Finishing up!

June was a busy month and now that school’s out and summer vacation’s started, we can catch our breath a little.  The end of the school year saw the end of a couple of things for T.

First up was finishing up at PAST (Program to Assist Social Thinking) and “graduating” with the six or seven other students who are also not coming back to the program next year.  PAST is normally for students in Grades 3-6 but because she didn’t start until halfway through Grade 6, she carried on with it through her Grade 7 year. 

Is honesty the best policy?

The dust has settled and the moving boxes are unpacked.  Well, most of them are anyway!  After a busy month, we’ve settled into our new house.  T took the move in her stride and is much more settled now we’re in the new house and moving isn’t looming on her horizon as an uncertain variable.  She’s enjoying her new room and we didn’t have any issues saying goodbye to our old house.  She used to get very emotional about goodbyes so we thought there might be tears during our final visit but she was absolutely fine about leaving the old house for the last time.  We’re not sure if it’s the work she’s been doing over the last year, or simply another year of maturity that mean goodbyes are easier, but she was more excited than upset about moving on which made all our lives a little easier!

Now that the warmer weather is here, we’re getting out and about more and while her conversation skills have improved since her diagnosis, one area I’d really like to focus on with T over the next few months is what to say, and what not to say, when you’re visiting someone or you’re at a social event like a party.  T’s Asperger’s means that she’s usually brutally honest and she often has absolutely no filter.  Not normally a problem among family, but when you’re at someone’s house for dinner, saying “Daddy, there’s nothing to do here.  I’m bored.  Can we leave soon?” doesn’t go down too well with your hosts!

Swamped!

I’m working on a new post.  Honestly I am.  But life’s seriously getting in the way at the moment.  Hopefully I’ll have something for you this weekend.  And then I’ll get back into the weekly blogging habit.

In the meantime, feel free to follow Our Aspie Kid on Facebook and Twitter:

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I’m there more often than I am here!!  😉

Long time, no speak

Yes, it’s been very quiet from me recently!  Life has been getting in the way of blogging with a combination of a ten day vacation taking us out of the country earlier this month, and we’re also just a few days away from moving.  Buying and selling our house was keeping me busy, and now we’re in the middle of packing up and heading off to the new house.

In the meantime, we’ve been really impressed with how T has been coping with the idea of moving house.  We had to stage our current house to sell it, which meant transforming it from the cosy home she was used to, to a less personal and more generic-looking house that potential buyers could see themselves living in.  After some initial resistance, she adapted to her new surroundings, although once the house sold, we could “un-stage” the house and we could go back to kind of living “normally” she was a lot more comfortable.  As for moving, she’s definitely a little nervous about this and we’re often asked exactly when we’re going to move to the new house.  I’ve probably told her a dozen times when that is, but it’s clearly something that she needs to constantly reassure herself about.

Sweating the small stuff…..

You know the saying: “Don’t sweat the small stuff”?  Well, that doesn’t really ring true with T.  Often it’s the small stuff that has her really, really stumped.

Take for example, a couple of weeks ago when she went to log onto her school website to do her homework on Google Docs.  When she went to log in, she got a pop-up window saying that her password had expired and she had to select a new one to log in.  Stumped, she tried the old password again.  And again.  And again.  When she realised she wasn’t getting very far very fast, she asked for help, but told us that her password couldn’t possibly not work anymore, because her teacher hadn’t given her a new one to use.  In her mind, if her teacher gave her the initial password, it had to be the teacher that gave them updated passwords when they were going to expire.  She hadn’t been given a new password, therefore her old one couldn’t POSSIBLY have expired.  And she couldn’t POSSIBLY have to come up with a new password herself.

How open are we about Asperger’s?

With a formal diagnosis for T the question we’ve faced a few times recently is: “do we tell teachers, counsellors and leaders at the activities she does, or do we only tell them if they raise her behaviour as an issue?”.

We’ve decided to go with telling people up front as it can be pretty obvious that T’s “quirky” if you spend any time with her.  After letting the school know, we’ve also told people like her Guide leaders and counsellors at the day camps she goes to when she’s off school for the summer.  We haven’t told her swimming or Tae Kwon Do instructors, as there’s less social interaction needed from her at these classes and it’s not that obvious she’s a little different.