Procrastinate

Procrastinate - v.intr.

To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness

Over the last few weeks my mind has been battling the certain thoughts which I have found extremely hard to talk to anyone about.
See this is the thing, I am a procrastinating parent.
I was brought up as a child in the 80's when there was only four TV channels and to have fun you played outside on your bike or climbed trees.
I always remember my mum always asking me to do something worth while. Puzzles, games etc.
I remember watching TV in the morning, sometimes too early(6am) but I don't remember watching TV in the daytime.
Fast Forward to the present day and Sky TV has over 200 channels, with at least 25 children's channels serving entertainment sometimes 24hrs a day. Why do they do this ? Most kids are in bed by 8pm.
Kids don't play outside anymore like they used to. Computer Games have taken over.
Its taken me a long time to come to the conclusion that maybe I am responsible for the Autism in my Son Zachary.
I believe that during the early years of his life he spent way to much time in front of Peppa Pig. The lack of one to one stimulation due to me procrastinating instead of spending the time I had playing with him more and interacting with him on a educational level.
I have a busy job but it is no excuse. He liked Peppa Pig. As soon as the program started he would get very excited. I can see the appeal to a young child. Moving characters and bright colours would make any child turn and look at the screen. But as I look back without my rose tinted specs on, I now realise the error in our ways. Sometimes parents when stressed, look for a outlet. Help maybe in the form of a distraction. Not all parents are perfect.
We bought him dvds, and books with peppa pig on it. I thought I was doing the right thing. Now I think not.
If I could turn back time I would have pulled the plug on the TV and instead of that, got some toys out and started playing with him.
Now although there has been studies across the world on the effects of too much TV and not enough stimulation in Autism cases, nothing has ever been proven. This in my opinion is a generous form of Conformation Bias. Why would you as a researcher want to tell every parent that TV is bad ?
No parent ever likes being told what to do with their children. This information would just go in one ear and out the other, whilst some parents would be smashing ever TV in the house in fear.
People only see what they want to confirm what they already think. I was one of these people.
I never considered the effects of TV on Zachary because Peppa Pig was doing us a service in keeping Zach busy whilst we completed other tasks like tidying up, making dinner etc.
After speaking to my mum regarding what I was like as a baby, my mum told me about all the times she would read and show me pictures out a book, often to the point of me being bored because it became too easy. I find that the correlation between the increase in Autism cases and the increase in TV channels scary.
Although this might be a Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy given no evidence has been shown, I can't help thinking that as more and more cases of autism are reported in children, they seems to be a trend as the years have gone on. Maybe this is due to more diagnosis of the condition ?
All I know is that in my heart of hearts, I honestly believe I have failed my son and should be held responsible for it. I didn't interact with my son as much as I should have.
Maybe I'm wrong but they say you should go with your gut instinct and my gut is telling me that I didn't do enough.
I say Procrastination because every human does this. Going to the Chip shop for tea instead of cooking a healthy meal. Watching a film instead of going to the gym. It is a human trate that can be avoided.
Mine was putting Zach in front of the TV because it was easier than sitting with him and having the patience to encourage him to play. Not saying that I never played with him because that would be wrong.
What happened to Zachary is probably the worst experience of my life. Something that I now feel guilty for.
Archie my other son is now 14 months old. I have been worrying myself to death for the past three months that he will start to show signs of regression. I look at absolutely every thing he does and monitor his actions. Now Instead of this, I shall be switching off the TV and making sure, given I am busy at work in the daytime, that when I get home I will sit with him for at least 1 hour and play with him like I should.
I am also going to get him into a nursery so he can interact with other kids his age and hopefully pick up things from them.
Now people might say that what I'm saying is either stupidly obvious to parents or just plain rubbish and un-factual. After sitting up nearly every night wondering what I did wrong or how this happened, it took a situation recently to make me consider this. While Archie was watching TV, I tried calling his name and he didn't respond. I thought maybe he can hear me but he's just ignoring me. But then the TV switched itself off and I called his name again. After 3 times he eventually turned around with that beautiful smile on his face. He was sucked into the beautiful pictures and moving characters on the TV. Turning the TV off made all the difference. Then I thought back to when Zach was his age and remembered similar things happening. My mind started racing and at this point I started to consider that maybe I could have done this before. It makes me so angry that wanted to scream. Have I been responsible for Zachary becoming Autistic. People might say that I'm mad or that blaming myself is stupid because I can't prove anything. I believe we as parents didn't do enough for Zach in his early years and now he is the way he is because of our procrastination.
I wrote this today because I wanted to vent out and put what I have been thinking on paper.
I can't help think that maybe things could have been different but all I can do is protect Archie from the same fate. Even if it means removing the TV all together.
When I say we as parents I say both of us. We are both to blame for not spending enough time interacting with Zach. I don't mean to be nasty as I know being a mum can be stressful but I would be the first to admit that I honestly feel looking back on his early first years that I personally didn't do enough. I know that from now because of my epiphany( if that's what you can call it) I will from now give Archie and Zach more interaction time and a lot less TV.
Now I came up with this thought because I wanted to figure out what I did wrong. Maybe I have lost the plot. I will never know what might have happened if I actioned these thoughts when Zach was a baby. Call me naive, lazy or stupid. I couldn't agree with you more.

Kevin Killen.
 

Just Watched a video today by accident of my Son Zach saying "Daddy" to me on my iPhone

Just watched a video today by accident of my Son Zachary saying "Daddy" to me on my iPhone.

When you watch videos like this it should fill your heart with all the love in the world.

Instead I feel angry and jealous of what other parents take for granted.........

