My son Jonathan had late onset of autism, which meant that for the first 5 years of his life, Jonathan was a happy and healthy child. He is also my first born and from the day that I welcomed him into the world in the hospital delivery room on 28 August 1990, I have been fully involved as a father in raising him up. As a child, Jonathan was very inquisitive, asked a lot of questions, very talkative and overall developing normally. He was even bilingual and he could speak both English and Mandarin. It was a joy to be with him and to take care of him.
When symptoms of his autism emerged around the age of 5, both Roselind and my worlds were shattered. From a bubbly and talkative boy, Jonathan begun chanting and eventually lost his speech. (Through Applied Behavior Analysis, Jonathan eventually regained part of his speech).When he begun to act out, throwing tantrums, we could not understand what was wrong. We thought that we had failed as parents and that our parenting style had made Jonathan into a spoilt and pampered brat. So we made a decision which Roselind and I regretted until this day, the decision to discipline and punish whenever he misbehaved. Little did we know that his behavior was due to his autism. For 2 whole years, we were running around in Kuching, consulting doctor after doctor to find out what was wrong with Jonathan. Only when we brought to Kuala Lumpur that we discovered that Jonathan had late onset of autism.
The 2 years of searching was one of the worst period not only for Roselind and me but for Jonathan as well. The anxiety, uncertainty and the chaos that we felt overwhelmed us as we tried to make sense of what was happening to Jonathan. He had always been such a good and happy child, why is he behaving this way now? I could still recalled vividly the first time that I caned Jonathan. He turned back and looked at me not with pain but with puzzlement, completely mystified. He absolutely could not comprehend why for the first time in his life, I had canned him.
And it is in this time of utter hopelessness and despair that we begin to have hope. Hope that we can help Jonathan and others like him. After getting the autism diagnosis, we begun to mix around with parents of autistic children. Eventually Roselind and I founded the Sarawak Autistic Association which later changed its name to Kuching Autistic Association. As its founding Vice-President, one my pressing task was to create awareness about autism. I wanted to make it easy for parents to obtain autism diagnosis; no family should ever had to go through the 2 years of hell trying to figure what was wrong with their child. No child should be punished like Jonathan for his behavior just because he is autistic. If possible, we did not want any other parents and their child to go through what Roselind and I had gone through with Jonathan. We have to pass the message of hope that as parents they too can help their autistic children.
As parents, we want the best for our children. My hopes for Jonathan are simple, that he will be as independent as possible, that he can contribute to society and that society has a place for him, that he can develop to the fullest of his potential and finally that he will be well taken care of when Roselind and I are no longer in this world. And as I work towards these hopes into reality, I would also like to pass this message of hope to other parents and indeed to the world. Just when you feel like that there is no hope left, never give up because your feeling can be so wrong and hope will appear if you truly search for it. Remember that hope is very powerful and in the words of Helen Keller ““Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.”
I do hope that you will take part in the positive vibes daily challenge that I have created. As a reminder, these are the daily themes:
Gratitude Sunday
Anything on things we are grateful for and blessings we have received.
Milestone Monday
Anything on your milestones, success, achievements and accomplishments.
Kindness Tuesday
Anything on acts of kindness, pay it forward, charity and volunteering.
Fun Wednesday
Anything fun, humorous and jokes.
Adventure Thursday
Anything on adventures and discoveries.
Hope Friday
Anything on hope, courage and overcoming challenges and obstacles.
Love Saturday
Anything on love and what you love doing.
For more details about the positive vibes daily challenge, please visit this page.
Follow me and stay positive.
Do check out my previous posts.
Positive Vibes Daily Challenge Adventure Thursday: From Probabilities To Possibilities, Go And Have An Adventure
Positive Vibes Daily Challenge Fun Wednesday: Acting Silly And Having Fun At The Langkawi 3D Art Museum
New Year New Challenge: Introducing The Positive Vibes Daily Challenge
Daily Food Photography: The Jelly Fish
Lesson From My First Experience At Jet Skiing: Fear Is The Number One Cause Of Regrets
Spreading positivity one post at a time.
Charles
If you like my writing please up-vote, share and comment. Please help me to spread the message of positivity and support on Steemit by resteeming this post.
Hi Charles, Thank you. Your honesty in your story brought me to tears. It is so refreshing and positive to expose your mistakes in this way, I'm sure many people can relate to this and it could inspire many for change.
I do not know much about Autism except that I know someone who visited a school for autistic children and while there a young boy came up him and asked do you meditate? to which he replied yes, the boy said "only we know we are immortal". I realise from your story that Jonathan doesn't talk but I think what I love about this meeting was that we make so many conclusions about things we don't understand. The mind and heart of Jonathan maybe connected in a we can't comprehend. Following and will be resteeming this!
Thank you for the positive daily challenges. I also wish to share love, hope, truth, joy and inspiration through my posts.
Best wishes to you and your family
Leah
This is one of my most regrettable mistake to try to discipline Jonathan as we did not know that his behavior was due to his autism. I shared this in the hope that when parents find their children misbehaving, they should try to understand the motivations behind their children's behavior. I welcome you to join the challenge to share your message of love, joy, hope,fun and adventures.
