16 yo without a clue

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Ellen - I know you're not purposefully being horrid to your son, and I'm sure your methods of discipline would work with a non-autistic child, but you're making several fundamental mistakes there.

1) You assume your son understands the system of punishment and rewards. There is the very real possibility he doesn't. In that case, he won't instinctively see any connection between his behavior and your taking away his fantasy books. He might nod to your explanation, but he won't really understand it. I remember clearly what it was like as a child when I was punished. I got upset, I got angry, but I did NOT change my behavior. It simply didn't work.

2) You assume his favorite activities (reading fantasy books and playing RPGs) are worthless to society. Quite some assumption to make (and quite disrespectful). After all, the people who WRITE books most likely spent a lot of their time READING books, otherwise they wouldn't be interested in the topic. And some of the best fantasy books are actually based on RPG experiences. By the way, online RPGs taught me a lot about human behavior and social situations (such as: how is one supposed to react to the actions of others?), so they aren't useless at all. Most likely they're your son's preferred means of communication, so what you're taking away isn't just "some game" but also his social contacts. His friends. That can't be what you intended.
I only became as social as I am today because I was allowed to talk to people online as much as I wanted to. My parents actually encouraged it because it was the only social interaction I was interested in for some time. It wasn't a "retreat" at all. In fact, I met some of the people who now are my best friends in real life online first. Don't underestimate the value of the internet for an autist's wellbeing!

3) You don't realize that taking away a special interest is basically taking away his only source of happiness. I'm sure there are a lot of very interesting things around, such as wildlife - only your son obviously isn't interested in it at all. And he won't develop an interest either, even if he's forced to spend time outside. It's like... someone put you in a room with... a lot of books about some topic you're absolutely not interested in. And nothing that interests you at all. And when you're bored almost to death and you complain, someone tells you, why, there's a lot of interesting stuff you could busy yourself with! That's just cynic. And also a display of an issue with empathy on your part. Maybe you should get checked for an ASD yourself. If you can't see that what you see as a harmless way of broadening your son's horizon and getting him out of his "shell" could (could - I don't claim to know your son. But you should consider the possibility.) in fact be an extremely painful and traumatizing experience for him, there's something wrong with YOU.

4) You blame your own shortcomings on your son and talk like it's all his fault. You said yourself it scares YOU when he retreats. For him, it's probably not a problem at all but a relief. In fact, he might function better if he's just left alone. Remember, interacting with others is very difficult and stressful, takes a conscious effort and can NOT be upheld over any length of time. (After all, you couldn't do anything that's very difficult for you over any length of time, right?) And THAT WON'T CHANGE, no matter what you do. What you're doing is basically punishing your son for being autistic.
The fear of him "going in and just not coming back out" is irrational. That's not what it's like. Retreat is necessary to collect new strength for the challenges of the world outside. (I need several hours a day in an environment free of noise or social situations. The required amount of time is difficult from person to person, of course. This can't be changed.) If he doesn't get enough time for himself, he'll be under constant stress, which can't be healthy. Also, constant stress won't exactly help him to cope better with life, so drawing him out is actually contraproductive to your (no doubt good) intentions.
Also, you admitted yourself you can't deal with aggression well. So I see a problem here - you're putting your son on medication for being aggressive, when in fact his aggression might be a) perfectly normal for a young man his age and b) a result of being constantly overwhelmed by the pressure to interact socially.
I understand that as a mother you're frustrated you can't connect with your son and you would like to get visible signs of affection. You probably won't. Deal with it. Don't vent your frustration and fear on him, else you'll just destroy whatever remotely healthy relationship you have with him. He probably loves you. However, you have to keep in mind that with many autistic people the "automatic" bond between parents and child is not there. My parents EARNED my respect and my love. If there had been severe problems, I would have evaluated them exactly as I would evaluate strangers. That I like my parents is not a result of being blood-related but a result of getting along with them well. Otherwise, I just would have moved out as soon as possible and broken off any contact with them.

5) You underestimate your son. He's obviously intelligent and successful where he has set his goals. So why exactly do you think you have the legitimation to treat him like a baby? It's quite uncommon for parents to tell a 16-year-old what he's suppposed to do with his free time or even at what time he has to eat or to go to bed. My parents certainly didn't. The attitude "take a shower now and you'll get ice-cream or a book" is extremely patronizing (and positively deadly for someone's self-esteem!), and I would react very badly to someone who tried to treat me that way. Might knock out a couple of their teeth or bite them. In fact, I admire your son's self-restraint that he hasn't done so by now. I probably would. And usually I'm not a particularly aggressive person.

I'm sorry if this comes across as unfriendly, it's just that speaking from my experience you aren't handling the situation particularly well. I respect you for asking for advice and help, though. I'm sure you love your son and wish the best for him.

Let's go through it step-by-step. You took away your son's fantasy books, access to a computer, and TV time; basically, everything that brings your son joy. To get it all back, your son had to work for it. Sounds like a big power trip to me. You know that you'll eventually give your son his entertainment back, but does your son know it? He might be thinking that you took it away unilaterally, and he'll never get it back. He might not be seeing the connection between his behavior and your actions. Instead, I wouldn't be surprised if he thought you took away his entertainment for the enjoyment of it.


