Finding support for an autistic child isn’t always easy, but a local family turned to the Youth Wellness Centre at the Moncton Hospital for help.
Lorri Meunier says they’ve always had a hard time managing some of their son’s behaviours, and he sometimes deals with anger and frustration.
Meunier says, “He sometimes struggles with symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder and Oppositional Defiance Disorder as well, which is not unusual for some children with Autism. We often had struggles at home, and my son sometimes got very aggressive, At first we were told to just go to outpatients with him, but I didn’t see how taking a child with Autism and sitting in a waiting room was going to help him.”
They admitted their son to the Youth Wellness Centre recently for almost three weeks, “Autism doesn’t have to be a lifetime of struggles. We were told from the Psychologist that was monitoring him, that they could tell, based on the amount of paperwork, that there was a lot of intervention, since he was diagnosed at two and a half years old. They could tell that we have put a lot of work into it. I think some people just paint a child with autism and say, well you have a child with autism and you are just going to have to deal with some of the things that come with that. I think it has been really helpful to have Psychologists and Psychiatrists sit down and talk with him.”
“It’s almost a shame that other families wait so long to get this kind of help, when they need the help now. We have been lucky with the Youth Wellness Centre,” Meunier adds.
Meunier says autistic children are often lumped under the same umbrella, but they all have different personalities, challenges and successes. She believes there are resources, but because they are all different, they may need some one on one assistance.
“Evan has had some tempered moments, and he can get rough with us sometimes. We were seeing an escalation of those behaviours, and we needed to find a way for him to self soothe, and learn to regulate those emotions. With the Youth Wellness Centre, he was fully monitored, and they were helping him to deal with these things. They taught him strategies, to help deal with his tempers, If you don’t get to this kind of intervention at an early age, it can lead to issues down the road, ” Meunier says.
She has been very open with their story because she knows there are other families that struggle with similar things, and they aren’t aware that the Youth Wellness Centre may be an option for them to pursue, “It’s not always sunshine and rainbows, but there have been a lot of benefits to him being there. I’ve had a lot of people say they couldn’t leave their child at the hospital, and it was a very difficult decision, but we have received a lot of support. We have no regrets.”
She adds, “Autism doesn’t need to be a lifetime of struggles, there is help if you go looking.” She admits there still needs to be even more resources made available to parents who are struggling with their Autistic child.
