Questioning my judgment vs. NT spouse

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Like some of the other parents that responded, I too am the NT one who does all the reading and research. My husband was the one (NT also) who had a more difficult time changing his approach. However, 2 and a half years later, he is the one who stops me and says, we need to try something different. He is not the reader, but we attend a parent/kid meetup group and talking/listening to the other parents has really made a difference in how he sees the behaviors and being open to new ideas about what works.

So this came up last night, again.

My son was very upset about today. Not because of the NJASK tests he is having all week. "Tomorrow is math," he said, "that's easy." What was bothering him was that he is scheduled for Capoeira tonight.

"it's too much!" he said. "I have Capoeira on Monday and Wednesday. I have to go with my sister to Ice Skating on Tuesday. I have tutoring on Thursday and Saturday morning Piano and Chess Club. I need more time to relax!"

So my thought is--maybe he is exactly right. Maybe he needs time to recover from the stress of the schoolday.

I said to my wife, "He is very stressed about Capoeira. Maybe give him a break this week so he can focus on the NJASK."

"No." She said. "Don't liten to him, he never wants to do anything, but he is happy after class."

I asked him about that and he said he likes the class but not the instructor, because he bullies students. I think he is misreading some playful stuff the instructor does with advanced students. I wish I could talk about this openly, but my wife is insisting on not telling him about the diagnosis and not telling anyone else. She thinks knowing about the diagnosis will damage his confidence. I think this is wrong. He deserves to know, and to be empowered to have reality-based discussions with people like his Capoeira instructor... but I can't argue about it. I think I need to ask the therapist for help.

He does sound over-scheduled to me. If he is vocalizing that, I think it needs to be respected.

It is sort of trendy to over-schedule kids these days, but autistic kids really do not usually (There are always exceptions, of course) to my knowledge thrive under these circumstances. They need lots of time to recharge after dealing with the world.

Have you told your wife this?

Perhaps your wife can join here no ask some questions herself? She might have some concerns or fears that she isn't sure up how to bring up to you, or might like the opportunity to ask questions if other parents in similar situations?

I agree with the over scheduling thing. Something nearly every day? Where is his down time? Every kid needs that, ASD or not.

I know your wife has his best interests at heart, but if she isn't actively learning about AS and how that could be impacting your son, then she doesn't have a full grasp of what is his best interests are (does that make sense?).

I'm not sure about the not telling him either. It could backfire pretty badly, with him feeling frustration and confusion about why he doesn't feel like he fits in, or can't do the same things others do, or takes longer to get to a goal etc. and if he finds out later, and realised you didn't tell him? Not only could his self esteem be damaged by not understanding himself, but the relationship you have with him could be damaged through broken trust.

Parenting is meant to be a partnership. Sometimes one or the other of us might be too invested in our own viewpoints to really be aware of how we are affecting the reset ofthe family. It is ok to bring that up, and say "maybe we need to talk about this".

DON'T just roll over and go wit the flow. Your son needs more than that.

I may be totally wrong about this, but your wife's actions seem to give the impression that deep underneath she believes that if you don't tell him, and just treat him like he is "normal" the Asperger parts will go away. She may deny it, but her actions say it to me.

Maybe the focus needs to be on the positives of AS for a while. Point out the great things he does because he is AS.

She seems almost ashamed to me.

Thanks for the comments.

She was right, but my conversation helped him.

He had a great time at Capoeira tonight. He did really well and was praised by the teacher. He told me that he remembered our talk last night and he tried to interpret the instructor's behavior in a positive way instead of a negativ way! The discovery of flexible thinking! So it was a great day.

And once again, my NT wife is right.

But I think she also needs to realize that he does need more time and is more likely to meltdown if he doesn't get it.

We are all learning and trying out best.

I'm aspie, and I grew up playing multiple sports - soccer, basketball, baseball, capoeira, BJJ, surfing, horse riding and dance.

I can tell you right now that his schedule is far, far too full - he needs down time desperately. The fact that he's already *had* to voice it to you means he really means it, 10 times more than an NT kid would - so believe him. 3 after school activities per week. No more. Otherwise you risk burning him out and he will be unable, or not want to, go to school if enough time passes like that.

Use what he is good at.
I played soccer and basketball my entire life. I'm better than 95% of those who play because I've been doing them since I was 3. But I'm still crap at them for how long I've been playing. My muscle memory allows me to play well - but my hand eye coordination has never been anything close to good and never will be. Playing for so long only to be able to get to that level and no further is demoralising - even though I enjoyed the sports.
If he doesn't even enjoy them - then you're putting him through hell for nothing.

If he enjoys capoeira then let him keep doing it.
My sense of balance and muscle memory always allowed me to succeed at things like that more than traditional sport - he may be the same way.
He probably does need to tell the instructor about the AS - he has a right to know, and so does the instructor.