No offense, but this sounds like crocodile tears to me. [content edited by DW_a_mom] If punishing your son made you cry, why did you do it? Does knowing how much impact it had on your son make you decide to go through with it? You made the bed; I hope it's comfortable enough to lie in.

[joke deleted by DW_a_mom as inappropriate for this conversation]

Hello, again

I don’t feel as though this post has given you the information that you are looking to receive, so I will try to flush it out a bit more and see if it helps you. The purpose of the Parent's Discussion board is to help parents who are having problems with their autistic children. This is a good goal to have. Several members here, including myself, have told you what is unlikely to work. Several other members related similar personal experiences to try and explain things from your son's perspective. Now while this is indeed useful information to consider, it is not a solution to your current problem. What you need isn’t a list of grievances, but a strategy to use which will bring about the results you seek. As such, I will attempt to provide you with that.

Before I begin, I should first tell you what my assumptions are and my understanding of the situation. For if I have assumed wrong, then my advice will not help you. As such, it is best if I explain my understanding so you can either correct my false assumptions, or see where I am going wrong, and thus figure out why I am suggesting as I do. My first assumption is that your history goes something like this:

At a young age you noticed that your son was unusual. He didn’t play well with others, he didn’t talk much, etc. He was very intelligent, and learned quickly, so you weren't concerned about his ability to learn. But he also seemed fairly withdrawn, and wasn't able to cope with the normal things in life like dealing with school. As such, you decided to do some research, and figure out why your son was struggling. At age 13, you somehow found out about asperger's syndrome and went 'aha! that explains it'. It was a bit of a relief to finally know why your son was so strange, but at the same time the picture painted by the books you read and 'experts' you talked to was a bit bleak. They talked about how autistic people often retreat into their own worlds because they cannot handle life effectively. They told you that the employment rate for people with Asperger's syndrome was pretty low. They basically gave a list of all the problems associated with the condition. This of course made you uneasy, you didn’t want your son to become another statistic, you wanted him to do well in life. And so you decided to try to prevent your son from ending up poorly whatever it took.

About this time, your son was showing signs of increased anxiety, and having a great deal of difficulty coping with the public school setting. Concerned that the public school was not good for him, you explored alternatives, and decided to home school him. To your relief you found that your son did much better once he got out of school. He became less anxious, started coming out more, and overall being less stressed. This was going well for a while as you saw that your son was making some noticeable improvements.

But, a few months ago, you started to have a few problems. You noticed that your son was becoming a bit more moody, and wasn't talking as much with you. You noticed that your son was struggling more with his aggression, and he was also spending more and more time alone. At the same time, problems you had hoped would go away with age hadn't. When your son was 13 and just started home schooling, you weren't very concerned with his desire to stay up till 3 am reading books. You thought that was normal immature behavior consistent with a 13 year old. But now that he has graduated high school, and still wants to do the 'immature' behaviors, you are becoming concerned. You thought he would grow out of this by now, but he hasn't. To further compound the issue, your son is becoming less and less influenced by you and thinking more independently (aka, being a teenager).

This worried you because you thought that your son was on a downward spiral, regressing into himself and becoming just another sad ending like was written about in the books. So you tried to get some ideas on how to keep your son from ending up poorly. You talked with experts, you talked with other parents, you tried medication, you tried everything you could think of. And yet, your son still wasn't acting the way you thought he should. You tried the 'friendly reminder' strategy, and noticed that your son really didnt listen. So you tried a bit more of the 'nagging reminder' strategy to get your son to do what you wanted. He straight up asked why in the world he should do what you want him to do. Why should he shower every day, why shouldn't he play games all day, etc? You answered him as best you could with platitudes like 'everybody needs to pull their own weight'. These statements didn't make any sense to him and he didn't think they were very good explanations for your requests.

You could see that your nice soft attempts to correct what you assumed to be problematic behavior was not working well. You were afraid that if you did nothing, your son would regress further and it would just end up poorly. So, you did what you thought was the only remaining alternative. You abandoned the soft approach and started playing hardball. You figured that it was better to cause your son distress now then have him wind up being another sad ending in the future. So, you took away all his books, TV, computer, everything, and made him miserable until he complied. Unfortunately, you did not get the desired results. Instead of him shaping up and following your lead he became more depressed, and the problems only got worse. Which is when you decided to come post on this message board looking for a solution.

The second assumption that I am making is that your son thinks like I do. Now of course I have no way of knowing this since I have never even met your son. But based upon the way you have described him so far, he sounds very much like me. As such, the advice I give will be what would work for me if I were in your son's situation. It is not guaranteed to work with your son, but I think it a safe bet to assume he thinks more like me then he thinks like you.

My third assumption is that your attempts to deal with your son are done with the intent of helping him mature, not for the purpose of self gain. I.E. you aren’t doing this because you don’t like the way he addresses you and want to put him in his place. You aren’t making him suffer because you enjoy the feeling of power it gives you. Basically I am assuming (and hoping) that you aren’t doing this for your selfish purposes.

