“Your Son’s Behavior is Your Fault”

And other things I’ve heard as a mom of an Aspie kid

My son got kicked out of 3K because he was throwing chairs and destroying school property.

What kind of kid does that?

Maybe a kid with Autism Spectrum Disorder that hasn’t been diagnosed yet.

My son Preston was showing signs that something was wrong from the time he was a baby. He had trouble with nursing, and later, he choked on any baby food that had texture. He was late on his first word, he was very late on potty training, and he had other developmental delays that weren’t severe enough to cause alarm. He was a pretty happy toddler in general. There was no Terrible Two in our house. We were lucky.

Shortly after he turned three, though, the switch was flipped.

Preston went from Jekyll to Hyde overnight. I saw the Hyde side most of the time, I guess because I spent most of the time with him. He was fine for my parents, my grandparents, and at church, though. He also seemed aloof at other times. There was almost a disconnect when he was around other little kids. I couldn’t understand it. What was up with these seemingly selective mood swings?

Right around this time, the Methodist church a few blocks from our house opened a preschool. I went to the open house and it seemed pretty legit. Preston had done fine at Mom’s Day Out a couple of times a week, and he had sort of a disinterest at whatever other kids his age were doing around him, so putting him in 3K was an easy decision.

After the first month I wasn’t so sure. The teacher called me one afternoon and told me that Preston’s behavior was getting hard to manage. He was getting angry at her, other staff, and most of the kids. It was unclear what exactly set him off. Since I’d been dealing with this quandary myself, I was at a loss.

The phone calls continued several times a week, and I started picking him up earlier. But then Preston upped his game and started to throw things, including chairs and crayons and toys. He screamed at his classmates and his teachers. His behavior was out of control, I was told. Yeah, I knew that.

Less than a week later, Preston’s teacher called to inform me that his preschool could no longer tolerate his aggressive behavior and that he could not be a student there anymore. They simply weren’t equipped to deal with behavior problems of this magnitude.

She then added that she knew a boy who had the same kind of behavior as Preston. I thought I was about to hear some encouraging words like “he grew out of it and was the president and valedictorian of his senior class” or “it was just a phase he was going through, so try not to worry.”

Nope.

“He was eventually diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and has had continual problems with relationships and those in authority. He barely graduated high school and has been in and out of prison.”

She urged me to get him to a psychiatrist, I guess so we’d have an official “there’s no hope for your son” diagnosis.

So now I had the honor of feeling both added guilt and impending doom.

I talked to my parents and a few other trusted people, all who disagreed with this teacher, and I felt a little more hopeful. So the following fall, we tried again, putting him in a different preschool. It was almost double the tuition of the Methodist school, but cost could no longer be a factor. It was a great decision: from day one, Preston was one of the best-behaved kids in his 4K class. He loved school and all of his teachers. He loved everything about it and was a star student.

How in the actual F did this happen?

I thought of the first preschool we put him in and tried to remember details that may have differed from where he was now. The teachers at the Methodist school were relatively new at teaching, and there were a lot of changes here and there as the bugs were ironed out. This isn’t unusual for any fledgling school, of course. But I concluded that Preston was reacting to that disorganization.

Because his school behavior was a 180-degree change, I didn’t take him to a mental health professional. I was so relieved that I put that 3K teacher’s bad omen out of my mind. His new school had been around since the 1970s, and everything was in perfect order. It was totally predictable. I knew it well because I’d worked in their afterschool program when I was in high school. So although we were writing bigger checks, it was well worth it.

Preston may have done well at school and church and anywhere else that was completely predictable and organized, but he freaked out if anything else was out of order, especially at our house. That didn’t really stop. Any sudden changes pissed him off. He was fine at my parents’ house, but that was because it was just as predictable as his school. It always looked like the people from Southern Living were coming by at any moment to do a spread for their magazine, and my parents are even-tempered and just fun in general when it comes to kids. So they — and I — concluded that I must be doing something wrong.

