Parents on the spectrum

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Another place to find outside structure: your local parks and recreation district, and sports programs. Obviously you don't want to participate, but your child can get good socialization from these kinds of organizations and you can claim to be "catching up on work" during whatever it is if you bring a laptop or smartphone.

^ This is a good idea.
The only thing is, though, that eventually NT parents will come over and talk to you, and there's the trouble. Best to stay in the car where one won't be accessible. If one sits, say on grass or bleachers or in the general vicinity, then one is assumed to be being o.k. with socializing. Plus, they sit in little group-lets and it looks odd to sit by oneself.
They either sense I am really different and I get 'red-flagged', or they're nice, so I try and talk and that ends up freaking them out and I am persona non gratis from that point onward. After it happened several times I gave up.

Kindle and a notebook. Sit off to the side, read, take notes, and if interrupted, frown briefly, listen politely, answer questions with yes or no (or the some short response-- short, as in few words-- I used to practice short responses to typical NT questions.) If they ask about my work, I TELL THEM.

In short, whatever I am currently studying is going to be used to get rid of the NT's. Since I love my subject, and love talking about it, invariably some pushy extrovert will interrupt my reading to ask what I am studying.

So I TELL THEM. Smiling, exclaiming how much I love what I am studying, etc.

Watch for the typical signs of an NT wanting to escape. Pause, smile, say something like, "I DO go on, it is such a wonderful subject." and then pause because if you did it right, they will be so glad to escape that they will make their excuses and escape.

Of course, if you actually WANT to chat on a regular basis you can do the opposite, talk less, let them do the talking, and even ask about their interests or their children. Then the NT's will keep on bothering you.

I suspect I am awful.

^ awfully wonderful advice. honestly. this is a nudge in the right direction. thanks! Hope it helps the OP as well.

I'm glad I've been able to read some of this thread and there are actually some people out there like me! xD
I have AS, my husband has a lot of AS traits but is not diagnosed. I have 3 kids, aged 1, 4 and 6, they're all NT as far as I can tell, but I'm not a psychiatrist. I do worry that one of them might be, not because I'd be ashamed to have an AS kid, just because I don't want them to suffer like I have.
I think I'm probably too protective, and I get very anxious about them doing things, especially my youngest as he is always climbing on things, and if he injures himself and has to go to hospital I don't want people to think I'm an incompetent parent because I have AS. It might be irrational, but I have a really big fear of having my kids taken away because I have AS.
I do find it difficult sometimes, usually when I get interested in things, and I'm so absorbed that I don't want to stop what I'm doing to sort them out, but I usually manage to pull myself out of it. Also the noise sometimes gets to me, I can handle it for a while, but I get really exhausted when I have to deal with it for a long time.
My kids are really well behaved mostly, I'm very consistent discipline wise and keep to a routine, as much for my sake as theirs.
I do socialise for them, luckily a lady down the road is very outgoing and accepting of me (though she doesn't know I have AS), and has two kids in my kids school, so they have play dates etc. and my daughter is always getting invited to parties and events because she is so outgoing and friendly. However, I find it utterly exhausting, and spend a long time analysing conversations afterwards trying to work out what particular facial expressions meant or if I should have said what I did, or if what she said meant what I thought it meant etc. etc.
Does anyone else have the same problems? I think I just want to know I'm not the only one tbh.

I'm very much an introvert and undiagnosed, very likely AS, and I have had the same issues. I signed my daughter up for dance class, and girl scouting, and free groups like game club. A lot of the time I was able to just drop in to drop her off then go back to my car to read until time to go back inside and pick her up.

It isn't easy to meet the needs of a more extroverted child, but it worked out. We also permitted monthly sleep overs. She had a lot of fun with those.

I can't describe the relief at finding this forum and this discussion in particular. After trolling through so many books, websites, articles on so called "experts" on Aspie parenting I was feeling so depressed and really rather angry. I am aspergers (undiagnosed but 100% certain) My husband shares many ASD traits (why we get on sooo well) and we have 3 daughters 8,7 and 3. My oldest is on the spectrum but I haven't gone through diagnosis. Still unsure whether to go down that route as I doubt it will help much. Currently homeschooling. Anyhow, before I had kids, I always wondered how I would deal with having "normal" children as I find it so difficult to understand "normal" people - please forgive me this was before I understood the term NT. Now I'm having more trouble treading a fine line with my ASD daughter between helping her fit in to a predominantly NT world and letting her know that it's fine to be herself. I went to a local parents of autistic kids support groups and it made me so angry and fair sick to the stomach to hear the parents (all NTs btw) whinge about how horrible their autistic kids were, how best to 'fix' them and the leader trying to make the parents feel better by saying its ok to feel ashamed of your childs behaviour!! ! I didn't stay to hear anymore. It was like my mothers rejection of me all over again plus some. So I turned to books and websites looking for more info. All I have found previous to this website is that as an aspie parent supposedly my children will be unable to feel loved (bullcrap) will end up hating me (I sincerely hope not) and at best I will be the equivalent of the worst NT parent. Sure we have issues and we definately are a different household but I know for a fact my kids feel loved and we are constantly working on the issues to give our kids the best possible life regardless of whether they are on the spectrum or not.
Sorry about the long waffling post and introduction. I will try to be more clear and concise next time. I'm looking forward to speaking to someone who actually understands me and not an "expert" NT who is only on the outside peering in.