Now that assumptions are done and explained, we next need to address the problems which are causing the current situation:

I believe that a good bit of the problem here stems from the fact that you are confusing withdrawing with regressing, and assuming that they are synonymous. These are very different things.

Withdrawing is a way to limit your exposure to the world. The world is not a great place to be in, it can be vary exhausting and difficult. Now of course while there is problems, there is also benefits to interacting with the world. For example, if you want to make money, or buy stuff from the store, or hang out with friends, you need to interact with the world. So then, how much time will your son spend out in 'the real world' vs. 'his own world'. Well, it is simply a matter of cost vs. benefit.

If your son is relatively stress free, then the world seems like a less threatening place, and it is easier for him to go out. Likewise, if your son is comfortable with what he is doing, then he will find it easier. Conversely, if he is stressed out, he will find it harder to deal with the world. If he is being asked to do something new, and he is confused about what is going on, he will become more stressed, and less able to cope with the world. Likewise, the environment plays a role in how much stress he feels. If things are nice, calm, and structured properly, he will be more at ease. If things are loud, chaotic, and disorganized with unclear expectations then he won’t be able to handle as much. As for the benefit, well thats just a simple matter of how much your son wants something. If you tell him 'lets go to the store and make small talk with random people' then that’s not rewarding or interesting at all to your son. If you tell him 'lets go to the store and buy you some more books' then he is views that as more rewarding.

Perhaps a numerical example will help explain this. Consider it like a scale. On one side you have his stress level. On the other side you have his desire to go out and do something. Now if he is relatively unstressed then that’s like a 1. If he wants to do something like hang out with a friend, that’s a 5. Since 5 > 1, he will go out and do it. But if he is feeling uneasy about a situation, and thinks it won’t end well, then that’s like putting his stress at a 6. Since 5 < 6, he will decide to stay in his room. Keep in mind that just being out in public slowly raises your stress levels, so while you may start at 1, it will climb over time until eventually, your stress outweighs your desire to be out, and you go back inside. Now exactly how fast this stress climbs depends on the situation.

It is important you realize that the higher his stress level is, the more quickly and easily it rises. For example, if he is calm and relaxed and something happens like he accidentally drops his drink then he is likely to just laugh it off. It might raise his stress from a 0.4 to a 0.5, hardly worth noticing. But if your son is stressed out, then simple things like dropping his drink might raise his stress level from a 7 to a 9. Simply put, the more agitated you are, the easier it is to set you off. As such, doing things which raise his stress level (such as taking away all his possessions) automatically predisposes him to be more stressed, and thus more easily set off, more defiant, and less willing in going out and interact with 'the real world'.

So, say you want him to come out and spend more time with others, what should you do? Well, first off, try finding ways to reduce his stress. This includes letting him have his alone time to unwind and relax without interruption. Make sure that he isn't over his head with classes. Stop nagging him about unimportant things like getting to bed at a certain time. If he had classes at 8 am, then I could see the request for a midnight bedtime, but I doubt he has anything in the morning that he needs to be up for. Basically, stop trying to run his life for him. You may have the best of intentions, but the more you try to interfere and tell him what to do, the more stress you add, and the less he wants to interact with the world. Furthermore, please recognize that there is a limit to his social interaction. Even if he starts at a low stress level, it will slowly rise, and at a certain point, he will no longer want to socialize, please do respect that.

The second thing you could do to motivate him to come out more is to find more things which interest him. For example, are there any book clubs in his area that he would like to go to? How about a DnD game night, that might convince him to go out. Maybe you could find out a bit about what he is interested in and talk with him about it. Read a book that he suggests, and perhaps discuss your opinions of it.

So to summarize: A withdraw is just a way to limit the amount of stress that you are under. Being around people raises stress, being alone lowers stress. Since you don’t want your stress to get too high, you need to spend enough of your time alone in order to counteract the stress you accumulated by being out in public. Withdrawing is a healthy, and intelligent way to manage your stress, and is a fundamental requirement for being able to survive in this world.

Regressing on the other hand is what happened in the link I sent to you. The one with the 17 year old who has pretty much cut all contact with the world. Now why does that happen? Well, that situation is a case of stress and anxiety getting so high that it has difficulty coming back down. As I said earlier, the more stressed you are, the more easily your stress increases. As such, if you have a stress level of 3, and some random problem occurs, your stress may go to 6. But, spending an hour alone reading books gets this back down to a 3. Now consider what happens if your stress level is 34 and a random problem occurs. Your stress jumps from 34 to 68, and then spending an hour alone only gets it down to 65. Now of course stress is hard to relate directly to numbers, but I think you get the idea that the more stress you add into the equation, the more likely it is to reach a critical level where the autistic person just says, 'skip this, it's not worth it anymore'.

There are many people on this board who have at one point just withdrew from society and spent years inside avoiding people. Ask any one of them why they did this, and the answer you will get is that people treated them like crap, and they just shut down and withdrew in self defense. You wont find anybody who says 'O, I just decided to break contact with the world for several years because I was surrounded by kind helpful people who gave me space'.