If you choose to stop an activity or two - quit the ones that he doesn't like and is also not getting anywhere in.
Making a kid do activities that they do not like and can not succeed in will only demoralise them and possibly create a strong dislike of sports or certain kinds, which otherwise wouldn't happen.

Your wife is trying to treat him like an NT kid, and he's not. Doing that is only going to do damage long term and ruin his self esteem.

Posting before work, so not much time...

Knowing your wife likes basketball changed my original thinking. Now I see. She wants something to share with him.

My son has a lot of motor planning difficulties. He is painfully uncoordinated and to be honest, he looks ridiculous when he tries to do many sports. I say this not to mock him, but because he is a tween and it is an important part of the picture for him. Needless to say, he doesn't "like" most sports. Nor did I at his age for the same reasons.

There was a counselor in his afterschool program (mostly staffed by college kids working around their class schedule) who took the time to help him learn how to dribble and shoot the ball. I am sure it was painstaking. But, he learned how to do it passably well. He will now occasionally enjoy a game of 1:1 or horse or the like. But he he will probably never enjoy playing a full game with full teams and full rules and all of that. But he likes it recreationally.

Is this a possibility? Could your wife work with your son to teach him how to play just with her? They could enjoy playing it together, but that doesn't mean that he has to "play" basketball, ykwim?

I would lastly like to add that in the past I have assumed both of my kids would not like certain things because of my perceptions of their limitations, so I did not encourage them to do it. I don't want to push them to do something they simply can't do. However, on more than one occasion, with encouragement and support from someone who believed in them, they have actually liked things that I assumed they wouldn't. Perhaps not on the first attempt (uncomfortable with any change initially), but after they had done it enough for it not to be new. So, while my heart says your wife might be pushing too hard, my experience tells me sometimes when you over-identify it is easy to make assumptions about your kids that end up not being true.

It's a difficult fine line. I suspect the middle ground is probably the right place to stand.

There are so many sports to choose from, and my son found he liked soccer (although his skill level made him drop out of playing competitively when he was 12), hiking, skiing, and biking. He is a very active teen and quite good at hiking and road biking (his coordination issues become a problem when he mountain bikes). I think biking together would be a great father - son activity, be aware that your son is going to out ride you real fast, if the experience my husband and son have is any indicator.

But here is a missing element your wife may not be consciously aware of, if it exists at all: it has been hard on ME that my son does not do team sports. When he played soccer, it was a ready made social life for me; every weekend I could count on spending a few hours chatting with some of my friends at our kid's games. I loved it. No effort; just there. And sometimes impromptu meals out afterwards. When he stopped playing team sports, it was a big loss for me. That hit about the same time my younger child left elementary school where I had done a ton of volunteering, so all of the sudden I didn't see anyone anymore. I had gotten so used to having a social life that simply came along for the ride as I did things for my kids. Even now, most of my friends see each other all the time organically because their kids still play sports together in High School, and they are active as sport booster parents. I have no natural part in that, and have to seek them out making lunch dates and so forth, which is hard to get scheduled in because moms are always busy with their family events. I miss it, my son playing team sports, I still do, but my son can't be responsible for my social life and I know that. But it took me a while to connect the dots on how I was feeling and why I was feeling that way. So I've made new friends now that he's involved in drama

If your son has friends who play basketball, there is no reason he and your wife can't make a point of attending those games as part of the cheering on squad. My son will always enjoy watching soccer because he understands the strategy and played long enough to develop an appreciation for the technique. He likes watching the occasional football game, too, even though that he has never played. He enjoys baseball games as a fan even though he didn't enjoy playing it himself; he did have the best coach ever for the season he played and that helped with keeping a positive outlook on the game. And, I said at the start, hiking and biking are big things for him to actually take part in.

Anyway. Best of luck. Your son's future is in his interests and gifts, but I think we all want our kids to not only be active and healthy, but have some touch points for enjoying at least a little bit of popular culture, and that means having a minimal appreciation for sports. But forcing a child to play on a team when he truly does not want to will not get him there. You have to help him find his joys.

Thank you so much for the thoughtful comments.

My wife does not regularly play basketball or watch live games, but often watches NBA games with great intensity. When the Knicks are in the playoffs, she often has to do something else, because she finds watching those games to stressful. She just checks in on the score every once in while.

Given that--I don't think it's the sharing thing so much, though I could be wrong about that.

I am pretty sure it's not the socializing with the other parents thing--she did not do much of that when the kids were playing soccer. On the contrary, she would have me set up our folding chairs a bit away from the main cluster of parents. Maybe she was doing this for me, knowing that I am not comfortable chatting with people (unless they happen to like cosmology, stellar evolution, geology, virology, parasitology, microbiology, meteorology, Japanese architecture, Japanese literature, Japanese film, science fiction, lute music, Elizabethan lutes, or autism--the interests that have gripped over the years). But I think she really just doesn't like socializing that much.

