Streamlining Special Interests

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It is quite possible that the ability to easily access so much information has enhanced the number of Aspies with more extreme attachments and special interests. I have a theory and I would like some input. By no means do I think this is original, just understand that in noting the obvious differences between myself and others like me, I have come to compare outside factors that may have made a difference. I was extremely abused as a child, but I managed to be pretty "ok" in the world despite this. Our goal is to give our children something viable to work with for their future and expose them to as much of life as possible.

As an adult, I do not have extreme special interests. Rather, I exhaust something of interest and then move on and, I often have many things I am studying at the same time. I don't have a need to collect etc. I am addicted to information and research, but, I believe it is within normal range. I believe the reason for this is partly because my parents did not have a computer that I could have free access to and I wasn't allowed to watch a lot of TV. I had to rely on books and I could not always find the information I sought and would move on. So firstly, making "undesirable" topics of interest not as accessible might be the first step.

Next, is "trading", using the special interest as motivation to develop new interests. My daughter likes these Lalaloopsy dolls that all look alike and she has for a year. This is to me an undesirable waste of my daughter's intellect. However, in trying to redirect her amazingly high IQ in a different direction, I offered to add a doll to her collection if she could write me a thesis on Dolphins. I'll be darned, this girl has been studying dolphins all day and has found a fascination with them. Tonight we discussed how much Dolphin embryos look like human embryos, she named off the species of dolphins, we looked at pictures etc. So...she is also getting the reward that I WANT to hear about her new interest, and yes, she does love this.

I do this with my son. I call it "carrot dangling" (not to him but to others). Basically, he gets to play his DS in the evening, AFTER he does X,Y, and Z. Sometimes during the day I will allow bonus time for completing school work, or practicing piano, reading books, good listening, good behavior, etc...

The only reason I get him to comply at all is casue of his obsession with the Mario Brothers game.

I didn't know what to vote for. There have been times when we haven't appreciated one of our sons' interests, either because we found it dull, making the monologues rather excruciating, or because it didn't seem to give much scope for creativity or intellectual growth, or because we felt it fostered bad habits (i.e. too much video gaming to the exclusion of exercise, social interaction or other learning) For the first scenario we try to "suck it up" and treat his/their interest with respect, maybe giving them some social boundaries about the monologue-ing. For the last 2 scenarios we encourage what we call "branching", which means finding a related activity that would be more intellectually stimulating, add a social component or otherwise restore a healthier balance. I say "encourage", we don't force (although we do impose limits on screen time so that there is time for homework, swimming, friends for our son who has and wants friends etc), we provide opportunities for related activities, buy related books, games etc. Our sons usually find the branching activities really fun, and occasionally it offshoots into a new interest.

However we do always try to be respectful of our son's interests. You can't always control what catches your interest. I have had a variety of "special" interests in my lifetime, and it never fails to amuse me when people "pat me on the back" for having a consuming interest that is deemed age appropriate/culturally valuable in some way and censure me for an interest that is deemed frivolous, when I am the same person and tackle each interest with the same enthusiasm and mental vigour. For example when, as an adult, my consuming interest was mixed media art (primarily abstract) or psychology or early childhood development or cooking people thought I was talented/clever/artistic/a great mom etc., but when my primary interest was Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, Dungeons and Dragons (which are all branches of a main fantasy interest) people thought I was nerdy, weird, infantile and wasting my time. But when I was heavily into Walt Whitman? Clearly I was brilliant. So it's really interesting to me the arbitrary perception of ones personality and capabilities based on their interests. I am obviously the same person. I draw similar levels of stimulation/comfort/inspiration from each of my interests, whether it is deemed valuable by outside sources or not, and I can't always help how immersed I get in something even if I know the people around me will find it silly or annoying.

So while I agree with the idea of encouraging our children's growth in every respect, I don't like the idea of requiring someone to trade their interest for a new one. It is hard to quantify exactly what value a particular interest brings to someones life unless you are that person.

(note: I am not talking about severely limiting or potentially dangerous interests, which may require parental intervention)

As far as " access so much information has enhanced the number of Aspies with more extreme attachments and special interests" you could also argue the exact opposite. Perhaps access to information makes it more likely that your interest will branch out to be broader. We have seen this recently with one of my sons -online research for an interest in dragons, branched to dragon mythology, branched to Greek mythology, branched to greek and latin word roots, which branched to some video game creation based on characters with latin names. I see an ever broadening interest there based on wide access to information. An opposite example from my own childhood, I discovered a love of Gilbert and Sullivan when taken to see Yeoman of the Guard. Back at home I could only access 1 book and video, both on Pirates of Penzance. So my interest became laser focused just on Pirates of Penzance, and I would obsess over every inch of that one operetta and that one only. If I had access to more info, perhaps that interest would have branched to all the works of G&S, or opera in general. Perhaps. I don't know.

There's another thread here where I talked about my son's interest in weapons, and what we did about it.

Interestingly, the desire to explore weapons has not abated in the least, but his focus has definitely changed as we've worked with him: instead of focusing on revenge, potential harm, and power, DS is now interested in the physics of the whole thing - which of course we encourage. We spent a LOT of time showing him films where people using weapons came to the conclusion that they didn't solve the problem. He has gone from asking if he can join the military (which we explained we would support him in doing) to deciding that he wants to manufacture and test guns on a range.

My son's overriding interests tend to be a form of social masking: he finds something "cool" and then lets it take over his life to the exclusion of all other things and the annoyance of most people, including the people he's trying to impress. It takes over his schoolwork, it takes over his social life, it takes over his home time...I once described managing this as being like trying to catch him before he falls into a well. What's worse, it doesn't really seem to make him happy - he gets agitated and frustrated if he can't find the next new piece of information...

DS does have lots of interests, and if we can successfully pry him away from his "security blanket" interest, he's quite the avid learner. This is another one of those places where, as a parent, I'm not sure where the line is between pushing too much and pushing too little: if we did nothing, he'd become totally static and be caged by his interest. If we didn't allow it at all, he'd melt down all the time. We do the best we can.