Now We Are Twenty Something

When things are going well, I often don't hear from my children for days or weeks.  They are too busy getting on with living.  My son sends me an occasional text, usually asking for money.

Then the other day he sent me a one-line text to say that he would have to repeat a year at university.  Nothing else. No indication why.  I can guess the reasons, but I will have to wait until he is ready to talk.

When he was small, my son never held back when he had a problem.  His meltdowns were legendary, and he was capable of going for nights on end without sleep.  We were exhausted and at the end of our wits.  But it was often quite hard to work out what the root of the problem was or how to solve it.  It was slightly easier once we had a diagnosis of autism for him: it brought a whole new raft of ideas to try.  We looked for "sensory issues" or worked on planning and preparation.  No idea if they really worked, but they kept us all busy.  He says they were waste of time. He has always been a vigorous non-conformist, and it's no surprise at all to find that he doesn't fit into the pigeonhole of "autistic" any more than he fits anywhere else.

I thought parenting him when he was six was quite hard.  But it's not really any easier now he's twenty something.  It's just as much of a guessing game.