Are you mothers doing most of the work with your AS kids?

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May I have a little of a rant here? [and I am not father-bashing here -- just need to vent]

DS is 13, and is a great kid. He is your typical energetic 13 year old -- at home. Out at school, church, etc., it is a different thing. He is quiet and unresponsive. I know that this is to be expected. But I continue to work with him and try and improve his social skills. I guess I just don't want him to spend his whole life feeling lonely. Tonight I went to a church activity with him, and he just doesn't seem to "get" how to socialize, no matter how many classes he's had on the subject, no matter how many times I tell him to talk with his "friends", no matter how much he wants to -- he just doesn't know how. He's relatively OK at school, for which I am grateful. But church is getting harder -- kids are maturing at a much faster rate than he is, so they have little in common with him.

Which brings me to the fact that I, as his 49 year old mother, am quickly reaching the point where I can have little impact on his social abilities. He's becoming a young man, and he needs his father to help him along. His father has good social skills, he's quiet but liked by everyone around him, and he knows how to finesse the world of men and boys. I can't do that. No matter how many times I try, it's not longer cool to be seen outside playing basketball with your 49 year old mother. But with your Dad, that's a different thing. I think that my son's Dad could have such an impact on him at this point. Not miracles, mind you, but he could help him in ways that would be beneficial to the years ahead. And yet, my husband just doesn't do it. He loves this boy, but he seems to not see what he needs. I've always been the one to read all the info on Asperger's/Autism, I'm always the one to arrange for social skills classes, get-togethers with other kids, theatre classes, anything that it takes to improve the social skills. I'm tired, and I don't see the positive effect that I used to.

Wha, Wha, Wha. I know. Get over it. Do you other mothers ever feel this way?

Hi,

I was just wondering if it's not too late to send him to Scouts. He'd get a lot of socialisation opportunities there since he'd need to communicate with the pack leaders (older kids). Also, as he got older, the younger kids would come up to him and ask for help.

gbollard, thank you for your suggestion about scouts. My son currently is in scouts, so it's a great suggestion. The troop is a troop within our church, and up until recently it has been going fairly well. The older boys have been kind and inclusive with my son, and he therefore was acting more social as a result. Now, the younger boys are coming up, and I too thought that he could be helpful, etc. and that that would become a good social environment. Well, it's not. Or maybe it's just not as social as I would hope for. Maybe I am just expecting too much. It's just a hard thing watching your son wanting to enter a group, wanting to become friendlier, and just not knowing how. He's actually very social and animated at home [of course, where he's comfortable], and I think that he's OK at school, amazingly enough, but church and scouts is becoming difficult, and I don't know how to improve the situation. I'm afraid that eventually he'll not want to go to church, and church is a rather big part of our lives.

Your son is fast reaching the age where he needs to start questioning and thinking about his own beliefs. I can understand how this would be difficult for you.

This could cause him to turn his back on the church but it's not an "evil" thing. It's just growing up. He just needs to be able to confirm for himself that his religion is the one he feels most strongly about. Attempting to hold him back is more likely to make him resentful in this regard while giving him the freedom to explore (and hopefully come home and talk about it) will hopefully encourage him to decide in a manner that suits his family beliefs.

...

Essentially, I'm suggesting that he might be better off with a different scouts troop - one that isn't tied to any church and which contains a group of children with whom he has no history. This would have the effect of giving him a clean social slate to work with. If you could become a leader there, it might help too. You don't want to be intruding on your son during scouts but it would help to be able to view and offer advice on his interactions.

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Have you talked to your son about this? Asked him how he feels? Maybe he has some ideas of his own?

I've advised parents on many occasions to take their child out by themselves (one parent and one child) for a coffee and a non-condescending "adult" talk. Whether that will be effective depends on the maturity of your son and the strength of your relationship with him.

...

If all else fails, just remember that although aspies do experience loneliness, they are often better adjusted to a solitary lifestyle than NTs.

My Aspie is 7 years old and his almost-4 year old brother is undiagnosed, but probably somewhere on the spectrum. I can sympathize with feeling like you are doing the biggest part of the "work" involved with your kids.

I am the one to take both my kids to doctor appointments, therapy appointments and social group time. Birthday parties, movies, fun outings to the zoo or mall. I am the one who reads and studies to find out what I need, who visits with teachers and staff, who deals with the day-in-day-out aspects of simply having two kids, never mind having two special needs kids. I'm the one playing catch in the backyard, the one reading to my kids. The one who has to make all the decisions related to me kids' care.

That's not to say that my DH is a bad father. Like you, I don't mean to bash him. Having two sons, I think that the time DH spends with them in invaluable. I just wish he was able to give them more of it. He works a very difficult job as a pastor, dealing with the needs of 200 other people. He loves our kids with all his heart. He leans on me to take care of this part of our life together, just as I lean on him for support and the financial aspects.

