IEF, Speaking gently and without anger: why would the idea of ASD as mental illness "horrify" you? What is more horrifying about mental illness than about a neurological condition? Both are physically based conditions which may have behavioral and emotional consequences. Why such a strong reaction to the possibility of misidentification? I'm glad you've joined the discussion; please don't feel like I'm being critical, but I was hoping you could explain this a bit more.

Ooooh, deviled eggs, yes! Not sure about BIL, but the rest of this crowd will love them. Okay, thanks, guys. I knew the Hive could figure this out. We'll have sandwich makings, potato salad, green salad, melon, deviled eggs, maybe a jello salad. Everyone can enjoy something there.

I'm sorry! I'm not trying to be difficult. :-) Any normal indoor cooking equipment: pots, pans, skillets, stove, oven. The sandwich idea is sounding good to me. I may just lay in a bunch of good cold cuts, cheeses, breads or rolls, etc. If I have enough good stuff I can make it look hospitable and not as if I'm trying to fob them off instead of cooking properly, right? Sandwiches and a couple of salads could be a "good" summer meal, couldn't they?

You're right, the heat is the issue. Unfortunately we have none of that equipment.

He actually might love a Jell-O salad. Hmmm... As long as it didn't have too much... you know... "stuff" in it. ;-)

Burgers might be the obvious answer, I guess. I'd been thinking about other stuff because I know he likes them grilled. We don't even own a grill.

We need to invite family over, including BIL who is famously picky about food. What he loves is steak, burgers, brats, and potatoes. He is great at grilling. We are not. I don't want to grill. He hates onions, beans, seafood, and probably a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting. Anything slightly "odd" or "different" from roughly 1960s American cooking is outside his normal range. So, no tabouli, gazpacho, hummus, tacos, etc. I really don't want to roast a chicken (dh's suggestion) or anything similarly hot. We eat a bunch of summer salads, but everything I usually fix has forbidden ingredients. Any ideas? BIL is a great guy, and I want to feed him something he'll enjoy, but I'm drawing a blank.

I'd be happy to extend my definition to include those dogs, so long as their performance can be documented. :-) Monkeys? Horses? Eh, not my soapbox issue/circus, but whoever wants to can argue the case.

Yes, thanks. I'm familiar with the idea of psychiatric service dogs. But they are still required to perform work related to the disability. From the page you linked: However, these protections only apply to dogs that satisfy the ADA’s definition of “service animal.†The ADA defines a service animal as a dog that is "individually trained" to "perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability.†The tasks a dog has been trained to provide must be directly related to the person’s disability. Now, we can certainly identify tasks we could train a dog to do which would meet that definition. For example, he could alert her to rising stress hormones before they reach a critical level. He can (on command) provide her with an excuse to leave an overwhelming situation. But if the primary actual benefit of the dog is achieved *merely by having him there*, which is already helping her cope in stressful situations, then training for those tasks seems like an expensive, time-consuming waste of effort. The more important training is everything he needs to know for being in public without being disruptive. I think society's best interests are served by limiting the dogs in public to those who 1. Have been thoroughly trained, and 2. Are genuinely needed to assist a person with a genuine disability. I just don't see the importance of the work/task requirement, as long as the training and disability are both documented. But as I say, this is just my quibble. I do think laws which exclude a part of the population who could benefit from service dog status encourage the abuse which legitimately frustrates most of us. But if we do this (far from clear) we'll do it legally.

Yes, that's part of what I was trying to get across in my second post. I understand the law as it exists. I just don't agree that performing "work" *should* be the defining characteristic of a service dog. I would prefer that the defining characteristic was appropriate, documented training to help a person with a legitimate, documented disability. I think that the simple presence of a well-behaved dog can have a very significant effect in mitigating very real disabilities which are primarily emotional in nature. I think that limiting public access to dogs trained to help people who need some sort of "work" discriminates against equally disabled people who just need the dog, not the work. The law as it currently exists encourages people to disregard it, because it does not acknowledge that emotional support dogs can be as necessary as dogs trained to do the "work" of helping with physical tasks. It also does not provide a way to prove that a dog has been suitably trained for public access. But this is just my pet peeve. I'm not going to break the law. I just think it's poorly conceived and discriminatory. Eta: I think we would see far fewer spurious emotional support/service dogs in public if the law required the documentation I mention above. I'm not trying to argue that all the folks trying to bring their dogs with them in public should be able to do so, just that some people who would benefit from legal service dog access are being prevented from doing so.

