In Conversation with Aditya about His Journey and Special Needs

In conversation with Aditya about his journey and special needs.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I am Aditya Shah. I am 25 years old. I am working in the hospital as data entry officer and also look after the patients. I am the Munnabhai of my hospital.

What are your hobbies and interests?

My hobbies are dance, sports like cricket, football, billiards, swimming, etc. I participated in annual day function of Infant Jesus School in Shanmukanand Hall. I also participated in intra-school football competition, but our team lost in final. I like to do social service for needy people. During my journey as president and member of Leo Club and Lions Club, we did various projects to help visually blind people and mentally challenged children at MDC Home. I also like to buy new gadgets like mobiles, laptops, etc. from Amazon, Flipkart.

In Conversation with Viraj about His Journey and Special Needs

In conversation with Viraj about his journey and special needs.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I'm Viraj Bhat. I’m 33 years old. I'm a software professional working in Bengaluru.

What are your hobbies and interests?

I love watching informative and entertaining videos on the internet. I also enjoy writing down my thoughts.

How has your journey been so far?

Not an easy one. I had to go to school, and attend certain extracurricular activities against my will, due to pressure from my parents. And that hampered my learning process and self-esteem to some extent. And the teachers and classmates/schoolmates weren't so well-behaved or civilized.

In Conversation with Navneet about His Journey and Special Needs

In conversation with Navneet about his journey and special needs.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

My name is Navneet Kulkarni. I am 17 years old. I am a day dreamer, a poet and author. Whatever I write, it’s my insight knowledge of my own imagination.

What are your hobbies and interests?

My hobbies are listed with so many interests. Like jellyfish glance in ocean, my hobbies dance in mind. I like to sing with humming, I love music, nurturing life by describing about nature in my words. Right now, my interest is showing synthesis in understanding human evolution.

Fear-based Parenting Vs. Connection-based Parenting

I would like parents to reflect on what drives their parenting style. Is it fear or connection? The answer to this question is the key to successful parenting!

Most of us are driven by fear when we start our special needs journey for obvious reasons - we are not sure what the future holds for our children and are worried that they may not have a fulfilling life, or our definition of a fulfilling life. So, we set out to work on teaching our children the skills that they are “lacking” in order to have a full life without considering their current needs and fulfilling them. This is the equivalent of trying to build a tower without a foundation - “trying” being the keyword here, because you can try all you want but you won’t succeed in building the tower without a foundation.

In Conversation with Rohan about His Journey and Special Needs

In conversation with Rohan about his journey and special needs.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

My name is Rohan and I am 18 years old.

 

What are your interests?

My main interest is cars, especially supercars and Formula 1 Racing. My favorite supercars are the Ferraris and my favorite drivers are Sebastian Vettel and, now, Max Verstappen. I have a model car collection with 23 cars in it. I also like gaming, sports, and music.

 

How has your journey been so far? 

I have had a very good experience in my journey. My family and friends have always treated me well and given me a lot of support and encouragement.

 

Respecting My Son’s Individuality After His Diagnosis

It took me a while to realize that my son was not his diagnosis. Like many parents of newly-diagnosed children with autism, I worked relentlessly with my son after finding out that he had autism, thinking that it was only a matter of how much time and effort I put in for my son to be able to overcome his challenges.

Before I knew what was happening, I had turned my son into a project to be worked on instead of a child to be loved. It was only when the both of us ended up burnt out and miserable that I realized that this was not working. My sweet, cheerful, lively, bubbly, happy-go-lucky boy was no longer any of those things. He was sad, tired, frustrated, defeated and withdrawn. I was so mad at myself for having done this to him. I hated myself for losing sight of who my son was in the process of trying to get him to “fit” into society.

Handling Challenging Behavior

I strongly believe that behavior is communication. Challenging behavior is a symptom of a problem and not the problem itself, just like fever is a symptom of a problem and not the problem itself. You can control the fever by taking fever-reducing medication. However, to treat the fever, the doctor has to identify and address the root cause of the fever. Similarly, you can control challenging behavior in the short run by superficial methods like reward and punishment, but in order to rectify the behavior in the long run, you must identify the root cause of the behavior and address it.