Today has been a difficult day. Gavin is really wearing me down. My patience is running dry. He is not listening to anything we tell him. He is become very disrespectful to Lizze. The PICA issue are getting more and disturbing. We have to watch his every move it seems.  We are trying to foster independence but right now that doesn't seem to be possible. We can't trust him or what he tells us. We randomly ask him this question: "have you eaten anything you weren't supposed to?". He will say "no" but we can tell by the way he says "no" whether or no he is lying. Then the challenge becomes figuring out what it is that he ate.  Every time we figure out what it is he ate…

Autism is challenging enough as it is. However, throwing in comorbidites is the really tough part because you rarely know what is what. We chase one symptom only to make another worse. In Gavin's case we never really know what his capabilities are because he is so behaviorally limited by all the other disorders. LT

Hygiene. As if Autism wasn't challenging enough. How do you deal with hygiene issues? Gavin is having issues with bathroom hygiene, like cleaning himself up after going potty. Sometimes he cleans himself up and sometimes he doesn't. He won't talk about it and won't left us help. The other big problem and it's a big problem is that he sometimes doesn't want to pee in the potty so he just pee's his pants. He doesn't change them afterwards. He just goes on like nothing happened. We just realized this the other day. He says that "sometimes he just doesn't want to get up to go potty". He gets engrossed in what he's doing and won't walk away. What are we supposed to do with that? I guess we at least…

We are struggling with PICA again with Gavin. Not sure if we are struggling again or we have just become aware of it again. Are there ways of discouraging it? Should we down play it? Or should we crack the whip so to speak? LT

I spoke a while back about Gavin eating tooth paste. We adjusted where it was kept and watched him closer. Well apparently he is now eating the tooth paste that is crusted over in the sink. He is also cleaning out the drain and eating that also. We try to keep the sink clean but don't always stay on top of it. The other problem is that he will to this when he asks to go to the bathroom. He apparently doesn't always need to go. He's looking for tooth paste. We are going to have to supervise is use of the bathroom period. I just never ends........ LT

Disciplining your kids can be tough for parents sometimes. But what if your child has Autism? Navigating the world of Autism is like trying to put one of those generic puzzles with no picture together. You are often times flying blind. I can't tell you how many times I have felt lost and defeated. In our case with Gavin, he is a quagmire wrapped inside an enigma. He has so many other mental health issues that it really makes things difficult. How do you hold him accountable? What are the standards and are they set to high or to low? What is he actually capable of doing? These are all questions my wife and I have asked for years. Just when we think we have it figured out we realize…

How does Autism effect parents? This might be a delicate subject but people need to understand in order to support. In my experience there really 2 major categories. There are parents with kids Autistic from birth and there are parents with kids that regress into Autism. This post will be in several parts. Below is part 1. ---Please understand that I'm by no means trying to compare pain here. I'm trying to help bridge the gap and help us understand one another.--- I can only speak personally about the regressive form of Autism. This form of Autism usually strikes around age 2 or 3. You don't suspect anything at all because up to this point everything was perfect. All the milestones were reached on time. You have your whole life…

EJ has been really struggling with sensory related things. He is not tolerating clothes right now very well. It have evolved into he doesn't tolerate his diapers either. He acts like they actually hurt him. We have removed tags and try to find clothes without pronounced seams but the diaper situation is going to be a problem. I have been looking for my "Easy Button" but I seem to recall them being re-collected when they diagnosed my kids. But if anyone has an extra they want to send me that would be great :) LT