Thinking of you, David and your whole family. He has been in my thought often.

Lol, I saw this and thought it might be like Pi Day. Maybe 7/7/17, or 7/13/17... :-)

I've been thinking of you and your grandfather. This situation sounds so very difficult. Sending hope and hugs.

Small neighborhood park, no posted rules. They've gone home now. I just worry when I see that. Apparently they do it often, but I have no idea who their parents are.

Oh, it's all dogs, though of course she loves hers most. She volunteers at the local shelter and wants an animal-related career. She's done basic and advanced obedience with him already, and is currently in a Canine Good Citizen class.

I have no idea what is typically considered safe. If your 7-8 year old boys were on their own at a park skateboarding on top of picnic tables and leaping off of said tables on their skateboards, would you be okay with that? Would you want a bystander to intervene? The surface under the tables is concrete, and the boy jumping is wearing a helmet. They say their parents don't mind.

I understand the possibility of abuse. I guess, personally, I'm not inclined to get into whether someone else is or is not disabled enough to qualify for a dog. I am more concerned about whether the dog is properly trained. In this case, yes, we have a written report from the neuropsych recommending a service dog as a reasonable accommodation. But dd is functioning better now than she did when that was written. I'm really more questioning whether, for a kid who is able to manage many daily situations without a dog, having one is over-the-top. Is the dependence something you would see as a problem, given that she can do so many things just fine without him? Or should we train him properly, assuming he can get to that level, and let her take him more places? Obviously no one here knows my kid. But would you see that level of dependence as a problem or a solution? I'm not sure if it's possible to maintain a high level of public-access training without having the dog accompany us everywhere, but I'm inclined to doubt it.

Yep, I know this is true. But *here*, it just.doesn't.compute. ;-)

This is exactly where I've always fallen on this issue. For us, anxiety is part and parcel of ASD. I can't begin to see a line between them. But ASD is considered neurological/developmental and anxiety is considered mental illness. Go figure.

Btw, this is kind of a side rant: the legal line between service dogs (must be trained to do some defined "work" for their owner) and emotional support dogs (provide emotional support, not trained for "work") bugs the heck out of me. Emotional support dogs do not have the same legal right to public access that service dogs have. But dd's very legitimate disability requires emotional support, not physical. We could certainly come up with some kind of task the dog could do to meet the service dog definition, but it would be a work-around. His presence is enough to help her. It just chaps my hide that an emotional need for support does not get the same respect as a physical need for support. I think a more sensible legal line would be proving that a dog is suitably trained for public access. But that's a side issue here. :-)

The house rules thread on the chat board has diverged a bit into emotional support dogs, which have been on my mind anyway. I'd love some help sorting out when this might be a good idea to pursue. Dd12 loves, loves, loves her dog. He satisfies major sensory and emotional needs. She spends hours each day cuddling, walking and training him. She can handle tough conversations in therapy if he is there, but without him storms out of the room. She also cannot bear to be away from him for more than about six hours. Our ability to do day trips, vacations, etc is limited, because she needs to get back to the dog or have him along. Would you see this as a problem: dd is overly dependent on the dog, must wean her off of that? Or would you see it as an opportunity: dd can't cope with these things, but if the dog is properly trained for public access, she can manage so much more? Fwiw, her diagnosing neuropsych recommended a service dog, and her dog is bright, trainable and completely safe around everyone. He has done well in obedience classes, and I take training seriously. We would not impose a poorly-trained dog on the public. I'm having trouble with the question of whether the dog-dependence is a problem or a solution. Dd is typically fine in low-stress, around-town situations, but has trouble with doctor's appointments, classes with other kids or in new environments, anything that causes stress.

Would she enjoy horseback riding?

