Problems with Adult Son

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I have been thinking about asking my son the following questions and seeing if it makes him think a little about his situation. What do you all think?

3 scenarios:

1. A friend calls you and wants to talk. He is engaged and has a wedding planned in 3 months. He graduated college a year ago, but has never had a full time job. He has worked for his parents part time, and still lives at home. He has been trying to find a full time job, but so far has been unsuccessful. This is starting to cause some stress and tension. What advice do you give him?
2. A friend calls you and wants to talk. She is engaged to be married in three months. She works at Starbucks for a little over $9/hour. Her fiancé graduated from college a little over a year ago, and still has not secured a full time job. He has never lived on his own, and has worked part time for his parents. She knows her income cannot support the two of them, and is worried about what is going to happen in the future, given that she wants to be a stay at home mom. What advice do you give her?
3. A friend from church calls you and wants to talk. His son, who is about your age, is engaged to be married in 3 months. He is worried because this son has never lived on his own, and has never held a full time job. He has been unsuccessful so far in his job search. He decided not to go to seminary after college, and since then has seemed to be lost about what to do with his life. He is suffering from anxiety and depression, and may have high-functioning autism as well. What advice would you give him?

Hm. If it were me in that situation, I would view any of the three as manipulative. He knows you want him to think about his future, and I think he will misinterpret the objective as a "trick" rather than a way to be objective. Plus, in my experience with my son, he'll simply apply his current thinking to outside scenarios.

You may be better off simply sitting down and going over his plan by writing out what he thinks might happen step-by-step, in the same way you hope to with the scenarios - just start off by giving a time frame (remember the "ordinary people" speech in the Cosby Show?) Start with next week, then next month. Stop when he gets frustrated and tell him you'd like to pick up there when he's had time to think about it. Present evidence when his time frame is off - it will need to be good, empirical evidence from an outside source that shows the action steps and how they relate to employment/living independently.

Part of it is that he's thinking "someone will give me a job" without thinking through the steps to get one - magical thinking is really about skipping steps, and I think that is your main concern, right?

A short google turned this up - http://www.seriousjobseeker.com/2007/03 ... tents.html that may give him an idea of the magnitude of this task. (A simplified version may be a better place to start, see here: https://career.ecs.csus.edu/articles/article91.html )

Thank you. I don't want to sound manipulative. Just trying to get him to think of his situation from other points of view. You are probably right though. Thanks for the links, will check them out.

Before I could ask him any questions or talk to him about anything he came to us and said he wants to apply to seminary again, for next fall. I don't know that the ministry is the right career for him, but that is his choice at this point. However, right now he is still 100% dependent on us for living. He has no job, and very little savings. I don't know how he is going to get married in January without a job and actually pay for graduate school without a job. He will have to incur enormous debt. I did ask him to tell us his plans on living and paying for things, and maybe think about postponing the wedding until he has things settled and is able to be independent of us. He left the house and hasn't come back.

We shall see. I hope so. Thank you all again.

I agree, I think this is a step forward. I think, also, his leaving the house is possibly a sign that he is starting to understand the magnitude of the problem and is frustrated.

May I suggest that going forward, now that you have his attention, you try looking at this as a team exercise? My son responds better when he feels like we are working together towards the same goal. I don't think your goals are really at odds with each other - you want him to be independent, he wants independence.

You may have better results by starting your next conversation with something like "OK, I see that you really want to get married, and that you really want to be independent and live on your own. I think if we all work together, we can come up with a plan that can get you there - then start talking about the steps he's missing that he needs to take (my other interpretation of his request and then him leaving the house is that he isn't able to figure out the next step - school is what he knows, so he's gone with that. Just my guess.)

I would simply let the marriage thing go, just stick to your guns that they are not going to live with or be financially supported by you, and make that clear by helping him figure out where they're going to live, how they're going to pay for rent, what kind of money they'll need beyond the obvious (I remember, my real shock was how much food wound up costing, and then utilities.)

