What a wonderful and positive post about Autism. My wife is a Senior OT specialising in autism in very young children and early intervention and they are a joy. Early intervention is paramount, not to 'fix' them but to develop coping mechanisms and understanding of their situations, social function is very important, and also to aid other related issues such as LD, cognitive and motor functions.
Finally, you can sort of blame your Dad as your son can blame you as autism has been shown anecdotally and clinically to be passed down through the male line, often becoming more pronounced with each generation.
Parents understanding and acceptance is one of the biggest issues we face and the therapies always include helping parents to understand. I'd guess that in your day, it was confusing and you had to adapt and develop your own systems for getting through life. It's hard.
Best post I've read all week. Best wishes to you and your family fella. Looks like you have it all sussed out. Brilliant :-)
Thank you! I get a lot of pleasure out of writing as you can probably tell haha. I will say it's one of my "indulgencies."
Yeah, we worked out that my dad was an undiagnosed autist -- he died of liver failure. His pleasures were vodka and women. That being said for most of his adult life he worked an incredibly hard and high powered six figure job.
I was lucky. My wife is a school teacher and she could spot it right off. We got our son diagnosed when he was 3, and I've learned a lot through watching him.
The relationship I have with my son is a really deep connection - my wife used to dump him on my lap when he was crying and would leave me alone with him to comfort him, she almost forced the connection at an early age. But I can understand through my early thoughts and feelings of how parental acceptance can often be hard!