So many hugs. My experience with this sort of behavior is in a child with ASD, not trauma, so take what seems helpful and don't worry about the rest. When we had good behavior in public but not at home it was based on anxiety and uncertainty. The anxiety was not obvious, but it was there. At home, in a safe environment, the anxiety and rage and all those difficult emotions came out. Our therapist advised shutting our dd in her room while she raged. It was not the right advice for her, though it may be calming for other children. Dd panicked when she was shut in her room. Another psychologist has recently told me he thinks all time-out rooms should have two chairs, one for the parent and one for the child, so the child is never left alone. Dd started to be able to calm down more easily when we figured out we needed to just let her rage, near us, but without having us pay (obvious) attention to her. So, she could flop on the living room floor and thrash and scream, while we sat nearby pretending to read or watch tv. It helped if the tv program was one we knew would eventually distract her. Even if she was pushing me, I'd settle on the soft sofa in a safe spot and ignore her and let her push. Attention prolonged the rage. Doing this and staying sane can be really hard. This was what my dd with ASD needed. It was not so good for my other dd, who had her sister raging through the house. She still bears the scars from those years. Be very alert to how other children in the family are affected, and provide support and a safe space and time away from the chaos for them. This can be easier said than done. The stress of dealing with these rages can be extreme. It's hard, but try to take care of yourself. I would try to avoid yelling and anger, even if it seems to bring better behavior. It may be all they have known, but they will need to learn to communicate in other ways. And the better behavior achieved by yelling might be based on fear. Is there any way you can get ABA through the foster care system? It's usually prescribed for kids on the spectrum, but can be very helpful in a wide range of situations. Asking for in-home therapy might be another possibility. And yes, as Tibbie suggested, I would try to provide intense, positive interaction whenever they are being good. Try for one-on-one time every day with each, doing something that child loves. Praise them to the skies whenever there is something good you can say, and if possible have an immediate reward which they value. Good luck, best wishes and thank you for helping those kids.

Welcome! My 12yo dd is also on the spectrum, and also has received anxiety and depression diagnoses. We have found one of the best things we can do is to feed her strengths. There's an understandable temptation to focus on the areas that seem to need remediation, and if we aren't careful that can take over our lives. There are only so many hours in the day, and so much that needs to be done. But spending time on the pursuits that bring her joy and self-confidence pays huge dividends. She is a different child when significant chunks of her week are devoted to things she loves and excels at, and that attitude shift can carry over to having more patience for the things that are harder. I know social skills classes can be good, but I think finding the right fit between child and class is important. We haven't found that in our area, but you may. For example, we had a class available that was full of young boys and focused on Lego play, but my older girl was not interested. I think calling around and seeing what is out there is an important step. Try to make sure the adults in charge have some significant experience, too. We tried one class last summer and were assured the leader had been doing it for years, only to discover later that that session had someone new filling in. That can make a big difference in how the class goes. Good luck. I know the time right after a diagnosis can be overwhelming, but there is lots of help available.

I saw this yesterday and thought someone would surely chime in with more help than I can offer, but I see that hasn't happened yet, so I'll try. We have this problem. We don't have good solutions. Dd12 has been saying she'll be fine as an adult with a dog, cat and if possible a horse. No people. She has frequently lost patience with humanity in general, and doesn't want to get involved in activities with others. On the other hand, she gets bored and lonely without friends available. It's a constant balancing act. She has a long-term friend in the neighborhood. They fight, dd declares she has had enough, months go by without them speaking, then she's finally desperate enough to try again. Often the fight is based on her inflexibility or lack of social sophistication. I have tried to talk her through these issues. Her BCBA tried to talk her through them. Neither of us has had much success. Activities revolving around a special interest are easier, but her attention remains firmly on the activity. The people are tolerated more than enjoyed. She does better with adults and little kids, with whom she is patient and can be nurturing. Right now we're talking through the fact that next year I am expecting her to take part in a co-op class. She wants no part of it, but I am insisting. It's going to be interesting to see how it goes. As for what causes it, I do think the social complexity just gets overwhelming. This dd actually has a history of being my more outgoing child. She has been willing to hang around the local playground and make friends. But once her longterm friend turned 12, entered middle school and suddenly had a boyfriend, dd was lost. She's still in the can't-stand-boys stage, wants to roll on the ground with her dog and play minecraft, and suddenly she has to deal with her friend wearing makeup and focusing on the boyfriend. All this is essentially normal stuff. I think there's just so much more complexity, and our kids may be emotionally on a different growth curve from their peers. Withdrawing becomes a coping technique. But over time it increases the difficulties.