Autism and vaccines, genetic testing and handling meltdowns, your questions answered

hi guys welcome to coming home to autism [Music] today I'm gonna be answering some of the questions the most frequently asked questions that I get so here we go is Dylan still on this gluten free diet and do we follow the same diet as Dylan the answer is yes Dylan will always be on a gluten-free diet I'm a little bit more relaxed on the dairy he is enough barriers and issues sometimes I don't need to make being in a party and him having a bit of chocolate a big issue but gluten is a big issue I see a big difference in Dylan when he has gluten I kiss behavior is not good and he stims a lot more so gluten is a no-go when we're at home we do we'll try to eat gluten free I say try because I might sneak a few biscuits with a team when he's at school and then I hide them I'm actually like a child actually hide my cookies in a tin and then hide them again Dylan if you're watching please don't find my cookies that's a nice question when did Dylan start speaking done started muttering words like little words here and there or making sounds like five started saying words he was about six we did a lot of speech therapy we did a lot of you know prompting like I mentioned it in the video before what Rosa's mother did with her that's what I did with Dylan have had a lot of the tips that Francis gave is what I did for Dylan so his speech area started coming on about six or seven he had all have learned phrases he still does have a lot of learnt phrases we were quoting Toy Story for about three years but he was quoting Toy Story and relevant situations so that was really it was pretty good thing he loves me to infinity and beyond why does my child stem and should I stop them so stimming is a way of your child to self-regulate themselves so if they're overwhelmed or overworked they tend to stim now children can stem in different ways they can twirl they can spend they go on their tippy toes flap Dylan's wraps quite a bit he also picks his lips she's back yes should you stop your child from stimming no if you stop them stimming they're more likely to have a meltdown or you know get a totally sensory overloaded didn't when he was younger he would stim where he would hit himself and obviously it's quite distressing to see and I and the older he got I was actually worried he's gonna hurt himself so I kind of redirected his stemming I would kind of bring his hands down and I had those squeezy balls there are stress balls I think they're called so I'd give him two stress balls in his hand and kind of like help him to squeeze them and then he would start doing that instead so that's what I mean by kind of redirecting the stomach so yes done still does stim and and sometimes when he does it I join in and I'm like right this is great let's get rid of all the wickets Wiggles Wiggles and fidgets we get to picket did I put Dylan into a specialist nursery what do I think about specialist nurseries and specialist schools so again every child is different but I am a big believer in special autism unit specialist nurseries to start their school year just because you get them into a specialist school doesn't mean they always had to stay there because they can move like Dylan did so Dylan really needed that early intervention that full-on one-to-one support that full-on speech therapy everyday occupational therapy every day which you can only get in a specialist school when Dylan was in year two we decided to move him because he was progressing really well and he wanted more friendships he was in a classroom where he didn't really click with any of the children so we decided to move to Brighton and moved him to a small village school where they were amazing and he has a full-time one-to-one support he can't be in a mainstream school or couldn't be in a mainstream school without it so he has a one-to-one the whole day from start to finish and he spends about he's burned about 60% of the time in the classroom now he started off at 20% in the classroom so we're slowly working up to more time in the classroom as opposed to being outside just working with his one-to-one one thing I always tell myself and I'm gonna tell you as well and try and take my own advice by telling you is that no decision is definite you know if you put your child into a school and you soon realize oh my gosh this is a disaster take them out you don't need to stay in something because you've made a decision and that's what I'm going to do a secondary school I'm gonna try him and maybe like an autism unit in the mainstream school see if that's an option and if it all goes horribly wrong I will go back to the drawing board and I will take him out of school for a week or two until I figure it out I'm not going to be rushed into making a decision just because I'm told to I will take my time and I will go on what Dylan's feeling and if it's not the right and I'm not going to get it right a hundred percent of the time I'm really not so I'm just gonna go with that how do I handle meltdowns again this is very personal to your child so if we're out and about and jen has a meltdown which by the way he had today after