My husband told me that I was the problem. I had zero patience, he said. I needed to be a better mother. I needed to keep the house cleaner. I needed to work on myself. It didn’t help that Preston was fine when his dad got home from work an hour or two before the kids’ bedtime. When I tried to explain what our son did with only me around, I was dismissed. When Preston started adding “I hate you” to his favorite things to say to me, that was my fault, apparently. After all, he never said that to anyone else, including his dad.

Even though I was convinced that I totally sucked as a mom, by the time Preston was six years old, I was absolutely sure something was wrong. I knew him better than anyone else. His tantrums at home were getting worse, he hated me and was jealous of his little sister, and he even sassed a police officer. This really shook me. That kid that the preschool teacher had talked about had a history of disrespecting the authorities.

So I made an appointment with a child psychologist who specialized in especially difficult children. Who hated their mothers, I’m sure.

After some extensive testing and asking me a lot of questions about Preston’s development, moods, and behavior, the psychologist had Preston play in a separate room so he could talk to me. My son had Asperger’s Syndrome, he told me. His behavior manifested from frustration, trouble communicating, and a lot of difficulty with reading and expressing emotions. Pretty much every concern was textbook Asperger’s, I was told.

When Preston and I left that office, my shoulders were lighter: I had an official diagnosis and explanation by one of the most renowned child psychologists in the Big Bend of Florida. There was an explanation. There was help that my son could get.

I wasn’t crazy.

Unfortunately, my husband didn’t buy it. Neither did anyone else, really. It took years for my family to believe that Preston really was on the autism spectrum.

My husband not only stated that our son did not have any kind of autism, but he didn’t really believe in stuff like that. Preston was fine; I was the problem. I wasn’t more loving, he told me. He also routinely told our son, in front of me, that I didn’t love him. He would tease me in front of both kids. He’d do things to deliberately annoy me. It was my fault every time Preston would scream at me and throw everything he could across whatever room he happened to be in. And the times I’d hold onto the doorknob on the door to his bedroom to keep him from opening the door to attack me? While I was on the phone with my mom, in tears, not knowing what to do? Oh yeah, that was also my fault.

Things got so bad that when our marriage fell apart, I let my husband take the kids for most of the time because I believed what he’d been telling me — and our children — for years. I was a bad, unloving mother. I didn’t know what I was doing. I had messed up my own son. And because I had literally no emotional or mental support from my parents, I believed those lies.

The pain from that kind of verbal abuse has never completely gone away, but over time, I was believed by the people who matter most to me, and together we started helping Preston manage his autism. He’s had some pretty bad years, and the divorce and remarriage of both his parents — not to mention adjusting to stepbrothers who didn’t really like him — really took a toll on him and a lot of other people. For several years, he had a bad home life when he was at his dad’s. My ex and his new wife drank a lot (this activity nearly killed him)so by the time Preston got to my house, he fell apart easily, and it took days for him to wind down. It can’t be anywhere close to easy for any kid of divorced parents, but for my son, it was next to impossible for him to ever adjust to a shared custody situation.

But for the most part, he did pretty well in school. His elementary and middle schools were in the best school district in our county. He had great teachers. He didn’t do as well in high school, so I switched him to a smaller, Montessori-style high school for his last two years, and he made friends and good grades.

He graduated high school this past May, and I couldn’t be prouder of him.

Preston currently has a lot of friends from school and his youth group at church, many of whom have no idea that he’s on “the spectrum.” He lives with my parents because it’s closer to church and work (and because he never could fully accept his stepdad). He still has behavior problems, but only with the people who love him unconditionally. It’s selective.

The teenage moodiness that’s expected in any kid once they hit thirteen has been amplified in Preston. When his mind goes dark, he hates himself and sometimes talks about suicide. He also yells at my dad a lot and has a habit of storming out. One time, he left in the middle of an argument and drove to freaking Tennessee, where his other grandparents live. But he has always come around and asked forgiveness, and he’s never been violent or destructive.

