Comments on: Growing Up, Getting Good

By: The Sense of Humor Pill

The Sense of Humor Pill — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:38:44 +0000

[...] wrote a few days ago about a new study about how parenting disabled children can become less taxing over time. This has been our experience in many ways over the years with Charlie, though he has yet to have [...]

By: sharon

sharon — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:09:58 +0000

When they were young, I didn’t ask the boys to pick up their toys because they didn’t respond. Years later, I realize they can do chores and have begun asking and teaching them how. I get the boys to bring in the groceries during the summer and help with the trash and laundry. Andy thinks it’s fun to help whereas Ryan is learning it’s a chore.

By: Jen

Jen — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 10:29:52 +0000

I’d definitely say that it’s gotten easier over the years. My triplets are 12 now, and they were diagnosed at 20 months. There were years and years where I was sure that I would never get a full night’s sleep, never have a 3 day stretch without a meeting, or never ever have a day without a therapist or worker in the house.

I’m not sure how much of the “ease” that we’re experiencing these days are due to the incredible strides that the kids have made, our greater ability to understand their communication methods, or whether I’m just more used to it and less likely to freak out. Even though we’re in a “bad time” right now with 2 of the children regressing a bit (it’s always 2 or 3 steps forward, one step back), at least now I know that we’ll get things figured out, and that this is liable to be a fairly short period of time. On the downside, I do think that the 10 years of sleep deprivation has had a great affect on my cognition and memory- I’m going back to school in January, and it’s pretty scary as my mind just doesn’t work quite the way that it used to.

I’m thrilled that this study was done- I hope that at some point they’ll also do a study tracking the health of parents with adult “children”. Now that we’re starting to begin thinking about care for 2 of our children after they turn 18 I’m learning a lot more about what caring for a 60 year old autistic adult when you’re 80 is like.

By: Christina Shaver

Christina Shaver — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:48:38 +0000

What a relief to hear! I honestly have been wondering how many years off my life this is taking from me. Glad to know it is none!

By: Kristina Chew, PhD

Kristina Chew, PhD — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 02:58:17 +0000

Cleaning up without being asked to—–wow, not doing that here (yet).

By: Fielding J. Hurst

Fielding J. Hurst — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 23:18:05 +0000

Sweet mother of God, praise the researchers from the University of Chicago and University of Wisconsin-Madison.

My daughter has started to clean up after herself without anyone asking. We are holding out hope that she will be the one neat freak in the family.