My Name is Kevin Killen. I am an IT Engineer from Staffordshire. I live with my beautiful wife Alicia and my 3 children. Summer is my step-daughter and is 6 years old. My two sons are Zachary, who is 2 years old and Archie who is 1 year old. We live in Burntwood, which is about 30 minutes from Birmingham, UK.

Our son Zachary is Autistic. He started regressing at about 15 months and stopped speaking and waving by 18 months. Zachary was an early starter from birth. He smiled and laughed from a very early age and gave beautiful eye contact. He understood simple words and phrases. He learnt to walk like any other child.

Now I know what people say that the MMR Jab is not related to Autism but I can't help thinking that before the Jab he was an alert and chatty child with full eye contact. After the MMR jab, my child changed. He no longer wanted to try to feed himself. He stopped looking in your eyes and worst of all refused to say mummy or daddy. At first we though he was “under the weather”, checking his temperature regularly and excusing his different behaviour as “a phase ". You know when your child is acting different and Zachary was.

It took a few months before one day, whilst sitting on the sofa, we broke down in tears.

We as parents hadn't discussed Zachary together until this moment. Alicia's half brother and sister are severely autistic and Alicia had noticed similar traits in Zachary. I myself had been on the internet looking at the symptoms Zachary was showing and had come to the horrifying conclusion that Zachary could be on the autism spectrum. I think we both hoped he would start talking and all this would go away.

That night was the hardest night of all. We sat up talking and crying over what quality of life Zachary would have. Will he have a girlfriend when he is older? Will he go to University? Will I ever take him to football training? Will he ever say Daddy or Mummy again? You torment yourself and blame yourself for not spending every hour helping him learn to speak. Reality hits you. Your son will always be different.

Then came the time to tell family members and friends your worst thoughts and feelings about Zachary.

As most normal people do the same things. They ask you questions like “Are you sure this isn't just a phase?" or “he’s only two years old, he might be a late starter". The best one was “my son was 3 when he said his first words so you've got nothing to worry about". I used to reply did you child stop talking after his or her first words?? 

I noticed a lot of stigma attached to autism which I had never noticed before.

I have always myself been against Ignorance.

I started introducing people who had children and saying “this is Zachary, he's currently being assessed by the doctors for autism" before anyone would start trying to talk to him and thinking he was stupid or ignorant. This often would make my paranoia of people worse because I would be examining their facial expressions for disapproval when they probably genuinely had no issues with it.

One day I was sat at the barbers waiting for Zachary to have his hair cut. Sometimes he would stand quietly and play with the toys in the corner. Not today!

Zachary had started "stimming"

Stimming is a repetitive body movement, such as hand flapping, which is hypothesised to stimulate one or more senses. 

A couple to the left of me had noticed Zachary and were discussing it to themselves. They had a child with them who was happily playing with a toy car. Zachary had moved over to the area where the other child was playing and picked up a toy car and started mouthing the toy. 

With a look of disgust, they picked up their child and moved him away from Zachary. 

My heart Sank, they were worried, like if Zachary touched their child he would suddenly catch whatever Zachary had. I saw the confusion in their eyes and the total fear for their own child which was not needed. I became so ireful that I nearly left the shop but Zachary needed his hair cut so I stayed.

Have you ever been so angry that you feel like smashing someone’s face in without striking a conversation? I did then but I didn’t do anything. I froze.

I realised that I needed to be stronger for Zachary. No one is going to make him feel different but I needed to be calmer.

When I told my mum, I broke down in tears because I had kept in so much and told no one. I said that day that Zachary needed help and I was going to do everything in my power to get him that help.

We bypassed the Health Visitor because she would have stalled the process in getting Zachary support he needed. I went straight to the GP who was a paediatric specialist and voiced my concerns.

Several appointments and tireless nagging, we finally got the start we needed; Zachary was to attend a Gateway Nursery with specialists there once a week for 2 hours.

I know some parents that had no support till their child was 4 so we got a good head start

My mum was very supportive. She has always been there for me and Alicia.

As for the other family members some been very helpful, some have been distant or too busy to help, whilst others have ignored us and as a result we now ignore them. When your own family can't be bothered you don't need them. One member (no names obviously) said that Zachary “isn't autistic, he's nothing like the twins” (referring to Alicia's Half brother and Sister). That obviously angered us because we weren’t asking for her medical opinion; we just wanted to let them know what was happening. We ignored phone calls and had a message given to us after the birth of our third child Archie, wanting to visit our home. 

Not to visit us as a family but to see just Archie as he was the new addition. We refused. 

During this time I suffered with a hidden depression and I have turned to painkillers (codeine) in order to suppress my anxiety. I decided to take up boxing as a form of release, a way of releasing anger and aggression. My health has improved and when I'm training I feel so in control of my emotions. When I finish training, the mental release is amazing. But like all good things, they come to an end, I slowly return back to being a bitter and depressed person and I turn to painkillers again. It still happens to this day.

I've never told anyone but my Wife about this but I think these things need to come out to show just how bad your mind can get if you let it.

Someone has once said to me “You need to thank God for your beautiful children”

I don't thank God, I thank my wife. She has been amazing throughout this and I know she deals with a lot more anguish than I do because she has Zachary all day. 

He is such a happy boy, he has a great sense of humour and given his size compared to other children, he is so gentle. His Comunication is so much better now, although non-verbal it is very easy to understand for simple things like drinks,food and playtime.

Zachary now has 3 places a week in a special nursery and hopefully with their help we can make a huge difference to Zachary's Life.

This is the Start of my Blog, I hope it helps describes how a parent of a child with autism feels and sometimes this message can't be spoken, its must be put in words.

Thanks for taking the Time to read

Kevin Killen x