So if your objective here is to prevent your son from regressing then what you need to do is let him be alone for however long he feels in needed, and try to help him deal with stress in an effective manner. Let him withdraw and spend some time in his own world. This is what allows him to recover from the events of the day and to prepare for tomorrow. Withdrawing is how you prevent regressing. If you want him to regress then just keep on the strong arm tactics, and prevent him from having any time alone to read his books. That is a sure fire way to make him regress. If you want him to deal with the world in an effective manner, then let him withdraw when he needs to. If you feel that he is spending too much time alone, then that is a sign he is under too much stress. The solution in that situation is not to force him to come out as that only increases the stress. The solution is to either find ways to reduce the stress, or perhaps change your expectations of how much you think he should interact with the real world. I can tell you that at your son's age I spent about 80% of my free time alone. If you’re expecting him to only spend 2 hours per day by himself then that is a very unrealistic expectation.

Now that I have explained the first problem at work here, it is time to get into the second problem:
You seem to be treating your son more like a problem to solve rather than a person. Now of course you can, and probably will say 'I don’t treat my child like an object, I love him'. And that is a good thing, which I am sure that you believe. But actions speak louder than words. You are basically looking at him like a puzzle, and experimenting with different inputs to see which one will illicit the desired results. I.E. lets try meds and see if that works. No, that didn’t work. Lets try taking away his books and see if that works, etc.

The problem with this of course is that your son knows what you’re doing. He knows that your attempting to 'fix' him the same way you would break in a horse. It is humiliating and dehumanizing at best. As has been said previously, you are treating a mature, intelligent teenager like he is a bratty toddler. It isn’t surprising that he is resenting your actions. Keep in mind that in the past, children were expected to be mature and treated like adults at a much younger age. That’s why bar mitzvahs occur at age 13. You’re not doing yourself any favors by running his life at this late of an age.

I think that covers the main 2 problems here. There may be other problems with the situation, but I believe that these 2 are the source of most of the problems.

Now then, all this talk of problems has gotten gloomy. As I said in the beginning, this post is made with the intention of helping you figure out an appropriate strategy to fix this situation. So that is what I am going to talk about next, the way out.

You need to sit down with you, your husband, and your son, and have a mature adult discussion about things. Rather than treating him like a child who has no say in the matter, treat him as you would a fellow co-worker. It may be wise to also invite a mediator who can help keep things from degrading into a blame fest. If you lived near Waco, Texas I would volunteer, but I really have no idea where you hail from. Your first son may be able to help out in this way. I don’t know how things are in your family. Perhaps you could try contacting your local autism society (if you have one) and see if you can find a HFA adult to help you out for an evening, he may be able to help explains things from your son’s perspective. If you are a religious family, try finding a pastor who is willing to help out for a few hours. Just make sure that if you get a mediator he knows a good bit about autism, and believes in mutual respect and coming to a fair solution. Nothing much is going to be accomplished if you and the mediator gang up and tell your son to stop screwing around.

Begin the discussion with an apology to your son. Tell your son that you’re sorry you treated him like an animal that needs to be broken. Let him know that while you don’t understand everything about him, you are willing to accept the fact that he has difficulties, and you want to help him. Let him know that you are willing to accept that he is an adult, and while he may not be ready to live by himself, you will treat him with respect as you would any other adult. Let him know that you are just as unhappy with the current situation as he is. You are merely trying to make sure that he can handle life effectively, and you made a mistake. Tell him that you regret your error, and he can have all his stuff back after you finish your discussion. Next tell your son that you want to work out a mutually agreeable arrangement that BOTH of you can approve.

Next, work out a list of goals to shoot for. These are not immediate requirements, merely something to work towards co-operatively. For example:
1. Your son needs to learn the basics of self care necessary for independent living. This includes things like budgeting, shopping for his own food, doing his own laundry, etc.
2. Your son needs to get an education so that he can have a decent job that pays enough for him to support himself.
3. Your son should be able to handle his emotions effectively enough for him to deal with society at large. This doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t get angry, because that is a normal part of life. It simply means that he should find effective release valves that allow him to handle his emotions in an effective and safe way.
4. Everybody in the family should work towards being more respectful, and understanding of the other person’s difficulties. They should also apologize and seek reconciliation when they have hurt the other person. Nothing is accomplished when you have a power struggle and both of you wind up feeling hurt.
5. Everybody in the family should listen to the other person when they are trying to express something important to them, or give advice. Listen to what your son has to say without interrupting him. And likewise if you feel that you have advice that will help your son, he should listen to you. You don’t have to automatically agree with the person who is talking, but you should respect them enough to hear them out and consider what they have to say from their perspective.
6. Everybody should work together in order to get the necessary chores of life done. This means that you split up the house chores in an agreeable manner so everybody helps everybody else.
You can add other goals to the list as you see fit. But keep in mind that these should be mutually agreeable goals, not a list that you write and coerce him into approving.

