Aspies For Freedom

ok lestat
money where your mouth is
i am the father of a 5 year old aspie
no idea what the hell i am doing and of course i feel woefully deficient and behind on info
it seems to me that as i find anything out it only helps explain PAST behaviors and not prepare me for the future
i love my son and only want his life to be as good as it can possibly be
i do not know where to look and hope that i may gleen more insight from his likenesses
i obviously can not use much of "how my father raised me"
stories such as this scare the *** out of me
BK

tenaciouscj Wrote:

Tigger_the_Wing Wrote:

BKdog Wrote:

If your boy is anything at all like any of mine, what he will want is an explanation of and for everything. They didn't want fairy stories, but scientific facts about things like thunder-and-lightning, tides, evolution. The staff in the reference sections of libraries and bookshops became friends!

They also required full explanations of things that you might find obvious, like manners, polite speech, courtesy. They weren't at all obvious to them. It was like introducing a foreigner from a very different land to our culture. Explain, explain, explain - that is all I ever seemed to do. Luckily, keeping up a running commentary was actually fun for me!

It was important to realise that asking "why?" wasn't cheeky, but a genuine need for a reason, so that they could intellectualise the process.

It helped that I was exactly the same as a child so to me it was normal behaviour.

Having a sensible reason for something, e.g. a behaviour, I'm sure helped them to become successful adults. Along with lots of love for who they are.

When Aspies fall into criminal behaviour (which is very rare as they like rules more than anyone else) it is usually from a combination of a desire for 'friendship' at any cost, and an inability to imagine the effects of their behaviour from another person's point of view.

If you equip your lad with the knowledge that you are always ready to answer his questions (even if it is to say "I have no idea why, shall we find out?") I think that he won't go wrong!

This is very good advice! Even now, I ask for explanations for things that other people might find self-evident eg. about manners, why a particular person feels the way they do about a particular thing.

I'm also likely at times to get very worked up about various ideas and situations and this may have led to my losing a friend. I tend to see these things in very black and white terms.

Yes, this has been my own experience and my son's also. Another thing was that in elementary school, he would refuse to do work unless the teacher could explain what it's purpose was. He got into trouble for this alot because the teacher thought he was just being difficult.

The problem was that he couldn't understand the instructions because they would often contain "between the lines" things that Aspies have trouble with, things he would take literally, or any number of other things that made the given instructions unintelligible to him. (Get used to hearing, "...but none of my other students have trouble understanding directions." Or, "...but those directions are so simple...")

Anyway, he wanted to understand the goal of the assignment so that he could figure out what he was supposed to do to get it done (kind of like solving a maze by starting at the end and going backwards). The teacher took it as a challenge to her authority when he asked, "What's the point of this?", and she responded punitively. They had been battling for weeks before I was finally made aware of what was going on. Once I explained what he was asking, she was better at working with him. Understanding his motivation here was the key, as it changed the appropriate response considerably. (He was too young at the time to understand how he was coming across, but we've worked on that, too, and he's much better.)

So, in addition to explain, explain, explain, I would suggest patience, and understanding with an eye toward motivations rather than toward actions. Ask questions when something seems screwy; you've got alot of learning ahead! Yes, it's hard work. It's also very do-able.

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BKdog

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