OnlineBookClub.org

There must be a bunch of us out there. The forum for AutismSpeaks shut down one day. I've been meaning to research new sites. Having a special child is a day to day learning experience...especially when you've had uh hem..."regular kids" and you're faced with a fourteen year old who still loves My Little Pony and beginning chapter books.

Oh well you learn to accept and even chuckle about it sometimes. Beginning of the school year and she came home saying kids were making fun of her. She's in a self-contained mixed grade classroom, so all the kids in the room have their own issues. My older boy pulled me aside and whispered something to the effect of "How the heck do these kids make fun of each other? You're more retarded than I am duh oh?". Maybe you had to be there...but I felt better anyways.

Something more serious was today when I went to pick her up from an after school program. I was right on time in the main office. But the principal couldn't find her. First he tried paging the classroom with no answer, then he tried paging her to the front office. No response, then he walked to the classrooms the afterschool courses used...no one there. Finally he spotted a teacher and my daughter in one of the cameras by the doors.

There was a case in October where an autistic teen without speech wandered out of his school and disappeared. There was a big search to find him until recently... when they found his remains. Not pointing to foul play but rather that he drowned...but still a story to scare you to death. The schools, especially the upper grades don't keep track of them as much as they should. I heard that some NY schools are considering offering parents a tracking device their child can wear so if they do disappear they can be found electronically.

I think that's an excellent idea, a wristband or a tag that can be securely clipped in their clothes. Even if your child has some speech it would give you some more peace of mind.

Heart breaking to read this...the best to you L.B....mebbee 2014 will be your year....

I'm not a parent and I've never gone through what you have, truly heartbreaking.
But I can tell you parents of special needs or mental disabilities are incredibly strong.
I have a mental disability and I never would have made it as a kid, well even today, without my mother's patience, love and strength. I could never thank her enough for what she's done for me.

It's not normal for kids to experience what I have, so it was even harder for my mother, not knowing what was okay and what's needed help with. I have a line of paranoid schizophrenia, which ll explain since a lot of people don't know there are different types of schizophrenia. They're use to schizophrenics being a threat and a very scary thing, that hear voices and have hallucinations. Paranoid schizophrenia is rather different. Mostly it means I'm scared of EVERYTHING. I can't eat food other people prepare because I think people are poisoning me, which was hard for my mother. It took my mother a long time to find me most days because I was hidden thinking people were coming to get me. I wouldn't see or hear anything, but I knew. Going to public places was a nightmare because I thought everyone was looking at me/coming to get me. I'm still not a delight in cars because I think we're going to hit every car on the highway. I seriously don't know how my mother did it because I was quite a handful. But I'm not a threat to society, even seeing me walking down the street you'd never know something was wrong with me. I'm lucky on that aspect. I don't hear voices that tell me to hurt people. I don't see people that aren't there, its just a major fear of everything. I take medication to make the fear less, but its always there. I just learned how to control it better so I don't show that I am afraid. My husband (boyfriend at the time) didn't even know anything was wrong for two years. It's a hard fight to not let my impulses of fear to take over. It's a hard fight to be normal.

But parents with children that have problems are the strongest beings in the world, I truly believe it.

Thank you Suzi and Laci both, Laci brave of you to share your experience. Something that helps is a story they tell on all the exceptional parent sites. It's something to the effect of you've planned to go to Italy, learned the language, planned your tour...and somehow you end up in Holland. Wait this what not what you planned for, you don't know Dutch, no this isn't right it was supposed to be...

Then you settle down somehow and eventually see the tulips. You didn't get Italy but maybe you discovered a new world anyways...And you find gratitude. One of the local business owners is an amazing person. Her and her husband bought the local bookshop. Her son is profoundly "special". They have a service dog for him but I just can't imagine her life. Her son is maybe 18 and about six foot something. He doesn't have speech, don't know if he can care for himself much at all.

But she and her husband hire kids on the spectrum and employ them at different positions in the bookstore. To run a business and care for an adult child like that equals sainthood. But It gives me inspiration, my daughter can at least do for herself with close guidance, perhaps she'll be able to work in that book shop in a few years. And aren't we blessed that such a business is in town...wow, a start to her having a first job and more of a social life, you learn to find the blessings in every day, wasn't like that with the "normal kids" so much.