My son, now 12 years, was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome at age 5. Wow! What a whirlwind year that was for our whole family. My partner threw himself into work  to avoid the issue, I threw myself into every autism club, article, book and website to learn everything I could

only to be confused by contradictions, meanwhile our son became more isolated to the outside world and almost a stranger to us. It was clear we were not heading in the right direction.... and, OF COURSE, our family could do a better job in raising him.

My partner and I knew we had to do something to bring us all back from the verge of a broken family. Two things turned our world around and brought us much closer than we had ever been. First and foremost, upon a friends suggestion, we bought a dog. This turned out to be a fantastic step on our road to recovery, my son started coming out of his shell more often to play with the dog and we now do a lot more family activities together, mostly including our dog. My partner and I are also much fitter now than before our son was even born.

The second most important thing we did was purchased a book 'All Cats Have Asperger' by Kathy Hoopman. What a perfect book. Its a simple picture and few words book which not only helped us understand about Aspergers, it also helped our son understand more about himself. (Although like every typical child - 'He knew everything already'!) This book also helped our families understand they probably couldn't have raised our child any better than we were. My sister-in-law actually sends me flowers regularly to remind me I'm doing a tough but good job! We have worked very hard with our son and are proud to say he is about to start mainstream high school. The book (which became our bible) opened our eyes and our newest family member (the dog) opened our hearts to understanding and patience. Any parent with a child on the ASD spectrum, if you can't buy a dog at least buy the Kathy Hoopman book. It will not only help you understand, it will also gear you up with a reply when outsiders can't understand why this normal looking child behaves in the strange way he does.