Elliott and Emmett are having sort of a challenging day.  Both are quite moody and very much on edge.

Neither has a tolerance for frustration today and there’s already been quite a few meltdowns. 

Yesterday was a triple whammy for the boys because not only did they have a visit with their Mom, it was on a different day than usual and it was also a major holiday. 

It was a perfect storm for overstimulation…

Kids on the spectrum tend to struggle with things like these individually but put them all together and it’s even tougher for them. 

They will still have fun but much like holding it together while they’re at school, the moment they return home, everything falls apart.

I’ve always referred to this as fallout.

The fallout is everything that happens as a direct result of an event or events but doesn’t present until after the fact. 

This is part of what makes my job so hard because I’m always dealing with fallout from something.  There’s fallout from school, visitation with their Mom or even the chicken nuggets packaging changing. 

It’s not that anyone is necessarily doing anything wrong either, it’s just the sensitive nature of children on the Autism Spectrum.. 

It means that we have to be very careful how everything is approached with them because while we can minimize the events that causes stress or overstimulation, short of living in a vacuum, it’s impossible to avoid it entirely. 

The school is great with the boys and I know their Mom and Grandparents love them very, very much as well. These things aren’t in question.

Even still, it’s stressful for them though because it involves being able to adapt to different situations and for people with Autism, that’s not usually a strong suit.. The reality is that they can only cope with so much before the meltdowns present themselves as means of purging everything built up inside. 

Frankly, this is often why special needs parents never go anywhere. We know how hard certain things are for our kids and we are all too aware of the fallout that will come. 

Many of us just don’t have the energy to deal with that fallout and so the situation is avoided like the plague.

It’s been a really long day here and the boys have been quite challenging.

There were times today where I was scrambling to pick up my marbles but I was losing them faster than I could keep up with.  lol

As hard as it is for me as a parent, I know without a doubt, that it’s a million times harder on my kids.  It’s important to remember that in order to maintain proper perspective. 

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