Hi – There’s just 24 hours to go before www.ParentingAspergersCommunity.com finally opens the doors …

Whilst I have been getting the site ready I have had a few parents helping me to test and check through the site …  And a number of them have emailed me and posted their thoughts and comments all about the new website.

I have included several of the comments below so that you can learn all about the site in the words of fellow parents …

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“Dave,

Thank you for the invitation to Parenting Aspergers Community. The new web site will be a valuable resource to both parents of kids with Aspergers as well as to “Aspies” themselves.

I have not read ALL of the many articles, etc., on it as I wanted to get this letter off to you, but it appears to be one of the best, if not THE best, Aspergers web site I have seen.

For example, your articles for parents really get down to the “nitty-gritty” of raising a kid with Aspergers and do not beat around the bushes.

I also am happy that you are including Aspergers for adults as it is uniformly fatal or cured at Age 18 or 21 the way some people seem to act.

Sincerely yours,

Mary Minshall
Nevada, USA”

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“Thank you Dave for letting me get a sneak peek at your new website.  I really enjoyed reading the articles and getting answers to my unspoken questions …

Reading your website/blogs has given me such a new understanding of my son, now 16.

Today, reading your new website, I really was touched by the article about homework.  That has been a constant battle in my house …

Again, I want to thank you for making your knowledge available around the world and am so thankful that you do reach out to help us parents all over.

Jill Yohn
McMinnville, Oregon, USA”

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“Hi Dave

Your new site looks fantastic. It hits all the topics that occur when having a aspergers child. Matthew thinks it is awesome. Its well put together and easy to use. I wish you all the success with this. I will read it and use it all the time.

Great work Dave”

Nansi Readman
USA”
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The website launches tomorrow (Wednesday 10th March) and I will be sending you an “early bird” email at 9pm UK time (4pm EST). This is 1 hour before the rest of my newsletter readers will be notified of the website opening; to say thank you for being interested in the new site and signing up to the notification email list.

Inside this email will be details of how you can grab one of the limited charter memberships that will be available when the site opens. So watch out for that at 9pm UK time (4pm EST).

Have a great day and I’ll speak to you again tomorrow,

Dave Angel

PS – If you missed any of the previous blog posts abut the
new website you can read them all by scrolling down the following web page:

http://parentingaspergers.com/blog/category/new-parenting-aspergers-website-launch/

Hello,  this is Dave Angel again with another free sample article from the new site www.ParentingAspergersCommunity.com

And without further ado here it is …

Question

How do I help my child so that she can make friends and be accepted by other teens?

Answer

The years between 12 and 18 can be very difficult for teenagers with Asperger’s Syndrome.  Friends are difficult to find and keep, are judgmental, and Aspie teens often become isolated socially.

Encourage your daughter to develop a special interest.  A special interest may encourage friendships with other teens with the same interest.  This can be especially effective if there is a club she can join or a sport’s team (or a group that enjoys a sport together).  Michelle Winner’s “Social Thinking Program” can help her do this by teaching her how to join a group, become a part of it, how to converse on teenage topics, develop social skills, and make friends by creating “Friend Files.”

Help her by becoming involved; organize and supervise appropriate, structured teen activities.  Perhaps you can assist with a school activity or become one of the sponsors (leaders) of a girls’ group, such as Girl Guides (Girl Scouts).  Invite one of your daughter’s acquaintances to your home to help her make friends.  Perhaps a girl who is a year or so younger will be more “in tune” with your daughter’s maturity level.  Plan a couple of activities (a video, perhaps) in case they have difficulties thinking of what to do.  Encourage your daughter to leave phone or text messages for peers.  Remember, she does not have to tell everyone she has Asperger’s Syndrome.

Consider sending her to a summer camp for Asperger’s teens.  Also, some high schools have support groups for teens with mentors who will help them navigate around school.  She might try volunteering at a preschool, animal shelter, or other organization that encourages teen volunteers.  This may help her make friends, but will also build her self-esteem.

Behavioural Therapy is highly recommended to teach her how to respond in teen social situations.  To some extent, the success of therapy depends on the teenager’s own desire to fit in.  Therapy can be very effective with teenagers, particularly group therapy.  You can work with her, too, by practicing and role-playing various social situations with her.  Teach her appropriate social responses in various situations.  Teach her to make eye contact and smile.

One of the big issues for Asperger’s teens is that they are often unaware of teen fads and topics of conversation.  See if you can get your daughter interested in High School Musical or Hannah Montana, so that she has something to discuss with other girls.  Teach her how to converse about clothes, music, boys, and celebrities.  Also, make sure she is dressed and groomed similarly to other teens.

