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.

——————————————————————————–

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?

——————————————————————————–

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

——————————————————————————–

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