I relate! I'm struggling right now with my little aspie getting her ideas of social interaction from outside examples-- ie, if she sees a movie, she copies the social interactions and this has given us some real nightmares behaviorally.

Example: Lilo and Stitch. Lilo has a tantrum with her sister and the end result is pizza and a snuggle-- and my health food fixated aspie hubby won't allow pizza, and I'm getting very very sick of the tantrums with face planting limply into the ground--ugh! Perhaps if I were not AS myself too, I'd instinctively know how to fix this but it isn't happening right now.

She won't watch the Shirley Temple Little Princess movie-- but if she acted that sweet and polite she would garner lots of positive feedback.

Then there is the tendency not to recognize that adults to children and adults to adults are different interactions. She expects to treat adults back the way they treat her-- and I erred by being bossy and impatient-- so now she is bossy and impatient with the adults around her-- and I have to figure out how to fix THIS error on my part.

I wish I had a series of childrens programs were the good children get lots of goodies and the rude children get put to bed....hmmm, sounds a bit like Peter Rabbit except the focus is on the naughty rabbit. I need stories where polite intelligent children do the right thing and demonstrate good interactions socially.

over-all, from what I observe about my NT adult daughter, her marriage and her parenting of her first child-- I did a good job first time around so I'm thinking I do plenty well with NT kids-- but my adult suspected aspie, ADD LD son is struggling with college and work and social...but he is in school, working and has friends so I guess that is doing fairly well.

Now, my almost 3 yr old is my aspie and my 6 month old is NT.

But I understand. There is a lot of negative, and I recall A LOT of childhood trauma where I learned to "act normal" no matter what. So much so that if stressed, I generally simply become very very still in my body language, smile and appear totally OK-- when inside I am doing a melt down that is going to explode as soon as I am safely behind closed doors and start to come out of it. I want my kids to be able to be themselves and still function around NT's. I'm so "normal" in my patterns of behavior when outside the safety of my own home that my older NT child used to complain that the mother she had at home was NOT the same person as the mother she had in public and she really wished I were like at home when in public-- a compliment!!-- but it does mean I will never be diagnosed.

NT's are so dumb sometimes, they see someone acting normal and assume they are NT rather than a really good actor. Same problem with my older son's LD-- teachers insisted that because he compensated so well (the result of YEARS of tutoring!), it meant he actually did not have the LD!! Poor kid finally turned 18, and simply wrote the school a letter withdrawing from school, did some self study and took the GED and entered a Junior College.

NT's are idiots because they mistake compensation behavior for neuro-typical-ness. The assumption is that AS cannot compensate effectively so if they do then they were never AS to begin with, and if they ARE AS then they can never really compensate so they must accept being treated badly by others.

At least, that is my take on it.

This really, really works. I don't necessarily notice the signs of wanting to escape, so after a couple iterations of the wonders of whatever book I have in my hand, they just leave me alone. I don't quite end up persona non grata, because I can always be counted on to do the boring clean-up jobs no one else wants and so they retain some use for me. But it does function very well to eliminate NTs wanting to chat. Word gets around-- "Don't get her started. She'll talk your ear off."

A re-listing of those signs might be helpful.

I have, so far, taken my kids to the local park and turned them loose while I sit on a bench woolgathering or reading a book. Watching all of them keeps me busy enough that other parents don't try to exchange more than a couple of lines of conversation. My mind also tends to wander-- keeping chatty norms at bay gives it an incentive to stay on track. It still wanders some-- but honestly, whose doesn't??? My oldest is 10, my youngest 3 mos, with two in between. The worst things that have happened are skinned knees, a couple attempts to cross the monkey bars without parental assistance, and once my now-3-year-old escaped the park and another mom brought her back.