But I have to say that equally all young people need to be individual and certainly don’t force trends on her that she doesn’t want, just to make her fit in. There are often different social groups and sets within schools, and by working on basic social skills your daughter will have a good chance of joining one of them in lines with her own interests.

Some teens enjoy talking with other Asperger’s teens in internet chat rooms, forums, and on message boards.  There are Asperger’s websites on which she can talk with other teens who have Asperger’s.  Monitor her closely and use parental controls to limit her access to only certain sites.

I hope you enjoyed this article and please add any comments at the bottom as usual.

And remember there’s only 2 days until www.ParentingAspergersCommunity.com is officially open – on Wednesday March 11th.

Have a great day,

Dave Angel
PS – If you missed any of the previous blog posts abut the
new website you can read them all by scrolling down the following web page:

http://parentingaspergers.com/blog/category/new-parenting-aspergers-website-launch/

Hi there if you’ve any comments on the recent video that I’ve uploaded about the new Aspergers website www.ParentingAspergersCommunity.com then please add them below in the Comments section.

Just to remind you the video can be viewed at the web page below …

*IMPORTANT INSTRUCTIONS FOR WATCHING THE VIDEO*

1. When you get to the web page for the video click the button towards the top of the screen that says “Full Size” to be able to view the video better (it’s in the middle just below the orange section).
 
2. Then click the big forward-pointing arrow in the middle of the screen to play the video (it will take about 10 seconds to load up).

3. Turn up the volume on your headset or pc speakers as the sound volume on the video is not amazing (making the video has been a bit of an amateur DIY experiment using my rather aging pc and microphone!)

The video link is … http://www.screencast.com/t/raXalw1oWbC

Thanks

Dave Angel

Hello,  This is Dave Angel again with the latest on www.ParentingAspergersCommunity.com

Today I am going to tell you a little more about the Department on the site called “More Aspergers Topics” (if you remember from past emails there are 5 main Departments on the new site – Parents Help Corner, Behaviors and Treatments, Helping your Child to Cope with Other People, More Aspergers Topics and Resources).

OK so the “More Aspergers Topics” Department is split down into 7 categories:

Adults with Aspergers

This category gives advice and information for parents of children who are more in their early adulthood stage of life. But is obviously relevant to parents with younger children as they can begin to see issues that may lie ahead in the future. Several examples of articles in this category are:

My daughter is now a parent. The biggest challenge is ensuring that she is reading my grandbaby’s emotions appropriately and that she is interacting with the baby and not with her cell, My Space page, or other object!

How do I get information to help an adult with Asperger’s? My son was diagnosed as an adult, so I am not able to find out much about his problems/treatment due to patient confidentiality on the part of his doctors.

Education

In this category there are lots of articles all related to education and learning for children with Aspergers. Some examples include:

Why is my son’s behavior unacceptable at school sometimes, whilst at home we have very few problems?

I don’t know how to help my daughter retain the information she learns at school and by doing homework.  When exams are due, it’s a nightmare.  I work hard to help her understand a problem, but she forgets it a few days later!  Anxiety is also a problem for both of us now!What can we do?

My child with Asperger’s is having trouble with writing issues and small motor skills. Can you help?

Gaining Independence

Now this is a category that is going to be very important to parents as I get lots of questions about how to support a child with Aspergers to become more independent. Some of the questions that I have already covered in this category are:

How can I help my son have a life outside of home?

My child will not take personal responsibility for her actions; she’s now 18 so what can I do?

What do I do to equip my 15 year old son to cope with real life issues and set aside his fantasy world?

Gluten Free Cooking

This category is devoted to sharing information and recipes for parents for gluten free cooking – as the gluten/casein free diets are beginning to be used more and more to help children with Aspergers. I am currently working with a top published author on helping me with this section – and more will be revealed in due course. But currently there are a number of recipes in this category for:

Gluten Free Apple Bread

Gluten Free Bread Maker Brown Bread

Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie

Share your Recipes/Share your Stories/Inspirational Stories

These 3 categories are much more interactional and will grow and develop as more and more parents get involved. They will offer the opportunity for parents to share and swap information, stories and recipes that will offer hope, support and encouragement to one another. This is definitely an area which I plan to grow and develop further as I firmly believe that parents have so much that they can teach each other.

Well that’s all for this update but be sure to look out of the next one which will explain more in-depth about the “Resources” category.