As hurtful has Preston still can be, my family and I would rather be the proverbial punching bags rather than to watch him lose control . He may always struggle with frustration, anxiety, and depression, but he does not have Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

That teacher may have had good intentions when she gave me her opinion, but she was dead wrong. All in all, my son is pretty well-adjusted, considering his challenges.

The main thing I learned from being a mother of a kid with Autism Spectrum Disorder is this:

Never give up trying to help your child.

From the time my son was two days old, I didn’t give up. When he couldn’t nurse, I bought a hospital-grade double pump and pumped seven times a day for over a year because I was hell bent on my baby getting breastmilk. I dealt with parents and other family members who didn’t believe me, a husband who said horrible things to and about me, and a son who routinely got in my face and said he hated me.

I know what it’s like to feel like throwing in the towel. I kind of did when I became convinced that the kids were better off with my ex and his parents in Tennessee for nearly two years, but it’s hard to know what to do when you have serious mental illness and a family who blames you for your failed marriage and current circumstances.

I know what it’s like to start over, to try to find help for your child over and over, to feel like a loser, a bad parent, a failure.

I know what it’s like to fall and get up, fall and get up. Riding horses for most of my life taught me that. I’ve gotten back on with a sprained ankle, bruised tailbone, cracked rib, and a broken foot. Because riders need to do that. The horse doesn’t need to learn that he can get out of doing his job if his rider comes off. The rider doesn’t need to learn to be afraid.

Same with parenting, really.

I know what it’s like to be discouraged, feel alone, and feel like giving up. I took mental health breaks — both voluntary and involuntary — but I never gave up. I wish Preston had not been programmed to resent me, but he and I have slowly developed a good relationship. “I hate you” hasn’t been in his vocabulary for years. I’ve become his sounding board when he’s brainstorming or upset about something. And I’m helping him apply to college.

All that work and failures and feelings of despair, all that stress, all that getting back into the saddle…it looks like it’s paying off.

In the end, I just want my son to succeed on his own terms. To have good relationships with people. To feel peace.

I realize that the challenges that I’ve had as a mother are nothing compared to the cards that have been dealt to parents of children with severe issues that would bring the average parents to their knees. A child who is truly violent, addicted to drugs, or unable to function in society, or one with severe autism or another disabling condition that requires constant care — all of that calls for a level of parenting that people like me know nothing about. And I recognize that, in many ways, I don’t know what I’m talking about when it comes to parenting challenges.

But we only know what we know, right? This is all I know as a parent to a child like Preston.

The road to parenting success has miles of broken asphalt, switchbacks, hairpin turns, dead ends, and unpaved sections. There will be breakdowns. There will be times when you have to backtrack or take another route. You’ll have to make your way through terrible weather, ice on the road, and backseat drivers. And even though people will give you good directions and helpful advice, you’ll also be given wrong directions, outdated maps, and really bad advice. And totally unsolicited advice.

And you’ll probably have to redefine your definition of success.

You may come to realize that maybe your expectations were too high, and that it’s okay to take things day by day, or minute by minute, depending on what you’re dealing with. And you’ll need to accept that you are going to make mistakes. And that there will probably be times when you feel totally unqualified, or at least ill-equipped, to play whatever hand you’ve been dealt.

I do have a lot of regrets about how I handled things on my end, though it’s hard to know what do to when you don’t have a proper support system. I spun my wheels a lot. I didn’t reach out to autism support groups. I didn’t go online to find forums. I didn’t call a helpline. I was feeling too paralyzed for the thought to even enter my brain. But what I wouldn’t give to have the support I wish I had when my son was growing up. In a way, Preston grew into the young man he is in spite of the mistakes that the adults in his life made for many years.

Parenting hasn’t stopped for me — does it ever, really? — but I’m pleased with how it’s been going for my son. In spite of a multitude of setbacks, Preston is working full-time right now and will be headed to college in the spring. I just got off the phone with him after a great two-hour conversation.

I’m resting a little easier.

Finally.

If your kid’s behavior sounds a lot like my son’s, do some research and talk to a professional. If you’re lacking in funds or need help that can’t wait, go here for free 24/7 parenting support.