I feel like sometimes we need to go back and sort of re-negotiate some of the workload, though. An I try to be open about my feelings concerning our kids. Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack your vent. I understand. I feel like a little more of his help would go a long way with our two boys.

As someone who have grown up without much support but alot of expectations from parents towards my social life, one of the worst things to hear was the concealed "stop being so lonely all the time" it makes you think that what you're (not) doing is wrong. But what experience tought me quickly was that you are never as alone as when with people you can't talk too.

On the outside looking in is always worse than choosing to be alone.

Eekee, I am so glad that you wrote your post. It just makes me feel a little better to hear your experiences and how you feel about them. I like the idea of looking back and re-negotiating the workload. I just think that my son needs the only adult male in the family to be more hands-on with his interaction. If you're an adolescent and you're trying to figure out how to interact with other males, you don't learn this appropriately from a female. You learn it, hopefully, from your Dad. I don't think that my husband is avoiding this responsibility, I just think he FORGETS to do it. AND, it requires energy, which is in small supply when my poor husband gets home from work.

I can sympathize with this as well. My husband is wonderful, but his energy is also in short supply after a long day of work. He doesn't seem to notice some of the things that he could do to benefit our sons. Simple things that are better taught by a male role model, like playing catch, working with tools to fix something together, various grooming and general "guy" things. My husband will never initiate or include my sons on these type of things. He just doesn't seem to think of it, which I think is likely a part of his own aspie traits, and the fact that his own father didn't do anything with him as a child.

Right now my sons are finally catching on to riding bikes (or they were), but they are too big and heavy for me to help now, and I find it very difficult to get my husband to take them out for practice. I know he is busy and tired, but he just doesn't seem to get the fact that the boys will always be embarrassed about not being able to ride bikes (they are 9 1/2 yrs old), when all their peers can. He takes no initiative on the matter. It is frustrating.

I think I am very, very lucky in this area. Over the last few years my husband totally has stepped up in getting more active with my son, and our family very often splits off with the boys doing one thing and the girls doing another. Defnitely, there are things my son can learn from Dad that he can't learn from me, and in our case Dad is probably also mildly AS, so there is a lot of mutual understanding. It helps, of course, that they like the same things, and, um, lol, I don't ... like hiking, long and challenging bike rides, and so on.

Remember that the world of men is activity oriented. They bond doing things. So encouraging them to be out together alone is also how Dad will start stepping in on a more personal level. You're never going to see it done in the way you would do it; the dynamic is quite different, but bridges do get crossed.

I agree with this too. I should add a clarification to my complaint re: my husband. He does spend time engaged with my sons. They share a love for Star Wars, Lego, gaming and comics. He has taught them to play chess, and many other things, and they are close and comunicative with each other.

The problem is that neither my husband nor I are adept at any athletic or outdoorsy type activities, even the simple ones that are considered to be rites of passage and milestones for childhood (such as bike-riding), and the lot of trying to teach something we both dislike/have no aptitude for almost always falls to me. I wish my husband would recognize the need to take our boys swimming, biking, fishing etc. or teaching them how to catch a ball or wield a screwdriver, even though it doesn't fall within either of our comfort zones, and take initiative on it once in awhile. Like the OP said, it isn't cool to be out shooting hoops with your mom after a certain point, and it would be great to have a male role model willing to teach those "guy" skills.

But my husband and I are both who we are, and I wouldn't have fallen in love with him in the first place if he was one of those odious sporty types...so I try not to fret about it or nag him. The occasional reminder, that the boys should be taken bike riding, or "how about we try something outside this weekend?" Still, if he ever said to me "I am concerned that the boys will be embarrassed because they don't know how to catch a baseball, and all the other boys do, so I am going to take them out to practice." (because unlike me, he did actually used to play softball a long time ago). I would be so thrilled!

Hello schleppenheimer

I think you may need to take a step back about this whole socializing thing. You may not be aware of this, but based on what you have said, you seem to be putting an enormous amount of pressure on your son to socialize. You take him to classes, and you continuously try teaching him how to socialize. Then you put him in situations designed to be social occasions and encourage him to socialize.

All this pressure from you and everybody around him constantly tells him that in order to be accepted he must go out and socialize all the time. Being outgoing at home isnt enough, being outgoing at school isnt enough, he must be outgoing, and socialize all the time in every situation no matter what. Allow me to be blunt when I say that socializing just doesnt come naturally to people like me or your son. He isnt very comfortable with it, and if he tries to force it (because that is what society tells him is appropriate) then he is likely to just fail, and fail repeatedly.