Take care for now,

Dave Angel

PS – If you missed any of the previous blog posts abut the
new website you can read them all by scrolling down the following web page:

http://parentingaspergers.com/blog/category/new-parenting-aspergers-website-launch/

Hello,  This is Dave Angel again with the next update on www.ParentingAspergersCommunity.com

Today I am going to go more into depth about two more of the Departments on the site:

1. Behavior and Treatments

2. Helping your Child to Cope with Other People

First up is the Behavior and Treatments Department …

This Department is split off into 3 categories; Behavior, Diagnosis, Treatment and Therapies.

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Behavior

As you can imagine by the name, the Behavior category offers information and help for parents in dealing with all kinds of difficult and challenging behaviors. Just to give you an idea here are several of the articles in this category:

My son talks incessantly; I don’t want to dent his confidence, but need some peace and quiet — how can I deal with this sensitively?

How do I discipline my Aspie child? Should it be the same way as for my other kids?

My son continuously seeks attention, usually really bad attention, and fights with absolutely everyone — what can I do?

Diagnosis

The Diagnosis category deals with all kinds of issues about diagnosis and related conditions such as these example questions:

What are the variations in aspects of the syndrome from child to child?

How do I find the right people to diagnose him properly and doctors to treat him with the right combination of meds to keep his behavior somewhat under control?

Anger management for Asperger’s Syndrome?

Treatment and Therapies

In this category I will provide information on the different approaches that are out there to help children with Aspergers, look at funding issues and generally offer solid advice on the many options out there. Some example articles already in this category are:

How can I find ways to pay for treatment/therapy?

I would love a checklist that tells parents what to do once a child is diagnosed with Asperger’s, a checklist of what steps to take, such as speech and language therapy, OT.

How can I find competent alternative medicine specialists?

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The second department that I want to tell you more about is “Helping your Child to Cope with Other People”

In this department there are 5 separate categories:

1.  Communication

2.  Parents Issues

3.  Sex & Sexuality

4. Siblings Issues

5.  Social Skills

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Communication

This category looks at the essential area of communication for parents of children diagnosed with Aspergers. It will provide tools and information to help bridge the gap of communication.

Some of the sample articles in this category are:

How can I understand the way my son thinks?

How can I relate to my daughter in a way which doesn’t cause a flair-up?  She has said to me, “I don’t understand you, mum, it’s like you are talking a foreign language!”

Communication/comprehension is a big problem (understanding what is meant by others in conversation). How can I help my child with this?

Parents Issues

In this category I provide information and advice for parents with particular focus on the parental role. This looks at things like parental relationships and explaining Aspergers to other people/family members. Some sample questions covered in this category are:

How much/what type of help I can expect from my husband in raising the kids, including my son with Asperger’s?

Is there anything I can do to help me remember that his behaviors are not designed to irritate me and that to him they are needful or make sense?

We are divorced and each of us as a parent has our own way of handling the child. He’s confused due to this joint custody, so what do you advise?

Sex and Sexuality

This is a key area that I get more and more questions about – so this whole category is devoted to practical information on supporting children with Aspergers on sex/sexuality issues. Just some of the articles in this section are:

How should I be helping my child as he approaches puberty?

At age 16, sex has been a subject he is fixated on and he is very inappropriate with the opposite sex. What can I do?

My son appears very confused about his sexuality; what should I do?

Siblings Issues

The siblings category offers help and support for those challenges faced by siblings of children with Aspergers Syndrome. Here’s a few of the article titles in this section:

Can you give advice on what to tell the non-Asperger’s kids? When will it be their turn (for attention)? Why does it seem like their needs always come after the needs of the AS kids?

My son has a lot of rage and hatred for his sibling. I am afraid he will seriously hurt his little brother. Why is he like this and what can I do to make things safer?

What is the best way to help other family members understand my daughter’s fears and anxieties?

Social Skills

Social skills are such an essential area when it comes to helping your child with Aspergers. So this category covers a whole host of topics in this area such as:

Are there programs or techniques I could follow to help my boy develop better social skills?

How do I get a child with Asperger’s to gain an understanding of social cues?

How do I help my child so that she can make friends and be accepted by other teens?

That’s all for this update … and don’t worry if all this talk about “departments” and “categories” appears a bit strange at the moment; it will all become crystal clear on the new website.

Take care for now,

Dave Angel

Hi there,

It’s Dave Angel again with the latest update on  www.ParentingAspergersCommunity.com

There are going to 5 main Departments on the website which will be the following:

1. Parents Help Corner

2. Behaviors and Treatments

3. Helping Your Child to Cope with Other People

4. More Aspergers Topics

5. Resources

Within each of these 5 Departments is a whole host of great features and information.

As you can tell the titles are pretty self-explanatory, but I am going to break down in detail each area over the next couple of blog posts.

