13 Jun 2011, 10:45 pm
14 Jun 2011, 4:01 am
SC_2010 wrote:
We've tried timers and warnings. Sometimes its fine, but when the perseverations/sensory is off, it doesn't seem to matter.
Like I said you have to be consistent and this may take months or even up to a year before he accepts this as normal. Sometimes you may have to work with him and really understand what and why he has this need. Sometimes being denied our special interests can cause extreme anxiety because we use them to shield us from things we are unable to deal with. It could be that some of the things you are asking him to do are too stressful or cause him too much anxiety. You keep bringing up being "social". Do you mean you want him to be social with the family or are you trying to push him to be social with other children? The one thing that you need to understand is being social is sometimes not important to an Aspie and even worse some of us suffer from severe social anxiety. I used to feel very guilty and would have several anxiety attacks a day because I was pushed to be social and behave like everyone else. No one knew I had Asperger's and when I was a teenager I did take a bottle of pills one time. I dont think I wanted to die, I just think I was scared and wanted the anxiety to go away. My psychiatrist explained to me that the reason I get so stressed out is that I can only handle so many relationships or social contacts at a time and overdoing that is dangerous because it pushes me to my limits and harms me emotionally which can cause me to harm myself physically. Some aspies internalize, like I did and some strongly display their emotions (I can do this but it doesnt happen very often). Like my son will scream and become very hostile when he is pushed or when he has too much anxiety.
Again as parents we need to help them to express themselves in healthy ways....we teach my son to hit pillows or scream into pillows and sometimes he just talks (sometimes even says some nasty things) or mutters to himself....we give him alone time for this. We dont tell him this is "weird" or "wrong" this is how he works out his anxiety and his problems and he is not hurting himself or other people.
So, yes your son needs to go to school and do his school work, and he needs to learn to deal with social situations if he is every going to go out into the world someday but this is not something you should force too hard or too soon. This should be something you allow him to come to terms with and you help him and try to understand things from his perspective. Try talking to him and just listen, even if what he is saying doesnt really register with you or you dont like what you hear. You need to know why he has such a strong NEED for his special interest all the time and why its so hard for him to take breaks.
I do believe that you need to teach him to take breaks because if you dont you are going to have a 30 year old aspie still sitting in your living room playing video games. Our kids may not go out and be able to handle a job but if we never teach them anything they certainly will not. Temple Grandin says we should give our kids around 11 or 12 years old little jobs to do....like mowing the lawn or even the neighbors lawn and that we should give them choices about what they want to do. Like she said she didnt want to go to her Aunts farm so her Mom told her she could either go for a few weeks or she could go all summer....may not sound like a choice but to me it would make sense. That way you're not saying you are going and thats final, you are saying well, you can have it this way or that way. This makes more sense to my aspie mind and causes less conflict. We should teach them manners so they know how to react to other people. However, we should not push them to go out and play with the neighbor kids or even expect them to have friends if they dont want them. If they want a friend then you can help them with that but just dont expect that because you want them to be more social that this is going to be something they can accomplish.
I hope I made sense....just try to understand your guy, even try playing his games with him. Ask him about them, show interest in what he does and what he is interested in. This way he will feel that you are interested in him because nothing is more exciting to us that to find someone who also shares our special interest and will allow us to talk about it and be interested in it. You feel very isolated when you are constantly told that people are tired of listening to you and that you need to talk about something else. As I said, he has to go to school and you can even point out to him jobs that he can do that have things to do with his video games. Explain to him that the people who make video games went to college so they can create their own video games....ask him what kind of video game he would make. Like my son loves strategic war games (much to my dismay
) so we have him draw pictures of his games....this gets him writing (a problem he has) and we also teach him about real wars we read to him as he has dyslexia and can not read yet. He loves to learn about the planes and the weaponry. This way he is learning history and still feeding his special interest. My son actually has a few SI's but the War thing is the big one. He also loves animals, especially dolphins and big cats like leopards.
Just as MsMeerkat says her Mother did, use his special interest to draw him out and to teach him. Just know that pushing isnt the right way to handle an autistic child. You can use rules and most autistic kids/people enjoy schedule and rules, we actually thrive on it and have more anxiety without it. It might even help to let him help you set up the schedule this way he feels like he is making some of the rules.
So once you establish contact with him and a good schedule then you can sort of both meet in the middle and you will find that life is much easier.
I also just wanted to add that when my son had his Pokemon phase we found out that the man who created Pokemon was also an Aspie. This was very exciting to my son and made him feel like he could grow up and do something like that. He still also loves his Pokemon cards. Its ok to only have one special interest and its also ok to have a few of them. I also have a few but I can only focus on one at a time.
