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<p>Only that as a society we want to label and “fix” these types of personalities to be conformational. And I do NOT mean that in a snarky sort of way.</p>
<p>DS wants to be as normal as perfectly possible, our personal goal as parents is to aid him to be functional in the way that society works.</p>
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<p>^^^^^ right to the heart of the matter. ^^^^^</p>
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<p>It has always been awful to be one of those people who was bright, but who never went to class and who flunked out of college. Failure is not delightful and quirky if you’re the one failing and being unable to get or keep a job. People hankering for some imagined good old days where we used to tolerate failure are not the ones who were “quirky” in the good old days. Just because you weren’t diagnosed with Aspergers doesn’t mean you didn’t have it and weren’t affected by it.</p>
<p>Morgana, I feel for your situation. As the parent of both a bipolar son and an aspie son I have an idea how hard you’ve worked over the years to get your son to the place where he left for college. This must be breaking your heart.</p>
<p>One thing I have learned about both of my sons: It got easier for all of us when we accepted them exactly for who they are. This often has meant me giving up MY hopes and dreams for them. Not that I don’t have hopes and goals: I do - and in fact both boys are doing exceptionally well. But I’ve had to be ruthlessly honest with myself, particularly when I wanted something for them that was not in line with who they are or what they are capable of. </p>
<p>I have had to admit that pushing them to achieve more than they are capable of (intellectually OR socially) is another way of saying that who they are isn’t okay. </p>
<p>I have had to redefine what “okay” is. S1 gets depressed and needs to manage his meds. That’s okay. S2 needs a lot of help with structure, and with negotiating social situations, and that’s okay because that’s exactly who he is. But if we have a situation in which one of them fails, we DO NOT put them back in that situation again. Maybe we adjust the situation and come at it from a different angle, with different tools, but we never approach it again unless we are very sure they are equipped - and this takes time. We want our sons to have confidence and not see themselves as failures.</p>
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<p>The above really worries me. You may have changed your mind from the time you wrote this, due to all the great advice that’s been given, but please don’t send him back- at least for now. He needs to build himself up again, both physically and emotionally. I agree with others who suggest a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation. We had such an eval with both of our sons and found them invaluable.</p>
<p>In families with bipolar, it is very common to have other family members who are susceptible to depression. The weight loss may be just such a symptom. The neuropsychologist may suggest medication for your son if he is diagnosed with depression. If he starts an antidepressant, make sure to watch him carefully - especially after the first few weeks - because this is when symptoms of mania often emerge if he does have an underlying bipolar disorder.</p>
<p>Our Aspie son also benefited greatly from a social skills group, led by a therapist who specializes in spectrum disorders. I realize you are rural and such groups are hard to find but if you see one, I encourage you to check it out. </p>
<p>Best wishes to you. Feel free to PM me anytime.</p>
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<p>Right…</p>
<p>calla1, wise words, and not just for the OP. Those of use with Aspie or bipolar kids can have trouble accepting our children’s limitations; it can be a continuing struggle. But ignoring their problems and hoping they’ll disappear just leads to more heartache.</p>
<p>Calla1, thank you for posting, yours are very wise words. I hope that the OP takes them into serious consideration.</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s any point in offering advice to a poster who believes vaccines/seizures cause autism, who believes their family includes “an amazing crop of people who have actual psychic abilities such as telekineisis or precognition” and who would seriously consider sending her son back to school under these circumstances. OP lives on a different planet from the rest of us. She freely admits her son exhibited autism spectrum traits for years, but never had him diagnosed and never addressed his deficits and sent him off to college. I only hope there’s another adult in the home who can take the lead in getting help for this young man.</p>
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<p>Would you ignore Newton because he believed in alchemy? Or Ben Franklin because he investigated dousing? Regardless of the OP’s world view there is a kid here she needs some advice on. And part of that is an outside perspective. </p>
