Dealing with family, part 2...AHHHHHHHH

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I posted below about my brother-in-law (I will shorten that to BIL) and nephew. Tonight my niece (BIL's 20 yr old daughter) babysat our 13 yr old Aspie son, our 10 yr old daughter and our 3 yr old twins so that we could go watch our 11 yr old play softball. At some point, my niece asked my son to take the dog out. He was using his computer and made some sort of comment about waiting until he was done with what he was doing (I am not sure how friendly he was about this but he told me that he basically said he would do it in a couple minutes). our niece walked over and shut his lap-top on him. This did not go over well...our son was upset and asked to go for a bike ride to calm down. She would not let him. When we got home, I took my son for a walk and we talked it out. My niece went home and told her father... So my BIL then spends an hour texting my husband. Here is a sample:

-it appears he gets away with 100% of what he does.

-How does he act in school. Do his teachers let him get away with everything too? (Our son is not a discipline problem. He goes to public school. His teachers like him and he does well in school. It is a structured setting.)

- I have 3 students (he is a teacher) with it (autism)...(like that makes him an expert)

- If he is to be able to survive in our world, he must learn the accepted norms of society.

-if my kids (keep in mind that all 4 of his kids are adults over the age of 18.) babsit, I insist that you give them a signed letter absolving them of all responsibility...that a sitter would normally be held accountable for. They need to be protected in that way.

...and he basically said he isn't going to tell his kids he talked to us so we shouldn't say anything.

My son is not a bad kid. His cousins are on the look out for him to make mistakes and jump on everything he does. They stress him out and he crumbles. Obviously I cannot use them to babysit anymore. It just pisses me off that I need to take the blame for it and their dad expects us to say nothing about his little lecture (and these texts went on for about an hour).

My BIL totally doesn't get it. Tom has offered him a book to read about Asperger's. He thinks this is something my son can control in the same way that other people do. If he could control it and act/react the way other people do, then he wouldn't be autistic.

Jess

Last edited by chaos42 on 15 Jun 2010, 12:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

Wow. Sounds like this guy acually thinks he has a say in how your son is raised.
I would try and point out to him simply that it's none of his business.

Sorry, posted before I typed. I was going to say Im glad hes not my kids teacher....hed be in big trouble if he was because I would not put up with that attitude.
If his daughter is going to babysit she need to learn the proper way to deal with an aspie. You never shut off a game without warning, you give them a warning, set a timer....whatever.

If he is to be able to survive in "our" world??? What does the "our" imply???
Learn the accepted norms of society??? Why doesnt he learn the accepted norms of the Autistic mind??

The niece was rude. I can't see how this is an AS issue. Shutting down somebody's laptop is like yanking a pen out of their hand while they write - it's just rude.

Dealing with an Aspie 101: allow adequate time for transitions.

Anyone with an AS child can tell you the niece blew it. OK, mistakes happen, but the blame doesn't then flow to your AS son for acting exactly the way all AS kids do when confronted with an abrupt transition.

You would think your BIL knows this. Remind him. He's just piling up grievance on top of grievance and not thinking about what every IEP put in front of him says: allow time for transitions!

Sorry you have to deal with all that.

Ditto what has been said. I also want to add that while I want a sitter to enforce safety issues, I am not okay with a sitter getting in any of my kid's faces about chores. That is my job, not their job. I would not use family as a sitter anymore.

Thank you for the back-up. It feels good to hear other people support me. You'd think family would be good for that!

I agree that we cannot use family as a sitter anymore. We're at a tough point in terms of getting a sitter. Our oldest, our Aspie 13 yr old, is really too old for a sitter. Her stays home alone for a couple hours at a time and is wonderfully responsible about it. Our 11 yr old, and for shorter stints our 10 yr old, have stayed home alone too....but we also have 3 yr old twins. The oldest 2 kids have watched the twins for 20-30 minutes or if they're in bed asleep, but they're not quite ready to watch them for a couple hours. We don't use sitters to get out much. We use them so that we can do things with our older kids...like watch one of their games without making the twins sit through it, or go to their band concerts, etc. It's not a problem if just the twins stay home because I can grab a neighborhood 14 yr old. I can't ask a 14 yr old to babysit with my 13 yr old son there...that's a date and it's a little awkward for everyone.

I guess the sitter thing is just something we are going to have to tough out. We'll manage. Unfortunately, dealing with my BIL and his family is not going to be as easy.

Jess