Your son will always see himself through the eyes of you and your wife. That’s what he’ll always remember and that’s what will provide him with his anchor as he finds his way through all the hardships ahead of him. And I don’t mean that he’s going to have a special set of hardships other kids don’t. Every kid has their schtick; the something or other that some mean spirited kid will peck at. The love, care, concern and confidence that you and your wife have in him will see him through all that. From what you wrote I gather it’s not yet confirmed that he actually has asperger’s and if he doesn’t, g-d willing, he’s still going to need to see that same reflection of himself in your eyes — love, care, concern and confidence.

All our kids have their hardships. When my 4 year old daughter had part of her ring finger amputated my wife and I went through something similar to what you describe for you and your wife. 6 months later she sees herself as normal because that’s how we see her. I’m no expert on any of this parenting stuff. I’ve got a long way to go and my kids keep showing me how and where I fall short every day — I keep trying to change and adapt. But for all my shortcomings as a dad they’re growing up strong, healthly self-confident kids. I think it’s because my wife and I love them so much and we tell them so every day. I think you were chosen to be his parents for a good reason — your little guy is in good hands.

Cole, naive is fine by me. I think I’d rather stay naive and happy than become all jaded. You’re right, though – there are so many stigmatizing issues out there, and I hadn’t thought of the severe food allergy side of things. That must be tough, and I’d imagine other kids (and their parents – how wrong is that?) could be pretty insensitive about that.

When I posted about this, I was truly not fishing for comments – I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about this in person because it’s all too close to the surface right now. But doing a brain dump into my blog definitely helped me gain some clarity. And the comments that you people have offered have helped more than I would have imagined possible. Thanks to each and every one of you (and I got many “off blog” comments as well). It’s so awesome to be a part of such a rich, deep and supportive community. If anyone ever asks me why I blog, I’ll point to this as one of the main reasons.

My 5 years old daughter falls under autism spectrum. When we found that out that our life came to a standstill (I stopped blogging for 3 months), it was the fear of unknown.

Now at least we know a little more about it and moreover we know more about our daughter. Here the basics we learned –

1.Autism is not a disease – it’s a neurological anomaly ‘spectrum’. We consider it abnormality ‘cause the symptoms doesn’t falls under our pre conceived idea about normality. No one can definitely tell you why autism occurs, there are many hypothesis (including genetics) but no concrete answer. As it’s a spectrum – the impact varies. Actually, if you ask me – I think there is nothing called Autism. We came up with the term from our stupid perspective of ‘categorization’ of everything. Every child is unique, there problems too, are unique.

2.As we can’t pinpoint the cause-effect-cure for autism many witch doctors emerged with different snake oil treatment (mercury extraction therapy, gluten free diet etc.) Please don’t fall into their trap.

3.’Normal’ kids and their parents will not understand – so don’t even bother.

4.Every autistic kids are great in something (my daughter in computer games and Lego structure building) – please encourage that side of him/her

But above else I really liked what Sami Khan said “I seriously take issue with the word “normal”, considering all the “normal” people have an IQ of 100, I would rather have a kid with Asperger’s and an IQ over 130, then a “normal” kid any day!”

My de.icio.us link for Autism: http://del.icio.us/AnolSoulSoup/Autism

Overdiagnosis is likely turning up many more cases of this – even if it isn’t actually more prevalent now than a decade or two ago. Same thing with cancer – years ago, people just died of “old age” – now we know that a big chunk of that is cancer/heart disease/etc…

My Dad & Uncle, for example, casually pointed out to me a year or so when I was worried about my daughter and dyslexia that they had been acutely dyslexic but had only figured it out a few decades after the fact. It’s like depression… more people aren’t depressed now, more people are diagnosed as depressed.

We’re all different, in wonderful and far reaching ways, it’s just that what used to be ‘who you are’ has started to become ‘what you’re suffering from’ when in fact as long as you’re with people (and in contexts) that don’t force you to do stuff that doesn’t sit well with you (such as spelling tests) then its no problemo at all. And with great a great dad (and mum too I guess like your little ‘un has I reckon you’ve got very little to worry about at all, diagnosis or not.

So, my opinion is that a diagnosis and a name for what you’re dealing with gives you many more options. If said child is paced according to his abilities and not the social standard it might make him feel better about himself throughout his childhood too. Just my uninvited two cents.