ipad, laptop. We made her understand that they are not good for kids by reading books that explain that.
2. She is a high energy kid who is hungry to socialize and play with lot of people all the time. How to solve it? We couldn’t figure out because “all the time” is key. When she was around 3 years we had hard time make her listen and follow instructions. Suggestion from Dr. Linda A Reddy(specialized in Psychology- kids) worked for us at that time. She suggested to give a simple one line instruction, wait for kid to respond count from 1 to 10 and repeat the instruction, first by calling their name and then instruction, repeat the steps till kid respond each time counting 1 to 10 and without raising voice. This technique worked very well. We practically have seen that how kids attention and memory is so low at that age.
First thing we got to know is we can’t control kids who are addicted to phones, ipads and tvs. So slowly we changed that to books, toys, printouts, coloring. Intially, we said tv only on movie night once per week, later we replaced movie with checkers game.
We thought of finding solution for this attention seeking behaviour and found the books written by Dr. Linda A Reddy. What we got to know is the best way to teach kids anything is by using play based techniques.
They don’t enjoy someone giving instructions all the time, they can only take and memorize few things. They get bored too often. They are very bad with handling their emotions. We started teaching social skills as play. We bought the book “Group Play Interventions for children” by Dr. Linda A Reddy to learn some techniques.
3. We wrote a daily routine involved her while preparing it. As part of that schedule, we planed in such a way that we had our time to talk to family and friends, while she is reading books. We keep asking her to get the schedule print out. Before having phone call we ask her to get the time table and ask what is your task? what is my task? She will say you have to take phone call and I have to read book. Now she is not interupting. We started with maximum 30 mins phone call now moved that to maximum 1 hour phone calls. We reduced phone calls that are not work related to maximum 4 hours per week(mostly weekends). We don’t pick phone calls at random times, we take them when she is not at home or as per schedule. We text friends if there is something unrgent or if we can call them back.

I am not sure if this is relavant but as an example of play based teaching: I am teaching her blockly programing like a game, I ask her to stand at one corner of the room, then I sit somewhere and I ask her to list the step to reach me.. like Move Forward, Move Forward, right turn, Move forward, Move forward, Move forward(reached). I ask her to replace Move forwards with repeat on a condition.
While there is no path to my right move forward, Turn right, while goal not reached move forward.
Kids needs lots of play time and reading time. My daughter want to play lots of types of games. She learn quickly and get bored quickly. She expect lot of time from us. My wife spend 30mins in the evening for biking. I spend 1 hour for teaching something(math, science, programing , scoail skills as play based). Morning my wife spend 30 mins yoga with her and 30 mins writing practice. As part of yoga we also make her do sit ups by holding earlobs(in youtube we saw videos on that, called as super brain yoga). We also make her do surya namaskara(12 yoga postures for 10 times). She spends 30mins on activity sheets like coloring, finishing up any pending work from school. She spends 1 hour in the evening reading her favorite story books.

Conclusion: below 4 things helped us.
1. Physical activity(yoga/biking)
2. Avoiding electronics
3. Teaching play based socail skills
4. Writing daily routine and involving her to be the keeper of routine.

P.S: Each kid is different, some techniques work and some doesn’t. Sometimes we have to accept that our energy levels are not enough for our kids and we have to take care of our body.

Teach your child that when she needs to talk to you, she comes up and puts her hand on you—your knee or hip or elbow. You put your own hand on hers, to let her know you recognize her request and will be with her in a moment. As soon as you can pause your conversation, you turn your full attention to her. My daughter loved being able to get my attention and holding my hand reassured her that I would not ignore her. Worked a charm. She sometimes still does it (hand on shoulder) as a college student, which is quite lovely.

I agree shyla. But It is a typical response written by a mum with 3 NT kids. Those mums have easy kids who tow the line etc. So They will never know just HARD mums of autistic kids have it. They will never know the really meaning of EXHAUSTION or ISOLATION either. We literally get nothing done at home as our kids rip up the house, wont play on there own, wont play nicely with there brother or sister, wont play with toys, swear, scream, constant demands and have meltdowns, We dont get invited to partys, we are excluded from family gatherings, None of my family will babysit my kids because they think autism is fake and that they are just badly behaved. We cant take them out as they run off/hit other kids and chuck stuff about.

When your kids have autism any normal lifelines e.g. family support network go down the pan… its ironic because you need all the lifelines you can get but the reality is you get none. Families of autistic children are sinking…

My parenting is fine thanks and has no bearing on the way they are behaving. They behave like that because they have autism and sensory needs. End of.

These same mums of NT kids also judge us, stare at us and make nasty comments.

Shame on you…

Consider yourself LUCKY that you have NT kids. Because it is pure luck and nothing less or more…

That’s a bit extreme. And I really don’t think you should be telling people their kid has autism when you haven’t met them. Sheesh

Oh and ignore any rude comments and death stares from others. You are there to support your child who sounds like she has autism.