Next, once you have a list of clear goals, you can flush it out with some more details. I.E. how exactly do you split up the chores? You might agree that your son does the dishes and takes out garbage. You handle the laundry. Your husband mows the lawn. The next week you can rotate tasks so that your son does the laundry, your husband does the dishes, and you mow the lawn. Or you might agree to something else. I don’t know exactly what solution you will come to, but it will have to be something which you can ALL agree upon. Keep in mind that compromise means that you don’t get to tell your son whatever you want him to do, he should agree to this. Other things you should work out in more detail are exactly what happens when chores don’t get done. If you have to do the laundry because your son/husband forgot, then does he get to do your chores next week in addition to his? This is the sort of thing you need to work out ahead of time.

Also, if you set down certain goals like learning financial independence, figure out ways you can accomplish this in more detail. For example, there is a class my church offers called ‘financial peace university’ which basically talks all about how to budget effectively and figure out what you can afford, and how to take limited funds and get the most out of them. If you are not religious, then see if they have the equivalent course someplace else. I know they make lots of books and training software. Most notably is the ‘Whatever for dummies’ series. Basically, once you set a mutually agreeable goal, flesh it out with ideas on how to accomplish it in a mutually agreeable way.

This agreement you will come to with your son is basically like a peace treaty. It stipulates the terms of the cease fire. Your son doesn’t want you running his life, and you don’t want him to end up poorly. These 2 are not mutually exclusive objectives, and you shouldn’t consider them as such. Please do realize that even the best written peace treaty doesn’t cover all situations, and as such you make come across something where your previous agreement doesn’t help. You may also come across situations where you and your son interpret the agreement differently. In these cases the solution is not to bicker with each other over which interpretation is correct, but to respectfully, and patiently talk things over.

I’m not saying that by following this advice your life will magically become wonderful and all your problems will be solved. But I do know that talking things out with mutual respect is a better way to handle things then force.

And of course I feel I should re-iterate, tell your son about this site and let him come on here to talk with other people. The community that this site provides is very helpful for somebody who has spent their entire lives being different. He may be able to find out more about himself and get to know other people like him who can support him when he needs it.

Aspie 1, Eller and Cockney Rebel:

Thank you for your input.

Cockney Rebel: Joshua would never be a punker or a hippie (that is not his temperment), but if he did, that would be okay with me. Anything that Joshua decides to be is fine with me. I just want him to have a choice before he gives it up.

Eller: Thank you for being so protective of Joshua. I did indeed made the "punishment" and "rewards" very clear to Joshua and he is doing just fine. In fact, after he finally decided to comply with our household rules, he has been very happy and harmony has been restored.

Aspie 1: I am sorry for whatever happened to you. Please know that I have known since my children were babies that I had an extreme amount of power and I have never used that power to their detriment. That is simply not my way.

I give up. Please feel free to vent your anger towards your parents on this post, but I will no longer be looking at it. In general, everyone has jumped to conclusions about my parenting based on their own parenting - which I guess is probably the only point of view you have . However, it is not fair to jump on me because you didn't get good boundaries by your own parents!

I am an excellent parent who wanted to learn how the minds of people with Asperger's worked so that I could understand my son better. What else would an excellent parent do? Huh? Did any of your parent's even care about what you thought and asked other's with Asperger's how their mind worked so that your parent could understand you better?

What I have learned is that many of your own parents where terrible to you and did not take "you" and your eccentricities in the NT world into account. I am an eccentric woman who also does not fit into society. I have worked hard to make sure that my children were given everything they needed, including the words "yes" and "no", but mostly just mirroring back to them the wonder that was them.

If you think for one minute that I decided to take Joshua's books, computer and TV away on a whim and power trip, then you have proven to me that you have no depth whatsoever. And if you think that my fear of aggression is going to stop me from getting my semi-adult sons to begin to look outside themselves, then apparently your scope of the world is extremely limited.

It is my job as a mother to make sure that my children were given all the opportunities to be wholly them without judgment. I do not "own" them, nor are they a reflection of me. They are a product of the power that created life - if you want to - you can call it God, and I only the caretaker to help their souls grow into who they are.

I saw that Joshua was not growing but becoming stagnant. Although I will never possess the power to stop him from doing anything he pleases, I do have the responsibility to make sure that he has the opportunity to look in a different direction. He is just about ready to leave home and be on his own. He is who he is, and that was set many, many years ago - and probably before I even birthed him.

You are not people who are looking to help others but to beat up on someone who wanted help from other people with Asperger's to be better able to connect with her son. Only a few of you offered me that, and most of you were horrified that I deigned to "care" enough about my son to perhaps show him something different - if only for a glimpse that there might be something else out there.

With this I conclude my visit to wrongplanet.net. I am extremely disappointed in your attacks and unwillingness to help. I will not be back.

Ellen

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From Ellen's husband, to the far too-tightly-wound attack dogs who would rather leap to conclusions rather than engage in mature, civilized dialogue:

I think you should be ashamed of yourselves for jumping all over my wife -- a caring. sensitive woman who was only seeking help for our son. Rest assured that we have tried EVERYTHING over the years and that even in this last-ditch measure we treat our son with as much dignity and respect as possible. I sincerely hope that you don't treat the other people in your lives by engaging in knee-jerk attacks. If you do, I can assure you that you will soon have NO ONE in your lives and will live out your days as bitter, isolated outcasts.