school if the other children are with me I make sure the other children are safe by either asking today we're at school ask another mum to help you look after younger children or your older children for a moment to everything calms down kind of guided him into an area and I just simply go Shh it's okay mommy's here it's okay mommy's here I keep my voice very monotone Dylan when he is having a tantrum meltdown he's very sensitive to his ears so I tend to cover his ears or have his ear defenders I pop his ear defenders on the most important thing to do is make sure they're safe and you're safe Dylan when he was younger would bash his head on the to the ground which can be quite dangerous so getting them to a safe space by whatever means I have been known to like grab him by his hands and his legs please no social services come and get me but I did actually grab him and he was younger and got him to a safe space and I would protect his head because he would bang when he was younger if he had a meltdown I would just sit down on the floor wherever we were and I would just hold him make him know he was safe and let it ride it out because when they're in the middle of a tantrum they can't hear you there's no reasoning with them and I would have my my tool so I'd either have a favorite toy of his the iPad worked wonders you know distraction techniques worked we're done so for example this evening when we came home after I got him calmed down I got him into his room and I gave him deep pressure so I lay on top of him and then I started tickling him and I managed to change his mood out and what he was doing yeah I'm gonna be honest I've actually dreaded during this episode the number one question I get asked is vaccinations do I think the MMR vaccine causes autism here this is hard when Dylan first got diagnosed with autism I wanted someone to blame like I said before I was looking for an answer I was looking for why my son had this why why why and I spent many nights searching researching could it be the vaccinations could it be this could it be that and I got myself into such a dark place that I couldn't get off the floor I was miserable I wasn't helping Dylan obviously didn't help my relationship and it just didn't help it didn't help me it didn't matter what caused it I wanted to help him but I know a lot of people do look at vaccinations health professionals say that autism signs or the signs of autism present themselves around the same time that the MMR vaccine is administered so take that from for what you will it's so hard and you have to forgive me if I'm stuttering or umming and ahhing because it would be irresponsible of me to say if I think the MMR vaccine caused Dylan's autism or not I'm here to help you and I'm here to help your journey going forward your child has autism let's help them and not to delve too deep into why they have autism because there are many different factors you know I remember and I'm sure a lot of you have the same thing when Dylan was growing to the diagnosis process they said to me how was his birth was his birth difficult did he have lack of oxygen all these questions you know they're trying to join the dots as well so Dylan didn't have a difficult birth in case you're wondering he did have antibiotics when he was first born because my waters had broken and he hadn't come within three days so he did have that you know I do believe that gut health is very important for everybody and the art as there is a lot of research being done about gut health and autism at the moment I'm not a scientist I'm a mom just like you guys are or a dad or a grandparent you know looking at all the information going on and everything is changing every week there's something new so yes we do the clean eating diet I don't give him antibiotics I treat him homeopathic alee I mean obviously if he had you know pneumonia and the only way to treat him was antibiotics of course I give him antibiotics but as much as possible I try and go the natural route I didn't use natural products on him I try and keep it as clean as possible I will say one thing I did the dr. Sears alternative vaccination schedule was Luca because I breastfed him exclusively till he was a year old therefore the doctor that I was working with at the time said that for the first six months he didn't need any vaccinations because he was getting all my immunity so this is what we did with Luca and the alternative vaccination schedule is one vaccine at a time everyone has their own view and it's it's up to you and your gut feeling on what you feel is right for your child and do your research you know you know your child better than everyone else there's so many reasons floating about on why our children have autism and you could actually send yourself mad like I did trying to figure out what it was what caused it but what I did find helped me was to not focus on that was to focus on my boy that was right in front of me and going forward because you know what whatever happened in the past you can't change it anyway okay these next questions are all quite similar so one of them was did I do anything different in my pregnancies with Luca and niya did I do anything