I would love to join the challenge!
I love that you were able to turn a situation seen by most as "unfortunate" and make it positive. It just goes to show that perspective is everything and we can make good out of any situation. I love that your son's autism inspired you to help other parents and raise awareness. That is beautiful. <3
Thank you for helping bring positivity to the Steemit community
After we had gone through, we hope that by setting the autistic association and by sharing our experiences we can give hope to other families. If possible, I hope that other parents will not make the same mistakes as me. Join me in the positive challenge to spread positivity.
Its good you know the what went wrong and never gave up by showing love,support and carw towards Jonathan.
I used to have a neighbour here who has a son with the same diagnosis but the opposite was the case, the poor boy is really going through a lot, lots and lots of criticism from peers, family rejection, amongst other bad experiences whenever he does anything wrong.
I feel a lot of pity for the poor boy.
People really need to be sensitized about autism especially in this part of the world where I am.
Thia is such a beautiful post
Resteemed...
Thank you for your support and kind comments. That is why creating awareness about autism is so important. Once we understand more about autism, we are more empowered to help persons with autism.
Courageous parents. It must be very hard for you to deal with his behavior changes and also it was at the time when not many resources/information available for parents with special needs children.
Indeed it was not easy. Not much information was available then. I hope that by sharing, the other parents will not feel that they are alone and also my post will inspire hope for others.
You're are so blessed because you have Jonathan. There's a purpose for everything. You being the founding Vice-Pres is something that God has planned. Creating awareness and helping other parents with autistic children is a great advocacy. When my autistic brother was young a group of OTs(Occupational Therapist) who are having their OJTs are staying in our house to help my brother and see his progression and that was the start that they build a school for special kids(SPED) in our area with no tuition fee. It is helping a lot of parents and autistic children get good education.
Thank you for sharing your wonderful story @positivesteem ! May you and your family be blessed always!
I must admit that I initially considered Jonathan as a burden. Later I discovered that he has brought so much blessings to me. My life has transformed for the better because of him.
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Nothing is wrong.
I am feeling hopeful not terrible.
Thanks for sharing in my Tag ! but your post has to use #popcontest as the first / main tag to qualify for my contest . and as its the main tag its the only tag that can not be changed . 👌👍😀
Ok. I will do so next time. Hope that you can resteem my post.
Your post is worth ove 200.00 dollars !! do you realize how much that is !? im lucky to make 50.00 once in a while , you are very luck my friend !! steem on ! 👍😀
I am so blessed. But I have to invest in minnowbooster. I have to keep the post trending so that more will know about the positive challenge.
Read my other comment i sent you after this one
If you upvote and resteem my "update pop contest" post , I will do the same for you ! 😀👍✌💕
Hi Karen, have already resteem your post. Hope that you can do the same for mine.
I really like your posts @positivesteem
Thank you. I hope to spread more positivity through my posts and you can also do this by taking part in the positive vibes daily challenge.
I work with individuals with developmental disabilities, and I was not even aware that there could be such a regression of development with late onset autism.
Thank you for your honesty and the hope that you are sharing, as well as normalizing those with developmental differences. There really are so many possibilities for support and inclusion throughout Jonathan's life, and your family's mindset of hope will only bring him more opportunities.
Jonathan case is not very common. When Jonathan started displaying autistic symptoms, we felt that we had lost our son who was previously developing normally. The hope that I have and my mind set, I want to share with others to give them hope.
That sounds very difficult to deal with in your young first born. Wonderful how you have learned and share your experience with others to help them learn to!
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Lol...great. I sure will be part of the challeng expecially on saturday...thanks.
In that case, I look forward to your post then. It is love Saturday and so you can write about love.
Thank you for sharing. It's wonderful that you were able to take from this situation and turn it into positive change to help others ❤️
You are most welcome. You too can join in spreading positivity by joining the Positive Vibes Daily Challenge. We all have the power to turn any situation into a positive change. We are not victim of our circumstances and have the power to change and chart our future.
And it's Sunday, perfect timing to start your positive vibes challenge!
I follow you which is how I found out about the #popcontest, I entered one of my recent experiences yesterday. You are an inspiration
https://steemit.com/popcontest/@justjessica/i-ve-been-there-before
Thank you for sharing your life’s journey and being open about Jonathan’s condition. He’s so special and blessed to have you & your wife as parents who loves him unconditionally. I’m very touched by your post, I’ve resteemed, upvoted & followed you. Kindly upvote & follow me too. Thanks!
Thank you for your support and for resteeming my post. I hope that my post will inspire hope in others. I also like to invite to take part in the positive vibes daily challenge and together we can inspire more people. Following you.
God bless you and your family Charles. Thank you for sharing your true and touching story.
I feel for you. I remember the day when our son was diagnosed, we were prepared for the worst, my mind was already set on what the diagnosis would be having done my own research online.
But when the words came out of the Developmental Pediatrician's mouth, my heart was still shattered and I found it very difficult to breath, our worlds collapsed. Maybe there was still a part of me hoping that the doctor would say something different. I felt the pain again after reading your post.
There is something about us special-needs parents that attracts onion-slicing ninjas lol.