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annie_niemiec's review
2.0
I found I didn't enjoy the writing style or that over half the book was dedicated to the onset of Autism and how it affected the family rather than their approach. Great background information however dryly written.
Not a light or casual read.
Not a light or casual read.
ms_dzt's review
4.0
This is a really beautiful journey of one family's experience with autism. While it gives great insight, it is only one account and every account can be different.
iamshadow's review
5.0
This is a good contemporary view of a Sydney family struggling for the best way to help their son with middle class wages and virtually no government help whatsoever. The services out there for people with autism and their families are virtually non-existent in Australia. Anthony remarks at the end of the book that there's more funding now for families than there was when Alex was first diagnosed, but it's still a bleak and lonely place out there with huge waiting lists and little constructive advice for anyone thrown headlong into navigating disability services for a young child. Even more worrying is that Alex and his family live in the largest city in Australia. It makes one think about all those families stuck out in smaller cities or rural areas, where finding a dentist or a GP is hard enough, let alone a speech pathologist or play therapist with experience dealing with autistic symptoms in children.
archytas's review
4.0
It feels heartless to say I thoroughly enjoyed this book, given the subject matter, but I did. Much of this due to Macris' writing style, and his self-analytical without being self-indulgent approach to describing the journey his family takes when his son begins to display symptoms of Autism. Some of it was simply due to the story's setting - I lived in the same suburbs, hung out in the same parks and shopping centres as the Macris' in the time the book was set, and the sense of Sydney's inner-ish-west pervades the book.
I would recommend the book to parents and friends of autistic spectrum kids, simply for the intelligent discussion of the treatment options and especially the ABA program. My only hesitation is that I think it could be a harrowing read for any parent. Macris captures perfectly the intensity of parental love, and the anguish of confronting the limits of how much you can protect and shape your child. Someone going through this may find it hard to bear.
I have autistic spectrum kids in my family, although none as severe as Alex, Macris' son, and the book's scathing indictment of the essential refusal of the public health system to support treatment of kids like Alex is a pretty familiar story. If parents like Anthony and Kathy can afford private therapy, that is pushed on them. If they can't, there kids are quietly written off. It costs a small fortune to treat Autism with the intensity recommended, and while the government has dramatically increased the funds available since the book was written, it's still frustratingly short of enough.
Much of the book's marketing focuses on the limited-means that the "downwardly mobile" anthony and Kathy have going in to the diagnosis. But, as Macris points out in his book, they ae only able to achieve what they can by drawing on the resources available to highly educated, upper-middle class people - the financial support of friends and family who have made less unconventional careers, and Macris' ability to get high paying work should he choose.
Macris' experiences also draw attention to how as a society, we have abrigated the care of special needs kids to their families alone. Anthony and Kathy both live with the dread that when they die, their son will be without love or care. A system which shoves all responsibility on to the family for therapy, treatment and care is also one which fails to build communities of love and support around special needs kids and their families. Instead, parents often find themselves retreating increasingly into a insular world - the play dates that are many young parents social bedrock become unbearably difficult; the time taken ensures mothers often leave the work force, losing those social connections. The families who most need a village are most cut off from it.
This book is a celebration of what parental love can achieve, but perhaps even more importantly, it is an indictment of the rest of us are failing to achieve, and what we expect parents to have to substitute for.
I would recommend the book to parents and friends of autistic spectrum kids, simply for the intelligent discussion of the treatment options and especially the ABA program. My only hesitation is that I think it could be a harrowing read for any parent. Macris captures perfectly the intensity of parental love, and the anguish of confronting the limits of how much you can protect and shape your child. Someone going through this may find it hard to bear.
I have autistic spectrum kids in my family, although none as severe as Alex, Macris' son, and the book's scathing indictment of the essential refusal of the public health system to support treatment of kids like Alex is a pretty familiar story. If parents like Anthony and Kathy can afford private therapy, that is pushed on them. If they can't, there kids are quietly written off. It costs a small fortune to treat Autism with the intensity recommended, and while the government has dramatically increased the funds available since the book was written, it's still frustratingly short of enough.
Much of the book's marketing focuses on the limited-means that the "downwardly mobile" anthony and Kathy have going in to the diagnosis. But, as Macris points out in his book, they ae only able to achieve what they can by drawing on the resources available to highly educated, upper-middle class people - the financial support of friends and family who have made less unconventional careers, and Macris' ability to get high paying work should he choose.
Macris' experiences also draw attention to how as a society, we have abrigated the care of special needs kids to their families alone. Anthony and Kathy both live with the dread that when they die, their son will be without love or care. A system which shoves all responsibility on to the family for therapy, treatment and care is also one which fails to build communities of love and support around special needs kids and their families. Instead, parents often find themselves retreating increasingly into a insular world - the play dates that are many young parents social bedrock become unbearably difficult; the time taken ensures mothers often leave the work force, losing those social connections. The families who most need a village are most cut off from it.
This book is a celebration of what parental love can achieve, but perhaps even more importantly, it is an indictment of the rest of us are failing to achieve, and what we expect parents to have to substitute for.
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