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He eagerly stands by the door as I assure him his bus has come, and my lanky seventeen-year-old with severe autism bounds across the threshold to his waiting ride. I think he\u2019s been at school three days in the last three weeks, due to his school closing for Covid and some inclement weather. He doesn\u2019t smile nearly as much now as he did before he developed tic disorder four years ago (or perhaps it\u2019s because he\u2019s a teenager and doesn\u2019t smile that much anyway), but he\u2019s vocally stimming and steps right up into the bus, so I have to believe he\u2019s happy to go.<\/p>\n
As much as I love him, he needs this and I do too.<\/p>\n
It will be a year next month that Justin\u2019s school schedule will have been radically altered, and I have to say we are in a better place now than we were eleven months ago. For five out of the six first months of Covid, Justin was home with me being his teacher, both instructing him and doing Zoom calls with his teachers. The home instruction went and is going pretty well, as I still do it with him once or twice a week. The Zoom calls, not so well, and we have chosen not to participate in them as he isn\u2019t getting anything out of them. He is an in-person instruction type of guy.<\/p>\n
And as a former teacher who can\u2019t even imagine doing virtual instruction, I so get it.<\/p>\n
Justin can\u2019t talk, and really only uses his iPad in school for academics and to communicate his basic needs, so most of the time we have to guess what he\u2019s feeling. He really has had limited behaviors since all this struck, for which I am eternally grateful, but it\u2019s difficult not to know what he\u2019s thinking. I tell him every morning whether or not he has \u201chome school\u201d or \u201cin-person school,\u201d but I never know whether or not he understands, or how he feels. I know ten years ago he would have been throwing his sneakers at me to take him somewhere every day- he\u2019s matured, and seems to get that right now, there\u2019s nowhere to go.<\/p>\n
I am truly grateful that he seems to get it.<\/p>\n
Only once has he really asked to go anywhere, and that was when he threw the Jenks boardwalk tickets in my lap and stood there expectantly, waiting for me to tell him we could go. I told him it was closed and he seemed okay with it, walking over to one of his toys and engaging in play.<\/p>\n
Trust me, I would have loved to have taken him.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d like to think we\u2019re in the home stretch now, and soon a more normal life will resume. I have a feeling both of my boys will emerge from this relatively unscathed, but at this point it\u2019s difficult to know. I do know that there are other families with autistic children who are not faring nearly as well, and my heart goes out to them.<\/p>\n
All I can say to all of us, is hang in there, we\u2019ve got this.<\/p>\n
And as I see my boy take his seat on the bus, I\u2019m grateful he\u2019s done so well so far.<\/p>\n
For more on my family visit my blog at autismmommytherapist.wordpress.com<\/em><\/p>\n Follow me on Facebook at Autism Mommy-Therapist<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u2003<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u2003<\/em><\/p>\n