<p>Before the mentalist stuff I was kind of forming the impression that she might be the type that likes to take the unconventional path and gives excessive weight to out of the box. Nothing wrong with that (you should see how I play chess), but if you have that inclination you have to be aware of the impulse and correct for it when you are evaluating a situation. Everything about the son’s education seemed highly custom, one off and out of the box. Nothing wrong with that, and its perfectly possible that she pieced together the best possible education for this boy.</p>
<p>My caution is that inside-the-box thinking needs to be given more weight. Things get inside-the-box because the have been refined and tested, modified and tested, improved and compared over the years. In the case of education the problem to be solved is “how do we educate 10,000 kids” not how do we educate your specific kid, so maybe they dont have the best answer. In terms of heath care, the focus is “how to we address this patient” so inside-the-box is going to be the right answer 90+% of the time. </p>
<p>I think that morgan correctly sussed out that she may have stealth given a lot more support of the sons weaknesses that she every realized. Its also possible that the highly customized education path also was subconsciously selected to avoid the sons educational weak spots. I guess that would explain what has confused me- why this problem wasnt anticipated before the son went away to school. Its not like there is teenage onset autism. </p>
<p>Regardless of if its autism or not, or something else related to the seizures there needs to be a plan to move forward. I think all they are playing for in the Spring semester is Redemption at BigU, which frankly the son might not care about at all. Whether or not that redemption can happen is based on a credible support plan that can be put together. And thats a crap shoot without a diagnosis. </p>
<p>In addition to medical leave, maybe there is a distance learning option that would work for the son. It might all be 6 of one, since BigU doesnt seem like a good environment for the kid in any event.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine the point of sending this student back to college. This kid needs help.</p>
<p>First, everyone please be gentle with the OP. I’ve been there - as have many of you - and it’s a hard place to be. OP, it’s tough love you’re getting here, probably because I think we’ve all been given some really terrible/unrealistic advice in the past and want to make sure you hear the sometimes unwelcome truth.</p>
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<p>Ah, CF, that is what is so difficult…they mature, they learn better social skills, but the disablity is always there. Some don’t even believe it’s a disablity. It doesn’t show on the outside. But it doesn’t go away.</p>
<p>So, OP, I’m intrigued: How do you know these people in your family have telekinetic ability?</p>
<p>(As for the psychic precognition skills – All moms have that.)</p>
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<p>You mean like I can make a slice of pizza in the refrigerator disappear by morning?</p>
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<p>Well said Cardinal: what I was trying to say but didn’t have the words for. Thanks.</p>
<p>One other thought: Those of us with spectrum children have integrated the management of their condition into our lifestyles. We don’t even notice what we do for them because it’s second nature. We are doing far more for them on a day-to-day basis than we realize. Sometimes I am amazed (and appalled) when S2 is away from the home environment and I see exactly how impaired he is. Such excursions are useful because they reveal the “holes” in what we are teaching him, and I know where to direct the next lessons. And yes, EVERYTHING must be taught, from “When people say hello, they want you to say hello back.” to “Don’t sit down in the middle of the store aisles. Toddlers do that and you look odd.”</p>
<p>OP, you sent him to school with lots of organizational tools. Was he well-versed in using them? I suspect that you were (perhaps unknowingly) giving him prompts that were keeping him organized at home. All of us with spectrum kids must give them increasing opportunities to (safely, briefly) fly solo so we can evaluate the holes that need to be addressed, and evaluate exactly how “solo” they can be. In our case, we’re still evaluating. I honestly don’t know if he’ll be able to leave home or not. We’re researching colleges away from home and also some close by. I’ve told him he needs to apply to both. This will give us more time to make our decision (he is a junior so we have another year.)</p>
<p>Let me echo what my friend missypie says here. We think morgana would be making a mistake sending her son back to college, but we made that same mistake, and so do several CC parents every year. We understand. After I got the call early second semester to come pick up my son, after I brought him home and frantically, tearfully found someone to see him, his new therapist kindly explained that just in her clientele she sees situations like this often.</p>
