Were we really that bad?

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I was told that I wasn't that difficult of a Child, but that's what I've been told.

I believe that I was a very difficult Child. I've had my Obsessions, which my Parents were ashamed of. Every time that I would talk about whatever obsession that I've had at whatever age, my Mom sat me down for a Lecture and drilled into my head that my Obsession was a bad thing to talk about. That there was a variety of things to talk about. That people would like me better, if I made "Small Talk".

I was pretty agressive, as a Child. If my Sister, or one of my Peers made me angry, I would hit them, as hard as I could. My Mom gave me Lectures about how it hurts people when I hit them. Every time that she told me that, I'd tell her that I know that it hurts. Every time I've told her that I knew that it hurt people when I hit them, she had the gall to ask why I'd want to hit another Child, when she knew damn well that I've learned that "Might makes Right" when she was giving me my Spankings.

I was even punnished for something that I've had no control over. I was born in Canada, to two very Strictly Canadian Parents, and I have a Cockney Accent. When I was just wrapping up my Grade 6 Year, my Parents have decided that they wanted my to have the same Speech Patterns as my Perfect, Little Strictly Canadian Sister and the rest of the Strictly Canadian Devil Sheep in my Neighbourhood. My Father told me that I should listen to myself speak, so I did, and I've quite liked my Accent. My Father on the other hand, hated it with a Passion. He told me with the sound of exasperation in his voice that none of the kids around our part of Canada sounded like me and that my voice needed me to be (Puke)..."Fixed". My Parents spent that whole Summer, telling me not to talk through my Nose. I've experienced my first Suicidal Feelings, between the middle of May and the beginning of the September of 1987. I was thrilled to find out that there was a new Teacher at the School, who was born in London, England who spoke with a Cockney Accent. I wasn't the Local Freak, anymore. There was actually another person in Langley, BC who spoke with a Cockney Accent! However, I was the Family Freak for many years, later and it took me until December the 13th to accept myself the way that I truly am.

My Parents tell me that I was a pleasant Child, but I remember being an embarassment to my Parents.

I was an easy child, very qiuet, very tidy, very much to myself, good grades, all that. Yes I was very odd, but not in an acting out way so it really didn't affect my mother one way or the other. (For instance my need to make my bed a certain way) My step father however said for years what a problem I was. It wasn't until my two NT siblings got older that he realized how wrong he had been about me being a problem. (He also after my mom and he divorced admitted he had never really liked me so that was probably why he gave me such a hard time, I was "weird" and it "bothered him" )

Callista:

My son is an Aspi. He's beyond difficult. Both my wife and I are on nerve medication (I'd be on it anyway, because I'm AS), but you know what, he's a really cool guy, and smart as all hell, and funny when he's not upset. And he's getting older, and he copes with it a lot better than I did, so don't feel too bad. As my father once said, very kindly, when the kid was having a meltdown, and I asked "was I that bad?" "Worse."

All I could say was, "Oh, my God, I'm sorry."

My father just laughed, and said, "Don't worry about it!"

Beentheredonethat

I probally was that bad but I'm the tpye that wanted to blend in as much as possible not stand out like my son plus I was content to be alone a lot and read but at time yeah I think I was that bad at times.

My son was always like a little adult, even when very young. Never threw temper tantrums or anything, always internalized rather than externalized pain caused by others. Of course this led to depression and anxiety which eventually led to his being diagnosed with AS. He requires alot of alone time and privacy, which we give him. We home school him now because he couldn't deal with the pressures of the public school system. He's always been such a caring, thoughtful, and intelligent little guy who's wonderful with adults, just not same age peers. I was the same way as a child so I always knew what he needed and never pressured him. So my miserable childhood actually helped me to know what, and what not, to do with him.

Bad to parent? No. Different? Yes. We have an 8 yr. gap between our 16 yr. old NT son and our soon to be 8 yr. old AS son. I think when you've successfully used one form of parenting with an older child (whether NT or not) and discover it doesn't work with the next child (whether AS or not), it's mind-boggling (sp?!) and frustrating. We have issues with our 16 yr. old son that we don't have with our 8 yr. old son and vice versa.

As our counselor put it to us, it's not the parents that have changed, it's the children! Some are born with green eyes, some with brown. Neither one is better than the other, just different. Does that make sense? What we realized is that our parenting tactics that we used with our 16 yr. old are just not gonna cut it with our 8 yr. old. However, I think that can be true if you're raising two NT siblings or two AS siblings or some combination of the two. They are all unique individuals who sometimes require unique approaches/parenting.

Honestly tho, I will say that our AS son has required us to be on our toes more. We have had to learn some new parenting skills to be better parents for him. Like someone else mentioned, with him there is no room for lazy parenting which is the way it should be with all our children but, sad to say, it often isn't.

Like someone else mentioned, I think the frustration comes from not understanding or knowing what you're dealing with. When you know there's something different but you don't know what it is or how to help, well, as a parent that's frustrating! But, for as frustrating as it can be sometimes for us as parents, I keep reminding myself how frustrating it must be for our son who is actually living with Asperger's. I am thankful for this site because I think it helps to give parents (and everyone) a peek into that wonderful perspective and mind of someone with AS. It really has been a great resource for me personally already! Like the Petra song says...

We are pilgrims
We are aliens
We are not of this world

I know that must be how our son feels sometimes.

Great question and thread! Thanks for posting it!

Last edited by kindsfater on 07 Apr 2006, 5:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It's the knowledge that makes the difference.

