Helping with Chores

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So my teen son is not yet diagnosed but I have a strong suspicion that he is high functioning aspergers (is that even a term?) All of my kids' lives, I have them help out around the house. We make up a chore chart as is fitting to their ages. This son is treated like all the others but he routinely checks things off that are not done. Most of the time, I trust everyone's honesty so his chores often remain undone but there are times like when the "empty dehumidifier" is checked off but it obviously was not done OR if the bathroom gets so smelly that I know he has not cleaned the toilet. If I remind him or correct him (in a matter of fact voice), he freaks out repeating "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." And he acts like he is going to have a melt down over it. But, if I don't remind him or correct him, the job doesn't get done. I want him to be comfortable with life skills but I could use advice on helping him without freaking him out. Laziness is an issue. Please advise.

It is not usually laziness. Often kids on the spectrum are highly hyper-focused on special interests, and it really is hard for them to tear themselves away from them. It is not always even something obvious like TV or video games. Sometimes they get lost in their own thoughts. They are also notoriously poor at executive functioning skills which might hinder them in more complex tasks. It might help if you had a designated time for chores that he could (or you could) set a reminder for. There is nothing wrong with providing scaffolding like reminders -- and you may not like to feel like you are nagging -- try to think of it as reminding.

In addition, you may want to review his list of chores to see if perhaps you might make some adjustments. Do any of them include too many steps or involve having to figure out things like where to put things? These are chores I would try to swap out. It would not hurt to have a talk with him about what chores are easiest for him to get done and give him a little bit of input in what his jobs are.

The fact that he almost melts down over it tells me he does care, and probably is trying.

Thank you. That's helpful. Would it be better if I wrote every single expectation out (it feels juvenile but I think it would take the guess work out of it) and then set a time between x and y to do the chores?

Yes, it might be all you need. Sometimes they get stuck on the steps. If you have it all written down it will remove some of the guess work, and hopefully, eventually, it will become second nature. It generally takes kids on the spectrum longer to make habits out of chores, but at some point he will stop looking at the scaffolded materials. He may also need reminders to transition when it get close to time for him to begin. That may be true for some time as well.

All of this is kind of trial and error, but once you give it a whirl you can see if there are any sticking points and go from there.

Thanks. I want him to become self sufficient. Not sure exactly how to get him there. I'm hoping this helps.

Hello I'm an Asperger, I was very bad at doing stuff like that when younger and it caused a lot of difficulties (I was thought lazy) I thought I was lazy and in a lot of ways I couldn't understand why I didn't just get stuff done either. The following would have helped me a lot.
1 Doing jobs together until they become familiar (I don't mean one person cleans toilet while the other does sink, I mean both do both together). The job becomes familiar under the best circumstances. As it goes well it increases the ratio of new things tried that go well against new things tried, that go badly.
2 Set time, any leeway and I'm useless, I have gotten better at motivating myself as I've aged. I also had completly inaccurate ideas about how long things would take me to do.
3 I confess, I thought cleaning was beneath me I was obviously going to do brilliantly in life and other people were going to clean for me. My views on myself and the world around me were all wrong. Have you explained what you mean by self-sufficient clearly enough.
4 A problem with doing one thing often led me to do nothing because to me they were all one big blob problem, so I agree with the other advice about talking to him about it and allowing some alternatives.

Just a note, sometimes when I didn't do stuff I was being lazy , well, who isn't?

I totally suck at household things.

Part of it is because I'm just bad at "planning" when it comes to cleaning.

This makes me lazy. I am lazy by nature, anyway.

People like us tend to have to deal with Executive Dysfunction, which basically means that our disability either makes it difficult to complete a task for a reason or we quite literally have no energy to get a task done. This can translate to not being able to get housework done.

I live in a state of organized chaos myself. What helped me is keeping a calendar set up by my desk and getting myself into the habit of getting things done earlier in the day instead of later at night when most people tend to get things done.

One thing I will say: try to keep your frustration away from your child. If they really are on the spectrum, you need to realize that they are disabled. Disabled people are often distracted, exhausted, or a combination of the two. Maybe evaluate how much work you're really giving your children in general. I understand the need to get things done, and your method of getting chores done does work, but also treating kids like they're little maids isn't exactly productive either.

I'd suggest sitting down with your son and talking to him. Not as a parent trying to get their kid to do chores, but as a friend who is concerned about their friend. Make it clear that he isn't in trouble from the start of the conversation.

I had a big avoidance problem when I was younger. I was afraid I'd get in trouble for not doing a chore right or for forgetting to do something associated with the chore. (grew up in a pretty abusive household, mind you.)

Maybe a more special treat/reward would be good? Like if he remembers to do all of his chores in a straight week, or most of his chores, treat him to a movie or lunch or something like that.

Here's personal anecdote to help the OP. When I was growing up, I viewed chores as makework: something parents come up with to give their kids work to do, because it's illegal for a kid to have a real job. I also believed that my parents enjoyed cleaning and such, and only made me do to assert their parental power, similar to limiting my TV time. Because not only were they making me do something I didn't like, it also gave them an easy opporunity to berate me for doing it wrong.

I remember a sad situation back when I was 10. I really wanted to have a job, so I could have my own money for junk food and such, which my parents always vehemently refused to buy. Plus, we were very poor at the time. My older sister, 20 at the time, said she could get me a job washing people's cars. I was ecstatic! I kept asking her when I can start. About ten days later, she told me it was a joke. I cried myself to sleep that night. I never fully forgave her for that.

I'm wondering at this point if the OP's teenage son feels the same way. Perhaps he can find a real job and hand in 60% of earnings to the family budget, in lieu of doing chores. And by "real job", I mean with a W2 and a formal paycheck. Not helping at a family member's store for cash; or worse, volunteering somewhere for incentive cash from parents. Sadly, jobs like mowing lawns or a paper route no longer exist, babysitting isn't an option for a guy, and he's too old to run a lemonade stand (which is at risk of being raided by overzealous cops, anyway).

Think about it: 200, or even 100, years ago, children could actually work. School was just for a few hours a day, if that. At age 5, a child could feed chickens and wipe down store shelves. At age 8, a child could milk goats and deliver boxes to people's homes. At age 12, a child could do almost everything adults did, except heavy lifting and hazmat handling. Today, children are imprisoned in schools for a bulk of the day, and can't earn money until they're 16. And even then, they're competing with jobless adults when applying at Walmart or McDonald's.

So I don't know what else to suggest, really. It is one of the reasons why I'll never have kids: the sheer powerlessness kids feel for the bulk of their young age. I think it's inhumane to even have kids in today's society.