Today I will talk more about The Parents Help Corner …

This Department has a number of categories of which the most important are:

Ask for Help – This category allows you to submit a question to me directly through the website which I know will be a great help for so many parents. I will then either reply in brief to you, or try to write a more in-depth answer for sharing on the site, depending on which seems appropriate.

Aspergers New Headlines – This is a constantly evolving live feed of the latest news stories from around the world related to Aspergers and Autism – so that you can keep right up-to-date at the click of a button on your computer.

Most Popular – This is a link that takes you directly to the most viewed/popular information and articles on the site.

Parenting Forum – For me this is the “jewel in the crown” of the website. It’s a really easy to use discussion forum that will allow parents to have discussion, swap ideas, make friends and just communicate with other parents who experience similar issues all over the world.

Member Profiles – I really love this area too as it expands on the “social networking” theme from the Forum. As you may have heard me say before; this is like a mini-version of Facebook or MySpace exclusively for parents of children with Aspergers. So you can go on there and make “friends” with people, upload photos, have your own blog, write your own profile and interact with other members (and me!) through instant messaging on the site.

Now I hope that this gives you a good idea about “The Parents Help Corner” Department – but if you have any questions please post them here on the blog and I’ll try and answer them as soon as I can.

Watch out for the next blog post on Friday which will be all about the following departments:

Behaviors and Treatments

Helping Your Child to Cope with Other People

Take care for now,

Dave Angel

PS – If you missed any of the previous blog posts abut the
new website you can read them all by scrolling down the following web page:

http://parentingaspergers.com/blog/category/new-parenting-aspergers-website-launch/

Hi there,

It’s Dave Angel again with the latest on the new website www.ParentingAspergersCommunity.com

Here’s a sample article from the new site for your interest …

Question

How can I understand the way my son thinks?

Answer

Children with Asperger’s Syndrome may have underdeveloped areas in the brain that cause problems in: communication, learning appropriate social skills and responses, understanding the thoughts and feelings of others, and focusing on “the real world,” as opposed to becoming absorbed in their own thoughts and obsessions.

Those with Asperger’s are often extremely literal in their interpretation of others’ conversations, for example, they may wonder if cats and dogs are really raining down or think there are two suns when someone talks about two sons.  They are unable to recognize differences in speech tone, pitch, and accent that alter the meaning of what others’ say.Your son may not understand a joke or take a sarcastic comment literally.

Learning social skills for children with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) is like learning a foreign language.  A child with AS is unable to recognize non-verbal communication that other children learn without formal instruction.  Some examples are: not understanding the appropriate distance to stand from another person when talking, how to tell when someone does not want to listen any longer, and how to interpret facial expressions.

Many AS children will be highly aware of right and wrong and will bluntly announce what is wrong.  They will recognize others’ shortcomings, but not their own.  Consequently, the behavior of those with Asperger’s is likely to be inappropriate through no fault of their own.

Children with AS need routine and predictability to give them a sense of safety.  Change can cause stress and too much change can lead to meltdowns (tantrums).  Changes that are stressful for them are: a different teacher at school, a new routine, doing things in a different order (e.g.; putting pants on before a shirt), going to the bathroom at someone else’s home, changing a bedroom curtain or the color of the walls, to name a few. Routines and predictability help them remain calm.

Your son’s thinking may be totally focused on only one or two interests, about which he is very knowledgeable.  Many children with Asperger’s syndrome are interested in parts of a whole (intricate jigsaw puzzles), designing houses, drawing highly detailed scenes, astronomy, the computer, insects, Pokemon, trains, and many more.  Because his brain is obsessed by his interest, your son may talk only about it, even
when others are carrying on a conversation on a different topic.

AS children notice details, rather than the “whole” picture.  The importance of the detail prevents the AS child from understanding the bigger picture, so instructions may get lost in his focus on a single detail.  A lesson at school may be totally ignored in favor of a fly on the wall.  Multiple instructions are extremely difficult for these children to retain and follow.

AS children are not able to access their frontal cortex or prefrontal lobe efficiently, so they must call on social skills from their memories.  If a social skill has not been taught, they won’t have it.  Consequently, turn taking, imagination, conversation, and other’s points of view cause AS children great difficulty.  The AS person may be unable to realize consequences outside his or her way of thinking.  In addition, they cannot
recognize when someone is lying to them or trying to take advantage.  Some get into trouble with the law as a result.