I can remember when I was about your son's age. My parents signed me up for every after school sport team they could find under the thinking that I needed to socialize with my peers more. Allow me to inform you that it turned out disastrous. Not only did I not make any friends, but I was picked on and insulted constantly. It of course didnt help that I am skinny, short, and uncoordinated. These social activities certainly didnt turn me into an outgoing person, the only thing they did was make me more withdrawn and give me nightmares, which I still have.

Perhaps things would go more smoothly if you stopped emphasizing socialization so much. Sure it may have some uses in that you can make small talk and appear friendly for an interview, but trying to take somebody who is naturally introverted and make them extroverted just isnt going to work. If your son wants to spend some time with friends or attend a social function, then that is his choice. But try not to ram things down his throat and constantly tell him that he needs to socialize more.

Tracker, if I may answer your post, which was very kindly put -- I wouldn't do any of this if my son was truly shy. He is not shy. He's actually outgoing, when he feels accepted. But, as many teenagers do, he is feeling the differences between himself and his peers. He just doesn't seem to know how to start a conversation, or enter a conversation.

I HAVE taken him to socialization classes. We no longer do that. It wasn't very effective. That was years ago. We have also tried theatre groups in the summers -- twice -- and I could tell that although he had a good interest in acting, he wasn't very comfortable there, either. So we took him out of that as well. Sports. Well. We tried that YEARS ago, and then realized that wasn't going to work at all, so he hasn't done that since he was 8 years old. So, I have to take a little umbridge with your phrase "ram things down his throat" because that's not what's going on here. If I observe that he's not enjoying himself, in any activity, then that activity is no longer an option. I don't want him to be miserable. That's the whole point -- parents worry about their kid's socialization because THEY WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY. If he was truly happy being alone, then I'd be fine with that. As many people on Wrongplanet say, he thinks about calling friends, but it's usually too late in the day. I don't know how many adults I've heard on this forum talk about how they want friends, try to make friendships, but can't keep them because the person with AS has a tendency to not make phone calls, not talk enough in a conversation, not reciprocate interest in another person. These people want it to be otherwise. There are some people with Asperger's who want to socialze, but just don't know how. Then there are the other people who don't care to socialize, and that's fine as long as they are happy that way.

My son is social with people older or younger than himself. That's because he's comfortable with them. My son isn't athletic, and that's fine -- we've tried theatre, and music, and other interests. He's a happy kid, so when I see him at church look worried or sad, I'm concerned. It's obvious why he's sad -- he feels as if he doesn't fit in. If I knew that he was being picked on or insulted in any group, I would have him out of that group faster than you could blink. All summer long, we maybe had two situations where I promoted an activity with a friend (and he enjoyed). Other than that, he initiated some activities with "sort of" friends down the street, on his own. I don't force him to socialize. This is not "socialization at any costs". This is a real desire to help my son feel comfortable.

annotated_alice, I think that I could live with my husband not helping out with my son's development in "guy" areas if he were not athletic. That would be hard to do, if you weren't. But my husband is athletic, or at least he was when he was young. That's what's so frustrating -- I didn't play basketball, baseball, and football when I was young -- but he did. But he feels no need to show either of his boys (we have two) how to do this stuff. I don't care if they are proficient at these skills -- I just want my youngest son to be able to do gym without feeling like he's horrible at everything that they do there. He feels fine about his academic skills, and he wants so much to be able to tell jokes and be funny. I work on that with him because we share that interest and I can handle that -- we watch old improv on "who's line is it anyway?", and other comedies. But the athletic stuff is out of my area of expertise, and I just wish that my husband, sweet man that he is, would step in and help in that area.

schlep - what does your son say he wants?

being an AS I usually require my day off (interestingly it is spent on house cleaning) but that day our son spends with dad doing whatever they decide to do.
also on sundays, my husband works from home so i spend some time alone with our son.

did you ask your husband to teach your boy some sports?

also let me just add, some fights are not worth fighting for. while you can try and persuade your hubby to play sports with your son, if he doesn't want to/or can't your boy will grow up fine still. yes, there is always that little thing missing, especially in teen age.

Nan, I consistently ask my son what he wants to do along the way. Like any mother, I'll say "Do you want to call someone to come over today?" and he will jump at the chance, and then I have him make the phone call. It's as if the initial idea doesn't ever occur to him without my bringing it up, but once I do, he likes the idea. If he didn't, I wouldn't pursue it.. He's a real optomist, so whenever it's time to go to scouts, he loves to do it because he likes the idea of hanging out with the boys, and previously he's had a terrific experience. Now it's more hit or miss, depending upon who's there. But he still acts like he loves it, because his expectations aren't that high. It probably bothers me more than it bothers him to see him off by himself when the lion's share of the other guys are in a group elsewhere. And I totally get that he may get "socialized out" and need some alone time after socializing with a larger group for a certain amount of time.