We got the official diagnosis on Friday. "ASD Level 1" After reading the report and all the suggestions on different therapies, etc, my son told us he wanted to go to counseling (someone who specializes in Aspergers) and also take his fiancé so they could discuss the upcoming marriage and see if the counselor thought they needed to wait. I am very thankful and relieved that he is willing to get help and take advice/listen to professional third parties. The psychologist told him sometimes "aspies" can get 'stuck' in a mindset, idea, plan, etc and he may need to step back and be willing and open to new ideas. This obviously resonated with him. Thank you again everyone.

That is very good news. It sounds like he really wants to address learning about himself and seeing where he is and what he wants to do.

It may be that some kind of purpose or goal was what he was looking for and the marriage idea filled that gap.

Now that he has something to to peruse that will help him, I could see where the marriage would not be as urgent, now.

Yay! I think this is a very good sign. Please keep us posted and let us know how things go from here!

Quick update. Since we got the "official" diagnosis, and DS started therapy, things have changed drastically.

With help from his therapist, he decided it was a good idea to postpone the marriage. This will give him time to focus on therapy, and on finding a good career fit. He did get a job at Starbucks, but quit after 2 days, saying it was too much for him. He is going to look into getting some computer programming training.

I am very thankful we have been able to get him some help. He has thanked us for being supportive and willing to get him the help he needs.

Thank you all so much for the support. Reading this forum has been so helpful to me.

So very, very glad to hear - for both of you!

Having been a Starbucks employee and being somewhere on the spectrum, tell your son not to give up on work - it's a spectacularly chaotic environment and not really suited to someone on the spectrum who has more methodical traits (probably a good fit for people with ADHD) Legitimately, don't let him be hard on himself about it - it isn't for everyone.

Can he proofread? Good, methodical work that involves rule-following and actually pays pretty well. He might try a temp agency, where, although he might not like being a receptionist, he might find work doing other things like data entry - there's a whole industry in store inventorying where you zap things with scanners. If he's not a methodical type (I'm not) maybe dog walking or other pet care? Just some ideas he may not have thought of.

Well what kind of job do you think he could do? I mean it seems like you are kind of quick to jump on that he has no real job skills, and isn't qualified for any jobs he's applying for...which might in turn discourage him from pursuing work. Also not all jobs require resumes a lot just have you apply online and answer questions...in fact giving a resume to say an entry level job might make him seem over-qualified. So it might be good for him to just learn how to fill out online applications effectively.

He could also try to get into some kind of technical/trade school and get a certificate in some specific line of work...sometimes that route makes it easier to find a job than college, and there might even be loans/financial assistance for certificate programs though I am not sure.

Or depending on how severe the AS is he could potentially qualify for SSI disability, its not the best income but it does include medicaid and he could probably get EBT...but he has to qualify as disabled. And then it wouldn't be impossible for him to work later down the road. As for housing even with just SSI income perhaps with his income and her income combined they could at least afford an apartment together...I can understand not wanting them to get married and then depend on you to provide them housing.

We have discussed many types of jobs he can do - he has also applied for a tutoring job as he is very good actually at teaching people one on one.

We have discussed job training through the workforce commission here. His cousin was able to get a grant to get some IT certifications and courses, and he is going to look into how to do that.

He has applied at temp agencies. He has applied at various office jobs. The job market is very tight here right now due to oil layoffs and it is difficult to get a job. He applied at over 40 jobs (lots of admin/clerical and then started applying retail since he hadn't found a job), and then landed the Starbucks job. That was his first job offer.

I knew he wasn't suited for retail work - he tends be slow, methodical, and not good with small talk and constant people interaction. I did not discourage him, however. I only acknowledged that fact after he quit and said it was overwhelming and he couldn't handle it.

In the meantime he can work part time for our small business my husband and I own. I would love for him to be able to work full time for us but we don't have that much work available.

We are also looking into some other certifications or courses through the community college here as well.