And if you think that you can somehow make it in life without a job, showing up late to a job you do have, not bathing, playing computer games for days on end, or not eating your first meal until 3 pm, I can only say -- "Good luck with that!" For better or worse you are part of the greater society, and that society sets its own rules without regard to your wishes or mine. Trust me on this -- society will not long tolerate such behavior, and you will find yourselves living in the gutter. For your sakes, I wish that you will learn better behaviors soon enough to avoid such a fate.

Hoping that you can somehow succeed in life,

Walt

Ellen: Maybe you're still reading this, maybe not. It isn't particularly important either. I don't think anyone was trying to attack you personally, though. It's the Aspie style of helping, pointing out the mistakes. I'm sad you chose to see that as aggression. It most likely wasn't. Anyway, at least that tells you something about how the minds of people with AS work.
Are you sure your son is "happy" with your household rules, though? Or does he merely comply to get his books back? In the latter case it means that as soon as you can't threaten him with anything anymore, he will stop complying, and you should be aware of that.
I'm sure you didn't make your decision on a "power trip". It might look that way to your son, though, and that's what was pointed out - your son views the world very differently from you.
You're thinking "I want my son to come out of his shell and view all the different opportunities the world has to offer. If necessary, by force, since I want him to be successful in life, which isn't likely to happen if he holes up in his room and never takes a shower.". I don't doubt your intention is only the best. Only your son might be thinking "Oh no, she's taking away everything I love, just so I do some stupid stuff I don't want to do and I don't see the point of". I think that's the underlying problem here.
By the way, my parents were not horrible to me at all. They're the best parents one could wish for. They always encouraged my interests even when those were bordering on obsessive, and always tried to understand me. Houshold rules in the sense of "eat at that time and go to bed at that time" had to be chucked out of the window, though. If something interfered with my natural sleeping pattern (that's not quite average) or interfered with my withdrawal periods, I got cranky, even as a very small child. They gave it up trying to make me sleep when I wasn't tired or make me socialize when I wanted to be left alone, as long as I achieved my bigger goals. Even without "household rules", I managed to graduate school with very good grades and was accepted into university, so maybe you overemphasize the value of some of these rules.

Ellen's husband: Since you're protective of your wife, which is a good thing to be, I'll just ignore the personal attacks to everyone in this thread.
I assure you that neither am I a social outcast nor do I have issues with personal hygiene nor am I likely to end up in the gutter. All I was saying is that forcing your son to take a shower isn't going to work unless he understands why exactly that shower is important. A proper explanation (one your son understands! The ones he got were apparently not satisfactory for him.) is going to help more than a system of punishment and rewards - that implies your son will stop regularly bathing as soon as the pressure stops, meaning as soon as he's out of your home. If you want him to learn to take care of himself permanently, you're going about it the wrong way.
By the way, my first meal is usually at something like 2 pm. I'm not hungry in the morning, and it doesn't interfere with my ability to go to university. Neither did playing computer games. I quit by now, but I did play them. Sometimes the night through. And since they actually improved my socializing, that was just something my parents had to arrange themselves with. (I followed their perfectly reasonable request to turn down the speakers after midnight, of course.)

Ellen,

If you are still reading this...I do not doubt that you are an excellent parent. I think that the care you have for your son has shown in every post. But you came on here to "learn how the minds of people with Asperger's worked so that [you] could understand [your] son better" and you succeeded. Please don't let your offence at the blunt, critical nature of some of the advice given cause you to disregard the message therein. The advice at WP isn't always easy to take, but you will learn exactly what you set out to, an Aspie perspective on your questions re: your son. You don't have to like that perspective, but let it at least be food for thought.

And to Ellen's husband,

Being protective of your wife is good. I know my husband is, and I really love and appreciate his support. But to slam all the people who have participated in this thread, most of whom are every bit as sensitive and caring as your own wife, and also seeking help and understanding in their own way seems very distasteful to me. WP isn't the place for everyone. It requires a "thick skin" and a solid understanding of what being on the autism spectrum means. You have to understand that there are some very angry, hurt adults, who respond to questions from parents of AS kids from the point of view of their own troubled childhoods. Choosing to view their input as personal attacks seems counter productive to me.

Best of luck to you both with your son. And again, although some of the responses on this thread have clearly hurt your feelings, please don't let that taint the excellent advice given as well.

Really, if you want help, read Eller's posts. That is if you are still reading. Aspies are blunt, we can come off as incredibly critical, and well alot of NT see that as an attack. Eller's post is probably the best diagram for any parent with Asperger's kid or any kid on the higher functioning part of the spectrum out there.


My advice...is just to read Eller's posts. As much as you think you are doing things right, you really are doing quite a bit wrong, and I am not necessarily shocked with the aggression either.

