Boyfriend's son has Aspergers - HELP - how do I cope?

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I stumbled across this message board while looking for help with my daughter's debilitating fear of spiders, and felt compelled to reply to this post.

I met my 7-year-old daughter three years ago when I began dating her mom. She has extreme ADHD and was not medicated yet, so her behaviors got pretty outrageous and out of her control. She would throw screaming tantrums in public when she didn't get what she wanted, and even if she wasn't tantruming, she was often very screechy and unruly. At ages four and five, she was mostly non-communicative. She is very sensory-seeking and eating was an adventure. EVERYTHING was finger food, especially pastas. After a meal, food would be all over her hands, face, clothes, table, chair, floor. It drove me nuts. I was constantly following her around with a washcloth to keep the food off the rest of the house. She was not potty trained at night, and the diapers never seemed to make it into the garbage can. At age 5 she was the height and weight of an 8-year-old, but acted younger than her age so people in public saw an 8-year-old acting 3. Her hair was stinky, and she has had problems with BO as well. She raids the fridge (still), and I have severe food allergies so cross-contamination is a major issue for me.

Once I got more comfortable in the relationship with her mom, I realized that I was well-within my rights to lay some ground rules. We practiced "restaurant manners" and put up picture stories to illustrate where diapers go, morning and nighttime rituals, etc. Structure and expectations are very important. In Kindergarten we took her to a neurologist and got ADHD medication. She is highly motivated by prizes, even little things from the dollar store, so those help immensely with problem behaviors. I cut her hair short and bought her deodorant. I put a container in the fridge with her name on it....

Bottom line, if I had turned my back on the relationship because I didn't think I could handle this little girl, I would forever be kicking myself. My daughter (yes, I call her that now) is one of the sweetest, most compassionate people I have ever met. She still has behavior issues that we tackle as they come up, and I still feel exasperated on occasion, but I would be lost without her in my life. She truly is amazing, and I wish that I could see the world from her perspective for just one day. She thinks outside the box and plays like no other child I've met (and I run a daycare!) She is so happy and so easy to please... I often wish my biological son could soak up some of her joy and optimism. It takes a ton of patience, flexibility, and a sense of humor, but I wouldn't trade her for anything! And I think it took some input from me for her other parents to realize that some of her behaviors were not okay, and that we needed to take action. Thankfully, we're all friends and generally on the same page, so it has been fairly easy to implement parenting tactics across households. That's critical.

You know yourself better than anyone, so only you can decide if this child and his father are worth the changes that you will find in yourself.

These are disorders called dermatillomania and trichotillomania. They are often co-morbid with OCD and in extreme cases medications are used to control them.



I don't understand why you care if he watches shows for toddlers. My roommate watches many shows that I think are absolute brain rot but who am I to care?



I would intervene here because hangers can be rather expensive after a while. I would tell him not to touch my hangers, and to go outside and break sticks if it pleases him.


Is it his own furniture? Does he do this randomly or does he have a vision?



Is this money in common areas of his house? A lot of children would do this because they see the loose change as not actually belonging to anyone. You simply need to tell him any change he finds around the house is not his, and he needs to ask before taking it, or keep your change in your own area. In my house, any change left sitting out or found in the washer or under the cushions was fair game.



That is between the two of them and not your concern.



If I feel my cat is being harassed, I tell the person to leave him alone and I will take steps to ensure the person leaves my cat alone.



Again, why should you care?



Some children have this problem, some don't.


Some children on the spectrum are difficult to get into the shower, however many teenage boys have less than perfect hygiene whether the are on the spectrum or not.


This is disrespectful and I would have his father talk to him about it.


Again, that's really not your concern unless you actually wanted to help him academically, which I get the impression, you do not.



Honestly I think you just don't like this boy. Your complaints of him have strayed into the realm of unreasonable and you likely just have an inherent incompatibility with him. While a few of the traits you have described are characteristic of a clinical disorder, many are simply his individual personality traits and others are traits common to boys or children in general. From your post I never would have guessed you are an older woman who has raised a daughter. I would have thought you were in your young 20's and dating an older man.

Perhaps you are not cut out to date individuals with non-adult children.

You should get out of the relationship if it scares you.

I don't know what you think this kid is going to do to you but if you can't stand his current behaviours you might as well not bother. They aren't changing anytime soon.

Most likely if the kid has the mind of a child at the age of 14 he's never going to 'act his age', or be normal in any way.

This kid will never be normal. I suggest you talk it over with your boyfriend and then make a decision. I'm sure he understands how tough it can be.

Perhaps you can work out a compromise to the relationship that keeps you the hell away from the boy as far as living/parenting goes.

IMO the kid sounds unlikeable. I would probably leave if I was disgusted by it.

I apologize to anyone who may take offense to the following post other then Pheynix.

