So my brats are sitting at the kitchen table and eating pickles; they love pickles and consider them a treat, I can get more jobs done around the house by promising them pickles then I can ice-cream. I am folding and sorting the washing and putting it in piles and somehow the toy car one of them had brought to the tables goes missing.

A hunt en sues for the car which threatens to render all the sorting of the washing back into chaos I yell for them to stop and find the car for them. “Ah ha” says my daughter “It was hiding” holding it up triumphantly, “Nope” retorts her bother,
“Yes it was “she insists and ‘hides’ the car again behind her pile of washing and turns to him and says “See?” “It’s not hiding it’s concealed.” He declares and munches on another pickle. “Huh? What is the difference?” she asks.

My ten year old then goes on to explain that hiding is an act of will, that a person or animal has to choose to hide or be complicit in the hiding were as an object can not.
A person can by choosing to do hide an object by concealing it but the object is concealed, cos objects can’t choose to hide and can’t unhide themselves there for they can only be concealed and then discovered.

It was one of those bright and happy moments when I got to see how just not normal my eldest is a good way which lead me to ponder is his ‘difference’ hidden or concealed? I don’t think it has been hidden, he never choose to hide it and now we know about that fact that he has aspergers and it is no longer concealed behind other behaviours or reasons for him being the way he is I like to think that it’s just him being him and does not change the fact I love every hair on his head even when he
has had a bad day and both of our stress levels have gone through the roof and we both go to bed grumpy.

I don’t see the point in hiding it either; I grew up with people being neurologically different from my dad with this epilepsy and a close family friend who is bipolar.
Sure there are days when he can strop out completely and sulk and get overwhelmed emotionally and cry and all in public and all with in a few minutes and so what that is how he is and he is learning to manage and I am learning how to manage him.
Not contain, correct, or prevent but to understand what it is like for him so that I can
help him manage what is going on with him for himself.

A lot of this is keeping an eye on his stressors and stress levels but he is learning how to do that for himself and will come to me and tell me that he is stressed, where his level is at and can tell me what is causing it and then we start problem solving about what he or we can do about it, lately it has just be him using me as a sounding board while he figures things out which is a vast improvement over the child who would instead throw himself at doors, walls and on the floor in frustration.

So much of it is talking and listening. Letting him know that his communications to me is getting through, actively listening seems to be a great help. That and helping him make sense of different emotions. This evening he nearly finished a book that he has really relished and came to tell me about the ending and was swept away and confused about how he could be so emotionally conflicted with nearly finishing the book.
It’s a pretty big achievement for him considering the book is a little over 500 pages.
But the bitter sweet prospect of finding out what happens and the story ending and it being that pronounced was new to him and hence surprising and confusing.
“ Mam, how can I be smiling and crying ?” he asked. So it became a half hour talk about how that is possible and how you can feel two very strong emotions at the same time and the meaning of the term bittersweet.

He asked me what the most bittersweet thing in life is and I have to say it is for me being a parent. Both of them grow and change so fast, while it is wonderful to see and watch them develop as people and take pride in all those steps and achievements there is the fact that as a parent your job is to make sure that one day they will barely need you. Ok this might be a tad more complicated with my son but it’s the same struggle every parent feels as their kids grow up.

One thing about him being the way he is means we have some of the most interesting conversations not just between the two of us, his sister included and I am grateful for it as long as the communication and trust is there I hope we can all weather the storms of both their adolescences for he is ten and they grow up so quickly.