My youngest will lecture, he'll meltdown and tantrum in the grocery store. He gets loud and squirmy and talks out-of-turn and I just wish, pray that he would STOP IT. Doesn't he see everybody looking at him? Doesn't he know it's not funny by the 3rd, 4th, 5th time. They're not laughing with him anymore, they're laughing AT HIM. Oh, and let's talk about doing dishes - how dare he bring me a glass that's not clean enough and then REFUSE to wash a single dish? How selfish is that? And, one of these days he WILL write legibly. He can practice every day and he WILL get better.

The above is an example of how I felt as a parent of an odd, hyper boy. I didn't understand where some of this was coming from, so I thought he was doing this to me and on purpose. As a mom, I have to *fix* that and by golly he can just sit in his room until he sees reason.

Until recently, I had no idea he was clueless - that he wasn't doing it on purpose and that he really didn't want to be the way he is. He knew something was *wrong* but he didn't know how to make things *right.* Once we learned this, our lives have changed for the better. He knows he's different, he'll always be different, but it's not a right/wrong thing anymore. It's just different.

New situations make him nervous and anxious - let's try to avoid it whenever possible. Grocery stores are visually noisy - I arrange to shop at times when I don't have to take him. I'm guessing dishwashing is a sensory problem, so I'm teaching him to fold laundry while he watches cartoons. I need his help, he needs mine - how can we accomplish what's really important here?

And, we're working on cues to use in public so he can start to recognize when he's going over into the laughing AT instead of with him.

Handwriting? I give up. Why stress him - one of these days he'll want to learn to actually type on a keyboard and he can almost read his writing if he really really needs to write something down.

It's all about knowledge. As a parent, I thought he was just being stubborn, obstinate, manipulating me with the dishwashing or other things. I just didn't know.

I say give him a simple but strict "two times" rule. This means that he cannot tell any joke or story more than twice to the same people, unless they specifically asks him. It would work ten times better than telling him to stop it over and over again. Aspies are not good at remembering multiple interactions, so when you tell him "stop it!" whenever he wants to talk about something he likes (he doesn't realize it annoys people, remember?), from his point of view, you're not telling him to act appropriately, you're just being mean. So of course he'll melt down as a result!

A simple rule about not repeating something more than twice needs to be remembered only once, and it never changes. Once he remembers the "two times" rule, things should improve. Note that he doesn't necessarily have to understand the logic behind it, just remember to follow it with every person. Should he lapse into a beaten-up topic, give him a warning, such as "did you forget the rule?" (he'll know which one) Unlike a "random" command to stop talking, this puts the ball in his court. Since he agreed on a rule not to repeat things, he'll know it's his responsibility to follow through on it, as opposed to obeying orders he sees as completely random.

Aspie1 - that's a great way to handle it! I'll be giving that the go around this weekend and see how it works.

I've had to use something similar with my husband, another aspie. I love him dearly, and don't want to accidentally tune out something important he may say, so we have a "1 out of 10" rule, meaning 1 conversation he starts out of 10 must be about something other than cars (his perseveration/obsession).

Conversationally, the most difficulty I have is getting either one of them to start from a point where I know what they are talking about. Both son and husband tend to start somewhere midstream, apparently midthought when they decide to verbalize and join the family in on their story. Makes for some interesting dinner conversation!

That is too funny because that is my husband's biggest complaint that I only say half of the sentence (or stop in the middle of one) or that I must be having part of the conversation to myself. Quite frankly I used to think he wasn't paying attention to me because he more often than not asks me what I am talking about.

(edit: Really - I had to share this with him and he is totally in agreement.)

It feels like I'm always tuning in too late. I tell my husband, imagine every time you turned on the news, the lady is saying "and that's the big story. Back to you in the studio Jim".

That is a nice way to put it - my husband usually isn't quite so nice. I've gotten more than a few "what in the blank are you trying to say?".

I am wondering - how does communication between your husband and son go? My son has HFA and has language difficulties both receptive and expressive but yet I think I communicate better with him sometimes.

I think that they are so much alike, it is hard to have them both in the same room. My husband also has OCD, and is very particular about his things - CD's, etc. However my stuff could go in the ash can as far as he'd notice. My son is particular about some things, his cars, his trains, his calendars, but other stuff - laundry for instance - can pile up under his bed, get thrown behind bureaus, he just doesn't care. So they clash over those things.

The way my husband talks to him, he's very direct but tends to repeat himself over and over again (yup!) and of course our son sees it as nagging and overbearing since he heard it the first time. These leads to meltdowns. My opinion is at this point, the clean police aren't coming any time soon, as long as his socks and such don't spill out of his room and make it to the hamper by wash day, it's all the same to me.

My son will try and have a nice, sit down chat about things, but if you ask him the wrong question (sometimes it's like a scary game show, I don't always know where the mine fields are hidden) he'll go off on a meltdown. A couple of weeks ago we had one start this way, it lasted 4 days.

I have finally begun to see how this has put me in the middle a lot, and am beginning to learn to back out of things and let them handle it alone. This has helped my stress levels greatly. I keep explaining to my husband he should be prepared to raise the kids himself, in case it ever came to that, and right now it would be a real struggle for him.

I have OCD too - but I'm more of a handwasher though. I've staked out a little territory for myself and prefer that everyone stay out of my space. However it is like a shelf in the kitchen - I've learned that if I don't want anyone to get into my stuff I better get it out of the way (lol).

"Stop" just doesn't mean stop here and I've known for awhile that we need to be specific - just yesterday I asked him to bring down his sheets and when he went upstairs I reminded him to strip his bedding. Yup, he brought it ALL down - blankets, pillows, uh-oh, my mistake.

I guess I just thought stop meant stop what you're doing but he never stops.

This helps tremendously! We'll definitely start explaining and using this technique.