BBC "House Rules" Week 1

Week 1 Prompt:
What are your thought on the vaccination/autism link? If you are a parent, did it make you do things differently with your child (no right or wrong answers here! This is not a debate forum). If you aren't a parent, if you were to have children would this new found research change how you would go about getting your child vaccinated?

My Answers:
From personal experience I had this 18 month old happy, laughing little boy who was always smiling. He loved to be read to was talking would say " I lub you Mum". He loved being outside playing on his slide with his little toes on the grass playing with the other kids. Having such a great time with his sisters and their friends and following Mum and Dad around. He received the MMR vaccine at 18 months and within 2 weeks it was like someone was just pulling him into a different world, one that didn't include us. The smiling stopped, he no longer looked at us anymore. Didn't want to be read to, screamed if we wanted to take him out, the running became a stumbling walk which went back to a crawl. The saddest part was the talking started to disappear and then it was gone... no more I lub you Mum!
Do I think it came from the vaccine...absolutely! Sit in a classroom with the parents of 15 autistic children and 13 of them will tell you this exact same story. My son never received the second dose. My younger son didn't get his MMR till he was 5 when I thought his body was more mature and could handle the medicine. His other vaccines were spaced out. In my opinion vaccines aren't bad it is the way they are given and what they were processed in. We are loading these small babies and children with so many vaccines at one time that so many of the kids systems are simply not able to handle it, and instead of helping them we are doing just the opposite. Sorry for the ramble but as you can see this is something that has effected our family very deeply.

I personally think this book is outstanding. I am the Mother of an 11 yr old autistic child who is also high functioning. Instead of forensics it is animals and dinosaurs. He can name them all where they live what era, what habitat what Continent. Names of dinosaurs that even with the pronunciation I have a hard time saying. He has a photographic memory. It is truly amazing. Take him some place once and he can direct you back there again that you don't need a GPS. But, put him in a room full of people and he falls apart. Too much noise and he will get more and more agitated to a point that he will have that same meltdown Jacob has in the book. People look at him because he looks normal and think he is violent or just stand and stare when he is having a problem bc a child starts screaming or someone starts blaring their music and he can't handle it. What he lives in everyday would be equivalent to us having people flashing a light at us blaring music while 4 people are trying to talk to us and 4 people are touching us. Like Jacob everything is black or white no gray area you tell him no secrets and he will tell everybody everything that happens in our home. lol I hope you guys reading this are getting a better understanding of children like him.

As for Theo reading this book has brought out my greatest fears I try to keep hidden. You spend so much time making the world right for the autistic child that the other sibling gets neglected. You try so hard to make it up to them but trying to take an autistic child to a wrestling match or baseball game is impossible. The guilt Emma feels is enormous I know. She must feel it so much more she has nobody to support her. I have great daughters. I disagree with Emma on letting Jacob have free reign though letting him ruin Theo's Birthday party is not acceptable. I think Theo as with any sibling there has to be some resentment.

I am looking forward to seeing what happens next in the book. Hoping that Jacob has not done something most people will think is terrible but in his limited mind he does not understand fully