So I think it's more complicated. I think she wants him to have more of an ability to blend in and get along with his NT friends... She is more concerned than I am about what other people think (I basically don't care and am unaware unless someone draws something specific to my attention, such as my having hurt someone's feelings, in which case I try to make amends as soon as I find out).

I had an interesting discussion with his therapist the other day, after my own AS diagnosis. Once he heard about my diagnosis and some of the things the psychiatrist who diagnosed me had recommended, the therapist suddenly became more serious about my son's diagnosis and suggested that he may need to see someone who specializes in Aspergers. He also suggested, changing his earlier view, that my son should be told about his diagnosis soon. He seemed to be influenced by my comments about how good it is to have clarity through my own diagnosis and how knowing that all these things from all through my life turn out to be part of a pattern and that I can now better predict what things may be challenging and prepare for them.

I feel I may have done something helpful by talking with him about this.

I still feel very unsure about my own judgment when I disagree with my wife. I think my son does need a less packed schedule, but we will work this out together. I think it will be easier when he knows and is more involved in making decisions for himself. It's not easy finding the right balance between pushing him to grow and protecting him from stress.

Last edited by Adamantium on 15 May 2013, 8:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I just realized that there were more comments that I had not read when I wrote my last post ... sorry about that.

As for who is right ... sometimes it will be you, sometimes it will be her, same as in any couple. What is important is that you both listen to each other, try to share your thought process, and then consider seriously the opposite points.

ASD kids do need more down time than normal kids, that is absolutely true. I think we all end up concluding that. It doesn't have to be rest time, but it does have to be unscheduled time. Being out in the world wears on a AS child in a way that NTs cannot understand. Just having to deal with people is stressful, and that is true even for Aspies naturally drawn to group situations like my son.

I also strongly believe in telling the child about his diagnosis. Not all children react the same, so there are no guarantees, but most kids have already figured out they are different, and are busy developing their own theories as to what causes that. From what I've seen, some of the attitudes that come out of those self-developed theories are quite counter-productive. Having an accurate explanation is often a real "aha" moment for a child, and helps them figure out how to move forward in a productive way.

The kids that tend to react negatively are those who really, really want to be like everyone else, because the information tells them they never will be. Personally, I think they need to have that information and need to adjust to it, but kids like that do get upset.

Many parents worry the kids will use it as an excuse to not do their best, but most of us have not seen that in our kids. Still, this is a "know your child" call, and no one else can tell you what is best for him. If you go up to the parenting index, you'll see we've had quite a few threads discussing the topic of when and if to tell.

Best of luck. Your posts sound encouraging. You'll figure things out.

Thanks, DW_a_,mom.

And thanks to everyone who posted. This really is a great community and it's wonderful to have the sense of support that comes from reading about your experiences and views. I am grateful that you are all here.

Regarding telling vs. not telling, because this is a quandary for me:

My son knows both of his diagnoses. At first he only knew about the ADHD part, but now he knows about the NVLD, too. When he was diagnosed at 7, he didn't know the diagnosis, per se, but he did know that his brain worked differently from most peoples'. At 7 he was highly aware that he was different from his classmates and very distressed by this. He was starting to feel like he was a bad person because he knew what the right thing to do was, but didn't always do it (poor impulse control) and since other kids always seemed to do the right thing, he was starting to draw the conclusion that they were good and he was bad. So it seemed to me that I had no choice but to tell him because as DW_a_mom said, his own theories were dangerous.

My daughter is 7 and does not yet know. She does not really see herself as being different from her peers, and so I struggle with how to tell her. My son believes she should know. I agree that at some point she should, but he believes she should know now. I think he feels this way because he felt it was a relief to know and I don't think he can really understand that for her, it will not be a relief because she doesn't think she has a "problem" the way he did. I think she will be really upset. She does know that she has a hard time with "social smarts" but because she is academically ahead, I think she sees things in balance. Kind of like "Well, I have problems in social smarts but am good with school smarts, but other kids are good with social smarts but have problems with school smarts." Of course at 7, she cannot understand that the trade-off isn't exactly an equal one. Her social deficits cause problems on a regular basis and I am fearful that at some point she will have a hard time finding kids who will willingly play with her. Anyway, my son thinks that if she knew she was autistic, she might be more open to my feedback and less argumentative. I think she has too much black-and-white thinking and too many theory of mind issues to be open to feedback at this point, regardless of the knowledge.

For anyone who is worried that their kid will use it as an excuse: My son tried it a couple of times. I very firmly nipped it in the bud, and he stopped doing it. The language that seemed to help him is something along the lines of some things may be more difficult for you to learn than it is for others, but that doesn't mean you can't learn it. That just means we have to figure out a better way for you, and it might not be the same way for your peers. I do, however, sit with him when he struggles with the reality that some things may not ever be learned, no matter what we do. Sometimes it is not an excuse. Sometimes it is a reason. And when it is a reason, I think what they need is extra support so as not to be left feeling broken.