Autism and school.

When I first became a parent, I had all these ideas about what Christmas would be like, how much fun their birthdays would be, how they would get on at nursery and what the first day of school would be like. We have all these ideas how we would like them to be and in reality it's not always the case.

Being a parent of a child with autism opens up your eyes to a whole new way of thinking. My younger two Wildlings love birthdays and Christmas and spur of the moment day outs. My eldest wildling need's to know how far in advance thing's are, what we are going to do that day. God help us if plan's change at the last moment or if a friend doesn't turn up etc or if you throw something extra in the mix that you hadn't said about the day before or a few days before.

In 5 sleep's my biggest starts school. (The middle start's nursery in the mornings. He's excited). School however hasn't been a subject we've spoke about throughout the summer. He knows he's going but we don't really speak about it because his anxiety goes through the roof. Anxiety can play a major role in most children with autism. He doesn't want to go, he's stressing already, his behaviour has changed and change's on a daily basis leading up to school starting.
He hasn't tried on his uniform, any time we broach the subject or show him his uniform he just can't handle the situation and he starts to go into meltdown mode. He likes to wear jogger's or shorts most day's, tag's have to be cut off. He doesn't really like the feel of trousers. To him they're not right. We had a deal that on a nursery day he could wear jogger's and on the weekends it would be trousers. It's just too much sensory overload for him.

I know that half my post's have been about autism awareness, I'm learning every day as a parent, there are some day's that I lose it and I feel guilty about that and there are day's that are great. As parents, we are on a journey. We will find out what will work one day doesn't always work the next day. But if I can get autism awareness out there and even help one person with some advice then that's what I'll keep doing.

So this uniform might end up staying in it's packaging by the time school comes round or he might surprise us all and actually wear it.