If you had been able to help your parents?

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Howdy,

My partner has Aspie traits and his son is an awesome eight-year-old Aspie and the three of us just started living together. We dated a long time before making the transition but going from spending time together to becoming a full-time-mom is a big change, so I think of myself as new to everything. I had read some books before but now I'm really really trying hard to self-educate as much as possible. I was wondering if you had been able to give your own parents advice in raising you, what would have been some of the most important things? Homework seems to be our highest stress situation but websites written by NTs for NTs on the topic of Aspie homework help seem to be pretty useless. So I'm interested about homework advice but also just anything you think is important.

I'm glad this community exists and I'm grateful to be a tiny part of it.
Thank you.

NTmom

i wish they knew i had asperger's and would have told me not to go into a field where "people skills" were very important.

Hello, and welcome.
I only got diagnosed last year when I was 22, so when I was little we didn't know exactly what the problems were or how to deal with them.

So, I wish my mom could have understood my sensitivities, bright lights, bad smells, and textures. I was a picky eater, but it just wasn't about not wanting to eat vegetables, I couldn't stand the textures of certain foods. And to this day my family still doesn't understand how much I hate the smell of bananas, it's one of the worst smells in the world to me. If someone's eating a banana in the kitchen, I can smell it in my room, ugh.

My mom was always trying to get me to go outside, and to stop playing my video games. I wish that she had understood two things. One, that video games were, and still are, my obsession and that I'm very interested and invested in them. And number two, that the sun hurts my eyes, and makes my skin feel itchy and like I'm burning.

I would have liked accomodations in school. Such as choosing where to sit, and getting help with schoolwork. I was too quiet and shy to ask for help. I would have meltdowns when I didn't understand the homework and couldn't complete it. My mom tried to help me learn the material and got me tutors, but I didn't like meeting new people.

Also, my family thought that my shyness was a phase and that I would eventually grow out of it. But alas, I'm am still shy, quiet and socially awkward, although doing slightly better.

I wish my parents would have been better about giving me medicine for my various health ailments. I suffered horribly from headaches, stomach aches, dehydration and motion sickness, but they thought I was just whining and didn't do anything about it. It was like torture until I was old enough to get the medicine on my own, as well as food and drinks that agreed with me.

Also when I started middle school my anxiety went through the roof. I was being bullied by students and one of the teachers. My stomach problems escalated to dangerous levels. I wish they would have taken me to a psychiatrist as well as gotten me counseling, but they didn't believe in that.

As the parent of an AS teenager myself, I know how hard it can be to deal with the deluge of complaints about seemingly everything. Sometimes legitimate problems can get lost in the general banter. But over time I learned to sift through the rambling and find the trends that need attention, and that has worked very well. Sometimes the hardest part is explaining to NT's why I (in their opinion) "spoil" her. What "spoiling" is to a NT child is simply making necessary accommodations for an AS child.

STOP HITTING ME!! !! !! !

Oops, I forget to talk about homework. I never had a problem myself doing homework, but my daughter has since she hit puberty and her AS got worse. Right now she's in special ed for kids with Asperger's and emotional problems, because she needs so much support getting through the school day. She takes 3 mainstream classes, and they help her a lot with her homework during the off periods. Her strategy has been to do the most stressful homework at school where she gets better help than her parents can provide, and leave the more enjoyable homework for home. Still, when she gets home at 2:30, she's pretty much had it for the day, and just wants to relax with her computer. So I wait for her to get a good amount of wind down time in, and then gently remind her about homework by showing an interest in what she's doing in school. This works most of the time to help motivate her to do it. The traditional approaches did not work all, which is no surprise. Our evenings are now much more peaceful.

I'm glad that you enjoy being here. We enjoy having you around.

I wasn't able to give my parents advice on how to raise me, because things were done differently in the 80s. If I would have given my parents advice, they would have gotten angry at me.