<p>I hope other posters, especially those whose children are neurotypical, will come to morgana from a place of kindness rather than a place of smugness and superiority. Everything is not black and white when it’s your kid.</p>
<p>Morgana, I commend you for making excellent choices for your son’s pre-college education. For those who think morgana’s son would have magically learned to organize himself if morgana hadn’t done it for him-- no, he wouldn’t, not without extensive tutoring, help and support of a kind not provided in schools.</p>
<p>Some exceptionally good advise here that I hope the OP takes to heart. It’s hard to hear. As I’ve read through this thread I hear the OP repeating ‘he’s a model student’, ‘he doesn’t do this at home’, and list his many accomplishments. No one is doubting he’s an exceptionally bright and capable young man when given the ideal supports and surroundings such as he was receiving at home. Previous posters have gently pointed out that the OP had naturally done what parents do when they have children on the spectrum, provide supports and structure. It’s very easy to forget how much we do when it’s integrated into their and our routines and this was probably greatly underestimated by the OP.</p>
<p>Like others, I honestly feel that working with the school to get a medical LOA for last semester if at all possible, but at least for the coming spring semester, is absolutely necessary. Evaluation and implementation of new plans for success takes time. The current school may not be the correct environment even if he’s allowed to return. The first, and most pressing matter however is his health, and that requires time away from school. </p>
<p>It can be the hardest thing to do to restructure our own vision of success for our children but it is vital so that we don’t continue to push them down a path that is not right for them, that they continue to experience failure, and they feel they don’t measure up in our eyes. Their path may eventually far exceed what we thought success looked like, but it has to be their own.</p>
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<p>Oh my goodness yes. I can’t count the number of people, some of them on CC, who say that we just have to let our kids go, let them make their own mistakes, they’ll figure it out, once they’re living independently they’ll learn how to live independently, why are we coddling them, helicopter parents, blah blah blah.</p>
<p>None of this applies to kids on the spectrum!</p>
<p>Getting good grades is very tough in college unlike high school. I have seen lot of kids with perfect GPA and high SAT’s do really bad in college. Sometimes some colleges grade very harshly and even brilliant kids get depressed and change major or even a better college where grading could be easier. My kid had also had high grades in HS, took lot of college classes and was the topper, in a small college, but when he went to a college with an engineering major in a highly ranked college, where the grading was very harsh. his grades began to fall bad too. Was put on Probation too. So also his classmates who had high HS Scores. This is reality. Colleges are tough and getting good grades is hard. One of his friend who was accepted by an ivy but decided to come to this college to get a full ride, who had a perfect scores in HS came to this college and was in Chemical Engineering, but changed to Art which was easier to get good grades as he was getting really bad grades because of the grading. Maybe your son is just having a tough time in a tough college. Where did your son take his college classes when he was in high school? Also how did he fare in the AP’s and the SATs ? That would help you in getting a rough idea of what is happening now. Btw which college is he going? My kid changed his college end of sophomore year, to a easier college and is doing good. Maybe you should just remove your son as soon as possible from this college and put him in a smaller college where he could get good grades and see how he does there. Try to change his major to a easier one too.</p>
<p>Respectfully Nick12mom,
An easier college would simply be a bandaid. For autistic kids the academics are not the problem. These kids are wicked smart. It’s all the other aspects of independent living, negotiating getting to class, asking a professor to clarify an assignment (this requires face to face interaction), any group projects are terrifying, navigating executive function issues of prioritizing which assignments are due when so what to do first, etc. These same issues would apply in an ‘easier’ college or major and an added problem would be intellectually the student would be bored silly.</p>
<p>The parents who have successfully navigated this before, and have posted, are correct in that first getting a solid diagnosis and treatment plan is the number one priority. Then deciding on the correct educational environment where he can receive supports necessary to remain successful. Ideally this will be in the most academically appropriate setting possible.</p>