Jo's Story

Lachlan

I have a son with Autism and he is 6 ½ years old.

He loves reading, numbers, puzzles, board games, swimming, going to the park and mum and dad.

He is really good at reading, math, giving hugs and has wonderful manners.

He struggles with noise, too many people, change without being informed way ahead of time, taking a different route to a place he often goes to (like school) and the most scary of all running away from us when out in public and having no fear of cars.

Sometimes I, as a parent, find it hard when people don’t have the understanding or awareness of Autism like when you are out in public and your child has a major meltdown and people stare or you hear comments about naughty children or when people do not understand that you cannot go to a specific outing as there are too many sensory issues for your child to hope with.

We recently went to a friend’s place for a BBQ and there were about 25 people there and we only lasted 10 minutes before our son had a major melt down due to the number of people and the noise. We were unable to calm him down so we had to go home and some of the people where like “what, you are going just because he is screaming” – they had no idea how hard it was for him. So as you can tell we don’t venture out much but I am hoping one day we might get to Australia Zoo or Sea World.

But then I think about the special moments, like when the children in his class could not believe how well he can read and they love him helping them with their reading.

When people compliment what lovely manners our son has – like when he greets someone at the checkout and says Hello …their name (that he reads from their tag), my name is Lachlan, how are you today? And that person is taken by surprise that he knows what their name is. Or when someone sneezes (no matter whom it is) and he says “Bless You”, and when they thank him he says “You’re welcome”.

When he comes and give you the biggest hug and says, "Hug to make you feel happy".

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