Need help with my teen's need for details

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First of all, I am leaning so much about AS here reading all your posts. My 17 year old was officially dx'd last week. Thank you all. We have our first appt. set up this week with a psychologist who does the behavior social skills coaching.

Any tips in the meantime for having conversations with my teen? So often we each get stressed over her need for immense detail and my frustration. What seems like a simple conversation turns into an argument. We get caught up over a detail that was not my original intent in asking a questions or making a comment.
Also, how do I post a reply to a topic already here..Do I have to re-type the sugject?
Thanks!

Go back into the thread and press 'post reply'. Type your message (you don't need to put in a subject for a reply - most people don't) and click 'submit'. And there you go.

I'm glad you are finding some help here.I know I have.

As far as talking to your daughter....my relationship with my mother was very volitile,it didnt help that we were unaware of AS.I know this will sound strange but something that I wish I had been able to do....write each other instead of head to head conversation.It gives you both time to think and "feel" what you "mean" instead of getting tangled up in misunderstandings.

My biggest problem with my mom was that she would make suggestions to "help me"....but it always felt like she was insulting me.I also learned how to just tell her what I thought she wanted to hear...ie...
"I met a nice girl today who wants to be my friend,She has a nice family,her dad is a policeman"The trueth was,nobody at school would talk to me or even seemed to see me.Her suggestion that I call a few of the neighbor girls(who were all rich chearleader girls)was a joke to me.Their gigling and backstabbing drove me nuts and I didnt dress or wear enough make-up to even get a look from them.(I am female,by the way).I know she wanted me to be happy but she was really clueless of who I was as an individual and didnt "like" the kind of person I was...bookworm,serious,quite,depressed.

It helps if you can except your daughter as she is and not try and create her into who you think she should be....unless,it is what she wants as well.

yeah its how you approach aspies that is important, non aspies talk with nuance and innuendo all the time, they also talk a lot of crap, aspies are very particular about chosen words, very very particular, also words are easy for aspies to regurgitate, but context is difficult.

My daughter recently turned 18 she has been seeing a psychologist for a few months, AS is suspected. Her official dx testing is set for next week. However, there is little doubt that she is AS.

"So often we each get stressed over her need for immense detail and my frustration. What seems like a simple conversation turns into an argument."

We have the same issues, I have just learned to walk away when it's to intense, with a little away time we seem to reach a better understanding. I have learned to try to be exact when I say something as I know that is how she will take it. For example a few weeks ago we had discussed her grammar checking something I had on the computer, she was fine with it. But when I was ready for her do that, I goofed. "I asked her to come clean this up." She got mad because she believed I wanted her to come clean up the room, well it wasn't her room so she was getting angry and loud because that wasn't fair. I apologized and told her no, this article. She looked kind of sheepish and said "oh why didn't you say come edit it if thats what you ment, say what you mean."

She also prefers an itinerary before we for we leave the house, even for shopping, which she doesn't like to do very often.I'm finding she doesn't see or think the same way that I do, but if I try and keep in mind how she sees things most often, then I can approach things easier. But believe me sometimes the frustration is both ways!

your right we dont think like you.
you need to see things from our persepective because you have the ability to place yourself in our situation, we dont, we are very egocentri we dont try to be we just are...you need to see it from our persepective before you act, as she matures she may learn this as well, but the best lesson comes from watching others do it for us.

I cant believe how these comments helped. Thank you! Yes at times I would ask my daughter if she sat with anyone at lunch at school and I realize now I was expecting what wasn't possible..she would tell me what I wanted to hear too.
With conversation you are right. I talk in generalities sometimes..I comment on a movie we saw, just wanting to talk about the movie but my daughter wants all the details precise..what day we saw it, who was in it. If i ask her about a book she read, I expect a synopsis of it but she will tell me all the details, chapter by chapter and I get lost. Yes I need to put myself in her place, knowing the detail is crucial to her. I'm learning.....

Hey EmmaMom, glad we could help some.

I'm only 20 years old, and I think it's so great that there are parents out there like you (just like my mother, no less) taking such an initiative to really understand this stuff. You explain it to people, but rarely do they comprehend and actually have a firm grasp of AS and what characterizes it... it can be so frustrating at times for us aspies in that respect, so it's always good to see outside support.

Also, to go back to what you were asking, I think one thing that's important (don't know if this applies to your daughter at all, but it's good to know anyways) is that you monitor the tone she may speak in, and to keep in mind that she may not be conscious of any such changes in her tone. The old expression "It doesn't matter what you say, it's how you say it," means NOTHING to us aspies, especially those of us who haven't made enough sufficient progress in overcoming our disability.

Hope that helps some.

Yes Datasage,you are so right. She's not aware of her tone sometimes yet totally sensitive to mine. When I mean a suggestion, it's often taken as a criticism.

One of you mentioned the aversion so shopping. That is my daughter and until recently, we would both have meltdowns in the store. She would get to frustrated looking for clothes and couldn't handle checking it all out, the process of trying things on. For awhile I would just shop for her..seemed easier. But she got to a point last year..a good sign..when she wanted to pick her own clothes out and have say in the matter.

Now we decide what she needs, pick the store, know what section we need to go to and voila..last time it went really well. We cant shop late in the day too when we both are tired so now we know before noon on the weekends helps.

Emmamom, my daughter also takes things rather out of context like that. I just have to reiterate that is now how I intended it. Also she has the tendency to think someone is mad at her when that is not the case at all. I find myself doing a lot of explaining in detail but it seems to work the best.

She acutually helped me see how to explain things out more by telling me to exaggerate my meaning, she says thats easier to understand. She compared it to manga expressions that are elobrate on displaying feelings and she says that the way manga expresses emotions in pictures are much easier to read than real life.

My daughter feels better knowing about AS. She said she has always known she was different she didn't know why. Knowing what it is helps her because now she also knows she is not the only one this way. In her case finding out that she has AS has been for the best as she is getting ready to start college in the fall.

I kind of look at it like the song Garth Brooks did "The Dance". "I could have changed it all but I would have missed the dance!" I'd love to make things easier for my daughter but I wouldn't have wanted to change her. So hang in there your daughter is the same person she always has been there is just a name for the differences!

I also have AS and I find it really sad that I had (and occasionally still have) misunderstandings with my mum because I thought she was criticising me and putting pressure on me when she was only trying to help me make friends and so forth.

The truth is, I didn't know how to take an interest in others and even now, many years after I finished school, I am only just starting to learn how to carry on reciprocal conversations involving small talk.

I was always fine with the deep and meaningfuls but nothing on a more casual basis was easy.

I also need details spelt out rather finely as I don't always "join the dots" as it were or notice unwritten rules or expectations. I always think if something is important enough, it will be told to me but that doesn't always happen, resulting in misunderstanding.

One of the classic misunderstandings we have is if we are somewhere and something isn't quite right. For the purposes of this example, I will say I am in a shop with somebody else and it is noisy, crowded, and the airconditioning isn't working properly.
I will tell the other person that it is too noisy, too crowded and too hot.

If they say "well, that's just the way it is, you'll just have to put up with it" (ie. acting as if I'm whinging), I will get very cross and maybe start crying. It could also escalate into a fight if they take what I see as a hostile tone as I will say something like :"well, you just don't understand. You try having what I have and see how you feel!".

Luckily, I don't have too many of these situations nowadays but if anybody tells me I just have to put up with something, that is the cue for me to say "no, I don't".