Last edited by starygrrl on 31 May 2009, 2:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Really I don't think we need to generalise to notice the defensiveness. I thought people were actually being helpful, less critical than before even.

My advice was to break it down and try one thing at a time, and consider the relevance of each requirement.

I don't think we are too critical we might not sugar coat it, but if you want sugar coating then there is no point asking.

While some of the reactions seemed too knee-jerk and aggressive for your taste, I don't blame people for reacting the way they did; I know 'cause I felt pretty strongly too. But let's briefly analyze the reason for such reactions. A lot of aspies have objects they're very strongly attached to; it could be anything from a small but priceless antique to a bottlecap with a logo on it. In your son's case, it was his fantasy books. You came to an Asperger's support site, and admitted that you took away the books he was attached to. Since many aspies have had a prized possession taken from them, of course they reacted negatively, despite your "best" intentions. Consider this perspective: if you came to a bipolar support site, and admitted that you punished someone for having a mood swing, how do you think the people on there would react? I don't agree with your or your husband's accusations. We on this site simply defended your son; it was an act of rooting for the underdog, because aspies usually are the underdog, and we feel... what's that word again?... empathy toward them.

As for what my parents did to me, it was taking away my TV watching privileges for two weeks when I got a C on my report card. (Purely on a side note, why is TV a free choice for adults, but an earned privilege for kids?) No need to feel sorry for me, but I appreciate the thought. And I hope I wasn't too offensive with my advice.

Let me ask you something about the books: did your son buy them with his own money, or did you buy them for him? If it's the former, what you did was robbery, pure and simple; your son is the rightful owner, and you have no right to take them away. If it's the latter, then it's a more flexible situation, since you paying for the books gives you an implicit right to control them, which includes prohibiting your son's access to them. In this case, what you did might be "horrible", but still within ethical boundaries, because then the books are your property, and allowing your son to read them would like be analogous to letting him watch TV. If the books were a birthday or Christmas present, it's the same as your son buying them, because a gift implies a transfer of ownership. (Note: I'm not a lawyer.)

In the end, sorry to hear you got attacked like this, but it was kind of expected with the way you admitted taking away something that was important to your son. We saw the underdog, and rooted for him. It seems like you were surprised by how many people defended your son instead of you. Did you expect something else? Please explain.

Ellen and Walt,

The first thing I've noticed is that you didn't address Tracker's post and, thus, I am concerned you may not have read it. I have found during my years here that he provides excellent, excellent insight into the way things may be seen from the child's perspective, and I truly encourage you to take what he has written to heart and give it serious consideration.

Second, I apologize for not coming in sooner to soften some of the conversation. I am a mod on this forum, and an NT parent myself, but I've been wrapped up in a major fundraising event at the school (even pulling a few all-nighters) so my mod duties fell by the wayside. Aspie 1 posted some things that should have been modded out long ago. I am sorry you had the opportunity to read that. I suspect it was the last straw. I am sorry; I can't undo that damage. Hopefully I haven't missed anything else in this thread at that level.

Yes, you will find that many AS take their frustrations from their own childhoods out on the parents that visit here. It is a mistake, when it comes to helping the children being discussed, but the grown AS find it cathartic and, well, they sincerely believe we need to hear it. These are people who haven't mastered the arts of persuasion, tact, nuance, and reading the intents of others, after all, but do know how to shout from the roof tops. I took it on as a challange when I first came here, in that it occured to me if I couldn't have a rational conversation with the AS adults here, then how on earth did I expect to have them with my own child? It's like practice for all those contentious moments that are bound to happen in our life together. And, honestly, it's been a huge help, to have learned to handle the comments from AS here and to repsond in a way they "get" more often than not. All my difficult conversations with my son are like a walk in the park in comparison.

As frustrating as some of the members here have been for me at times, I cannot discount how much help it has all been. I have been given a glimpse into how my child sees things that has made a world of difference to my parenting. When you allow yourself to take the negative words personally, you also run away from what you could learn. I believe you make a giant mistake when you do that.

If you need to, consider taking the conversation into PM with the posters like Tracker who can talk calmly AND offer practical insights. But don't choose not to come back. There are people who can help, I know that. I've seen it happen. The waters here are quite rough for an NT parent, there is no doubt, but remember who you are talking to, and how much missunderstanding they have encountered in their lives. And, well, how one of the hallmarks of AS is to get stuck on your thoughts and agenda and not be able to leave it (Aspie 1 and the parenting power trip thing, for example - he's started whole threads on it). When you get a post that isn't relevant, or has nothing positive to offer, IGNORE IT. No one here expects to be acknowledged - or even really cares if they are. Another thing that happens with AS; it has its bad sides and its good.

I hope you can find a home here and helpful conversation. I hope you will come back.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 02 Jun 2009, 4:20 pm, edited 3 times in total.