Anger in AS children often occurs due to over stimulation of the senses or a change in routine.  It is often the only response the AS child knows.  Anger management presents problems.  They see things in black and white, which results in tantrums when they don’t get their own way, feel threatened, or overwhelmed.  Some children with Asperger’s bottle up anger and turn it inward and hit or bite themselves, never revealing where the trouble is.  Many people with AS are perfectionists reacting with anger when things don’t go as they wish.

One of the most difficult thinking patterns of Asperger’s is mindblindness.  Mindblindness is the lack of ability to understand the emotions, feelings, motivations, and logic of others and not care that they don’t understand!  Consequently, they behave without regard to the welfare of others. The only way they will ever change their thinking or behavior is if it is in their own interests to do so.  Even then, convincing a child with Asperger’s to change his mind is an uphill battle.

I hope you enjoyed this sample article which is one of over 50 brand new articles that are already on the website.

Have a great Day

Dave Angel

Hi there – It’s Dave Angel again with another update on the new website www.ParentingAspergersCommunity.com

I’ve had a few people ask me why I’ve decided to create this new website so I’ve decided to list off the main reasons …

Reason Number 1 – The increase in numbers

Well about two and a half years ago when I set up the first Parenting Aspergers website I didn’t know how popular it would become, and so I was able to answer everyone’s email and questions at the beginning quite quickly with no real problems.

Now with literally thousands of people receiving my weekly emails and writing back to me with questions it’s just become impossible to provide the type of help and support that I want to, using that old system.

Along the way I tried using a “Help Desk” system which some of you may have tried – but to be honest it broke down so many times that It just wasn’t worth bothering with.

Then of course I had all the problems with receiving 100′s of spam emails every day into the main Parenting Aspergers email address.

So rather then spend half my life deleting emails for potions and pills and other such medical delights I had to scrap that email address and use my current email address dave.angel@live.co.uk

Which is fine but for anyone else who uses hotmail you’ll know that it’s a bit clunky and too slow to be able to effectively respond to the number of emails I get each day from parents.

That may have been slightly long-winded but I hope it fully explains Reason Number 1 – The increase in numbers.

So the great news is that with the new website I will be able to communicate directly with people through sending private messages on the site and also answering queries directly on the discussion forum.

Reason Number 2 – Unreliable and slow technology

I tried to get around problem number 1 above by adding the blog about a year ago.

This gave people the capacity to add their comments after each blog post.

This has worked OK for people to communicate their thoughts – but it can be very slow and time-consuming scrolling through all the different comments on each post.

Certainly too time-consuming for me to be able to individually reply to each comment as I would ideally like (some times I can get up to 70 or 80 comments on there per week).

Also as regular readers know I have had all kinds of technical problems on the blog; with entire articles being lost off the site and even worse …

When I had a period of about 2 months that some nasty online hackers were messing with the blog constantly and putting all kinds of rubbish spam on there, as well as causing the blog to completely break down on numerous occasions.

At that point I was very close to giving up on the whole thing and shutting the site down completely.

And then I found out that these problems were caused by the free software that I use for the blog just not being up to the job of running such a growing website.

So the choice left to me was to either shut the site down or have something built that can handle the growth of the website, the volume of information on it and the sheer numbers of people that I am now helping each week.

And the choice to build something bigger and better is the one I’ve taken.

This will also enable me to bring even more information to you and make www.ParentingAspergersCommunity.com the number one place on the internet for parents of children with Aspergers Syndrome.

So I have now invested in some pretty robust “industrial strength” software to power the site – that will make things quicker, safer and more effective.

And this robust new software will definitely stop the problem of unreliable and slow technology.

Reason Number 3 – The bigger picture

As the Parenting Aspergers website has evolved, and more and more parents have come onboard, I have felt that I wanted to create something even bigger and more meaningful.

I have wanted to put together a place where people can access the latest research, make real friendships with other parents, share great resources and information with one other and become an online “centre of excellence”.

I have also wanted to be able to build this site into something powerful that can help to advocate and be a “voice” for both parents and their children with Aspergers.

So with this in mind I have drawn up the following mission statement for The Parenting Aspergers Community:

The mission of Parenting Aspergers Community is to make a positive difference in the lives of  parents who have children with Aspergers; by  ensuring that they can access the specialist information and support that they need to help them in their day-to-day parenting role.

This will be done by providing a specialist website with information in the form of articles, video and audio presentations across a wide range of topics. There is also a community forum at the heart of the website to allow parents to communicate directly with other parents and professionals to gain support and advice.

It is the belief of Parenting Aspergers Community that parents deserve to be given the best possible chance to parent their child with Aspergers; and that being able to access specialist support and advice is an essential part of this.

My apologies if this post has been a little longer than usual but I wanted to really get this information across to you.

Have a great Day

Dave Angel