14 Jun 2011, 10:57 am
14 Jun 2011, 3:11 pm
liloleme wrote:
SC_2010 wrote:
We've tried timers and warnings. Sometimes its fine, but when the perseverations/sensory is off, it doesn't seem to matter.
Like I said you have to be consistent and this may take months or even up to a year before he accepts this as normal. Sometimes you may have to work with him and really understand what and why he has this need. Sometimes being denied our special interests can cause extreme anxiety because we use them to shield us from things we are unable to deal with. It could be that some of the things you are asking him to do are too stressful or cause him too much anxiety. You keep bringing up being "social". Do you mean you want him to be social with the family or are you trying to push him to be social with other children? The one thing that you need to understand is being social is sometimes not important to an Aspie and even worse some of us suffer from severe social anxiety. I used to feel very guilty and would have several anxiety attacks a day because I was pushed to be social and behave like everyone else. No one knew I had Asperger's and when I was a teenager I did take a bottle of pills one time. I dont think I wanted to die, I just think I was scared and wanted the anxiety to go away. My psychiatrist explained to me that the reason I get so stressed out is that I can only handle so many relationships or social contacts at a time and overdoing that is dangerous because it pushes me to my limits and harms me emotionally which can cause me to harm myself physically. Some aspies internalize, like I did and some strongly display their emotions (I can do this but it doesnt happen very often). Like my son will scream and become very hostile when he is pushed or when he has too much anxiety.
Again as parents we need to help them to express themselves in healthy ways....we teach my son to hit pillows or scream into pillows and sometimes he just talks (sometimes even says some nasty things) or mutters to himself....we give him alone time for this. We dont tell him this is "weird" or "wrong" this is how he works out his anxiety and his problems and he is not hurting himself or other people.
So, yes your son needs to go to school and do his school work, and he needs to learn to deal with social situations if he is every going to go out into the world someday but this is not something you should force too hard or too soon. This should be something you allow him to come to terms with and you help him and try to understand things from his perspective. Try talking to him and just listen, even if what he is saying doesnt really register with you or you dont like what you hear. You need to know why he has such a strong NEED for his special interest all the time and why its so hard for him to take breaks.
I do believe that you need to teach him to take breaks because if you dont you are going to have a 30 year old aspie still sitting in your living room playing video games. Our kids may not go out and be able to handle a job but if we never teach them anything they certainly will not. Temple Grandin says we should give our kids around 11 or 12 years old little jobs to do....like mowing the lawn or even the neighbors lawn and that we should give them choices about what they want to do. Like she said she didnt want to go to her Aunts farm so her Mom told her she could either go for a few weeks or she could go all summer....may not sound like a choice but to me it would make sense. That way you're not saying you are going and thats final, you are saying well, you can have it this way or that way. This makes more sense to my aspie mind and causes less conflict. We should teach them manners so they know how to react to other people. However, we should not push them to go out and play with the neighbor kids or even expect them to have friends if they dont want them. If they want a friend then you can help them with that but just dont expect that because you want them to be more social that this is going to be something they can accomplish.
I hope I made sense....just try to understand your guy, even try playing his games with him. Ask him about them, show interest in what he does and what he is interested in. This way he will feel that you are interested in him because nothing is more exciting to us that to find someone who also shares our special interest and will allow us to talk about it and be interested in it. You feel very isolated when you are constantly told that people are tired of listening to you and that you need to talk about something else. As I said, he has to go to school and you can even point out to him jobs that he can do that have things to do with his video games. Explain to him that the people who make video games went to college so they can create their own video games....ask him what kind of video game he would make. Like my son loves strategic war games (much to my dismay
) so we have him draw pictures of his games....this gets him writing (a problem he has) and we also teach him about real wars we read to him as he has dyslexia and can not read yet. He loves to learn about the planes and the weaponry. This way he is learning history and still feeding his special interest. My son actually has a few SI's but the War thing is the big one. He also loves animals, especially dolphins and big cats like leopards. Just as MsMeerkat says her Mother did, use his special interest to draw him out and to teach him. Just know that pushing isnt the right way to handle an autistic child. You can use rules and most autistic kids/people enjoy schedule and rules, we actually thrive on it and have more anxiety without it. It might even help to let him help you set up the schedule this way he feels like he is making some of the rules.
So once you establish contact with him and a good schedule then you can sort of both meet in the middle and you will find that life is much easier.
I also just wanted to add that when my son had his Pokemon phase we found out that the man who created Pokemon was also an Aspie. This was very exciting to my son and made him feel like he could grow up and do something like that. He still also loves his Pokemon cards. Its ok to only have one special interest and its also ok to have a few of them. I also have a few but I can only focus on one at a time.
^^^^THIS^^^^