The first two things were not issues when I was a child, and should not be issues now. There is such a thing as testing abilities and learning consequences, and they might as well do it while they're close to the ground. That last was bad, but I blame that one on risperidone and I'm glad I'm done with it. Nothing like that has happened before or since. The other parents didn't seem to think it was anything unusual. I made a fuss-- "Oh my gosh, what an awful mother I am!" This is evidently expected; the response was, "It's OK, we've all lost one a time or two."

I just can't let myself take a book I really, really love. It helps to make it one I've read before. That way I don't get so absorbed I forget to look up every few minutes. Keeping drinks and snacks with you helps too-- guarantees they'll come back every little once in a while.

The signs of an NT wanting to escape that I notice are looking away, a sort of tension around the eyes or a sort of glazing over--unfocused--, no smile or one that looks stiff, edging further away, and fidgeting. I can and often do miss the warnings but I try to notice enough to recognize the changes.

I try to note when approached the person's eyes and mouth so when they change I've some chance of seeing it happen.

My question is why do NT's claim that aspergers lack emotion when we all know we do so have emotion and when my aspie hubby's emotions are an open book to me even though not to others? If NT's are so good at non-verbal communication why do they fail so utterly with us?

hi

I know this thread is a bit old, so hopefully you won't miss this question. I'm just really curious as I have Asperger's traits and also have a six month old son; he's my first child. How do you know at such a young age that your baby is NT? Are there specific signs you have seen in your children at 6 months? Or if any experienced parents out there could answer this, I'd be very grateful. My son doesn't show any signs that I am aware of, he makes good eye contact with me, babbles, smiles and giggles all the time. But I still thought that as babies they're too young to be sure.

I couldn't tell at 6 mths with my Aspie child, although there are a few experts who can now diagnose babies by charting their line of vision and stuff like that.

My child seemed to change dramatically around the age of 18-24 months, up to then had developed normally, achieved the right milestones at the right times and seemed to have the right responses. The only weird thing she did was constantly try to bang her head against walls and floors and giggle. I was told that was normal for some kids and try not to act shocked or pannicked or that would encourage it further. She could tell which key was for which door, car, shed ect in a bunch of 24 just by looking at them by the age of 1, so we thought she was pretty cluey. Around the age of 2, she really seemed to change. Toileting went way backwards (she's now nearly 9 and we still have issues with that) and her speech slowed down, we had to go back to using hand signals. Her personality seemed to totally change as well. She had always been an outgoing, determined little thing and she was now a lot more aloof, had dramas with so many things that didn't worry her before and pannicked a lot. I thought it may have been just a normal stage as we couldn't pinpoint any traumas or anything that could have caused the changes. It was more when I had the other 2 kids, that I really noticed the difference or when comparing how my child acted compared to others the same age. I didn't know much about Aspergers at this stage, all I knew was my oldest child was "different" like her mother and father and the other 2 kids were "normal". I don't think knowing any earlier would have helped us much anyway.

I have read some parents notice differences pretty much from birth but others not until later, especially with kids with aspergers and higher up the spectrum where speech is not as affected. Some experts disagree with diagnosing at such a young age, but even if you do get a diagnosis at that stage, it may change later as your child grows and exhibits different behaviours.

At 6 mths, I wouldn't stress about it too much as long as your child is developing normally and seems happy. Just give them plenty of cuddles and love, talk to them a lot and try to maintain eye contact while you do. If you ARE very concerned, maybe try giving them some extra social activities - baby yoga, parents group, baby music groups, occasional childcare or something like that so that they are used to having lots of people/noise around them regularly. And of course seek a professional opinion lol.

Does anyone here have a way to handle having to go to performances at school. The blaring loud talking and yelling in the fully packed gymnasium/theatre was more than I could handle. I made it through my kiddo's class's performance by standing almost paralyzed at the back wall. Left for the safe quiet of my vehicle in the parking lot and waited for the event to finish.

My son's behavioral issues triggered a meltdown in me and I really don't want to scar the poor guy for life, so I need a place to go to recollect myself. Sometimes counting to 10 takes too long to keep him from grabbing something dangerous* or running out the door with no clothes on. He's only 4, btw. Also, I seem to have become his "punching bag" when he's upset or tired. I've tried to demonstrate punching and biting a pillow instead of me, but I've still got bumps, bruises and scabs from his taking out his frustration on me. I don't yell at him or spank him. I just want him to calm down.

* I don't leave knives lying around and am constantly checking for things left out by other family members, but I can't notice everything all the time. We keep the door locked and the key out of his reach, but if I open the door to get the mail or feed the cat, he'll sometimes make a run for it.

Rhetorical question so please don’t answer literally, but why are there zero resources for autistic adults raising/teaching/etc./living with non-autistic children and teens? We're presumed not to exist!

What on earth can I do about a socially manipulative 17 year old?