differently I probably with my second third pregnancies maybe had a better knowledge of food from what I've read is the baby takes the nutrients from you anyway so if you have sickness throughout your whole pregnancy and can't eat a bean the baby is gonna still get the nutrients you might be a bit depleted but the baby is gonna be fine so no I didn't do anything different trying to think I was quite sick I was really sick with Luca actually and I was quite sick with Naya I should quite sick with all of had I hated being pregnant who likes being pregnant but no I didn't do anything different did I do a genetic test after I had Dylan okay this is an interesting one no I didn't do a genetic test actually the next question saying about how did I choose to die choose to have another baby and a lot of you are thinking that you would like another baby but you don't know if they're gonna have autism as well so this all ties into the same one so when Dylan was diagnosed the first thing one of the first things they said to us was are you planning on having another baby and I was a little bit like she cuz you just told me my son has autism now you're asking for one other baby really but the doctor rightly or wrongly told me that if I had another boy interesting he would have an 18% chance more chance of having autism than if I didn't have a child with autism does that make sense okay yeah so autism is known as social spectrum condition in my head I was thinking well if Dylan's gonna struggle making friends and if Dylan is gonna struggle his whole life with the autism then I want him to have siblings because I'm not going to be around forever you know I wish I could I wish I could protect him for his whole life but I can't and I won't be here forever and so when that time does come I want Dylan to be surrounded by siblings by loved ones you know so I didn't care actually to have the genetic testing because if it came back that maybe 18% more chance if I had another boy who would have autism or the end of the day I didn't care I wanted siblings for Dylan and it was the best thing we have ever done now obviously it comes down to your own family dynamics for us I wanted another baby anyway selfishly I was it another baby and four for Dylan it was the best thing that ever happened he didn't talk he wasn't potty-trained none of the above and I potty-trained himself and lucre at the same time and Dylan started to see more words when Luca started to talk so I feel that Luca actually bought Dylan on and then nya has been another dynamic in the family and Dylan feels very protective of her and you know calls her his baby Naya and so they have a real little bond was it easy no because quite often you know Dylan would have a meltdown I had a brand new baby and it was a bit hairy sometimes but we got through it and now they're getting older it's getting a little bit easier dynamics change and yeah I'm really pleased I went ahead but again like I said it comes down to your own family dynamics if you want another baby don't let autism stop you don't know it the fact that you had one child with autism stopped you having another child if you another baby go over have another baby you can call it Tyra if you like - okay so the last thing I'm going to address is some of the not-so-nice comments that I get now 99% of you send me beautiful lovely messages and it's so nice to hear from you but of course putting yourself out there into the world you do get some nasty comments and to the people who write the nasty comments why are you watching my channel if you don't like me or my children also I'm sending you people who not you people the one or two of you keyboard warriors who like to say stuff nasty stuff about my children I'm sending you a lot of love a lot of love and a big hug thank you everyone for your lovely comments and for supporting me through this so this is going to be almost coming to the end of season 2 the next couple of weeks there won't be an episode I think into the second week of December we're doing a Christmas special the twelve steps to surviving and to Christmas and we're probably all going to be wearing really cheesy Christmas jumpers and the kids are going to give you some of their top toys to give to an autistic child or autistic relative probably going to be a little bit one-sided on what they like so anyway as always thank you for watching please give us a thumbs up and we will see you in a couple of weeks do you know what I do every time before I start filming I put on perfume yeah it's just random fact I tell you about

Channel: Coming Home to Autism

Views: 48,156

Keywords: coming home to autism, tara leniston, autism, autistic son, family vlog, vlog, vaccines and autism, mmr autism, meltdowns autism, address trolls, genetics and autism, trolls, MMR, what causes autism, Do vaccines cause autism, Autism and vaccines, genetic testing and handling meltdowns, your questions answered, autism and relationships, autistic child, cure to autism, child on the spectrum, autism spectrum disorder, autism spectrum, autism and genetics

Id: iREvY6QeI3Q

Length: 16min 0sec (960 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 17 2019