She does not have to explain and of course she expected something else. She expected, being on the parenting board, to have a rational conversation with other parents about methods that have or have not worked and why. If you don't like her method, you shouldn't attack the parent, but gently explain why the method isn't going - in your opinion - to work. Kids never like the discipline methods parents choose, disclipline isn't pleasant, so what needs to be addressed are the questions of effectiveness, not like/dislike/fairness. Most children grow up to be able to say, "I didn't like it when my parents did that but it did work and I can see now that my parents did the right thing," about at least something their parents used. That is the framework parents come from. That you hated it all and found none of it effective is a framework the average parent cannot grasp. And, honestly, it doesn't give us anything to go by. If you are going to post to parents, PLEASE give something that can HELP, instead of just saying its all wrong. Seriously, what do you suggest this mom DO, beyond reversing everything she has tried?

And, really, WHAT is your GOAL here? To keep other kids from having your experiences? Then learn some tact. Can you SEE why your joke was totally out-of-line? Not an ounce of it was instructive. It was simply, upsetting. I understand your need to vent and we try to be tolerant of it but when you vent to the point of sending parents running to the hills when what they wanted was to honestly understand their kids well, that's 20 points lost for one fraction of a point gained and the math just doesn't fly. You can and should be an asset here. Work on it.

Yes, she saw my message and sent me a PM.

Although I do find it odd that you recommend talking with me as somebody who can calmly talk about things in a productive fashion. After all, the first 2 responses that I left weren't very nice.

It has been said on this forum that many of life's issues are due to miscommunication, misunderstanding, and the subsequent emotional reactions. I believe thats a pretty good description of what has happened here. Ellen unfortunately didn't provide the full details about everything going on in her first post. Thus the miscommunication happened. Several people, including myself took it the wrong way, and thus the misunderstanding happened. And then of course emotions flared, and things were said which probably weren't the correct thing to say.

While it isnt the best way to handle things, it is unfortunately the way we humans operate. It is hard to control your base instincts and act in a productive manner, especially if you have strong emotional reactions to the events. While I think this could have been handled better by all, I have no way of going back in time and fixing things. What I can do from here is offer my apologies and encourage others to do the same.

It is human nature to make mistakes and say the wrong thing, especially so if you have difficulty being tactful. Tact is something which I am still learning myself. And while I can do it decently well in posts, I still have problems integrating it into real time interactions because it takes me a while to come up with an appropriate tactful response.

So all that to say: I think that the best course of action here would be to learn from the mistakes of this post, and try to be more gentle next time. While explaining the seriousness of the situation may be necessary to help the parent understand the problem, that doesnt give an excuse to vent. Try to provide alternative ideas, perhaps a list of other things to try, and ideas to implement, rather then just a list of grievances. It may be hard to control emotional reactions, but nothing is accomplished by scaring other people off.

sounds like a couple of parents with serious issues of their own. this control freak stuff is going to backfire really badly on them.

I finally told him that he convinced me that I am an ineffective parent and that because I love him, I want him to have effective parenting, so I am looking into a residential facility.

this is just a self righteous threat. my parents threatened me with boarding school and in hindsight it would have been better all round. unfortunately it was just another empty threat from my narcissist mother. I was a complete mismatch with my family and an embarrassment to them as well. my failure to massage my mother's ego due to asperger's was certainly a major cause of tension.

I think the best solution is the 'residential facility'.

No wire hangers, Christina!

Hello Postperson

I understand your distrust of parents, especially ones who use punitive methods in order to get desired results. Believe me when I say that I've been there. But I dont think Ellen here is a narcissist. You may want to go through and read all of her posts, including this one:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp2219247 ... t=#2219247

I do not think her choice of methods was a good one, but I do not see anything being accomplished by insulting her, and calling her self righteous.

I read that post previously. I'm not sure what you are trying to say, narcissism runs in families too, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree and 'control freakery' is a narcissist thing and that's the overriding theme here. There's obviously some damaged parents here trying to parent a teen with asperger's, I don't think it's working out well. I wonder if they are on meds too?

I still vote for the 'residential care' facility, this is a bad situation all round and they all need a break from each other. They've go no objectivity about it which is presumably why they're here and the break and the distance may allow them to see it less subjectively.

I can agree with you that some of her methods are not optimal. Perhaps not narcissistic, but misguided by a lack of useful information combined with desperation. That has been explained by many people in this thread, including myself. It also seems that the family is in a less then perfect situation, which needs to be worked on.

But I fail to see how a personal attack will help.

Scenario 1: She is a narcissist, and you have just insulted her. So she gets mad, leaves, and the situation with her son doesnt improve.

Scenario 2: She isnt a narcissist, she just didn't know what else to do in this situation, and made a mistake. You then insult her, she becomes saddened, and leaves. And once again, the situation with her son doesnt improve.

As you can see, this situation doesnt get resolved by you insulting her. Now I know it feels good to vent your frustrations, but I have to agree with DW_mom in that if you dont have anything constructive to post, then dont come on the parent's forum. Feel free to disagree with the methods used and provide alternative ideas. But dont personally insult people who are trying to get help.

An errant word slipping out while you talk may be expected, but you have to hit the post button before saying anything here. Take some time before you post to think how your words will help the situation before you hit submit. Now if you want to go to the haven and vent then be my guest, but dont take it out on parents here. When you do that you only wind up hurting the children you are trying to defend.