Pheynix more than half of your complaints are nitpicking judgmental BS.
You just broke into HIS life, took HIS dad, taking him out of HIS house, out of HIS routines.
Even a normal child would be stressed and angry about this.

How do you cope? Who cares. How does he cope?
He has no choice in being like this, or who his father dates or where you tell him to live, when to do what.

You CHOSE to go into a relationship with his dad and you CHOSE to bring them into your home.
He is FORCED into a relationship with you and FORCED into your home.
And then you belittle him for any little thing he does oddly.

When you become a parent it isn't all about you anymore, when you become a parent of an autistic kid its even less about you.
If your so horribly bothered by the simplest things he does, get out of this kids life.

When I was a kid I picked my scabs all the time, I couldn't stand them. No one said anything because its nothing. I still don't always wash my hands before eating.

So? You do that too, except in the bathroom and you call it grooming.

Even normal people pace in circles when they are stressed.

I'm 25 and I still watch cartoons, Hell I still watch power rangers from time to time. Its amusing, it doesn't take any effort to keep up with the plot, its simple and fun.

I took things apart when I was a kid, as in electronics, as in things that cost a lot more then a quarter. Just buy him a stack, tell him he can use that many a month.

Moves furniture...so what? ask him to move it back, or ask him if hes moving it because he likes it better there.

Stealing money, ok, stop leaving it laying around and tell him he can't do that.

All kids sneak candy, cookies, sweets. Its called being a kid.

Bothers or plays? I mean god forbid a kid play with an animal.

I call my mom, mother or mom, some people call them mum or mummy or ma or shut your mouth, who cares what he calls her as long as it isn't fat b***h.

Again, that's called being a kid, its even worse when you sometimes honestly can't understand what someone is telling you not to do or why.

That seems to be a common problem amongst people with aspergers from the little I've seen.
I still have problems taking the time to shower, and as a kid I did have to be forced to.

Why wouldn't he? for 14 years he's been allowed to take anything in the fridge that he wanted to.

Schools don't coddle anyone, kids definitely don't coddle anyone.
Going to school was hell, I was bullied and I was chastised for not doing homework or being weird.
I finally dropped out at 10th and got a GED and I was so very happy to be rid of that hell hole.
I can only imagine school is even worse for him.

^

Lol calm down.

A lot of those problems are weird. A lot of them are just plain disrespectful (e.g. taking stuff that is specifically labelled as do not touch or whatever). These are certainly problems that need addressing in preparation for life outside the home.

You could make the argument that these acts aren't technically doing a whole lot of harm but that's not exactly the issue here.

To the uninitiated this kid probably looks and sounds like a lunatic.

I will say that a couple of these sound like obvious nitpicking (pacing in circles, poor grades), but most sound like genuine issues.

Half of them are none issues, a few are minor nuisance, and three are genuine problems.

This woman wants to scream at him for pacing in circles, picking scabs and playing with cats.
From her post she shows no wish to work with him, only wanting him to conform to her life and her idea of how a 14 year old should act.

So I honestly don't feel I should calm down. I think she has no business being anywhere near this kid.

In case you hadn't noticed, the OP hasn't replied even once and shd is pretty unlikely to now that people have been so harsh. If you would like to see improvement for the child in this situation, you might want to try toning down the rhetoric so new person can hear your message.

I generally agree with Mike. A lot of her issues with him were nitpicking, and nitpicking very quickly leads to bullying or poor treatment of someone who is essentially an innocent individual.

I am also struggling with a relationship due to a child with Asperger's. Now before all of you attack me, I would like to share some of my journey with you. I am a Mother to three grown sons who are at various stages in life, all healthy and well. I myself was diagnosed with cancer in 2001, just 15 weeks after my divorce was final and 2 weeks before my oldest son's high school graduation. Several years later, my medical and household expenses became to great to manage and was financially ruined. I did not, thankfully, lose my job and rebuilt my finances and continued to support my family. In 2010, following our first family vacation in years, my oldest son was diagnosed with an advance stage (4) cancer. I commuted between my home and his home, a three hour flight one way, to attend doctor's appointments and support my son and his wife. He is in remission now and they were able to conceive, I am now Grandma to a beautiful 14 month old boy, actually my second as my middle son blessed me with a grandson in 2012. My struggle is with the stress and uncertainty, disruption that is our day-to-day existence. When I met my significant other he was not the custodial parent and his two sons were living with their mother. My SO would travel at least once a month to spend the weekend with his son's and had them on holidays and breaks, his Aspey son is nearly 16. A year and a half ago, the mother of this boy decided she could not "deal with" him any longer and kicked him out to live with his Dad, drastically changing the dynamic of my relationship with his Dad. I fully supported his Dad in taking custody of his son and have urged him to validate this legally as well as to, at least, get financial support for the boy from his Mom. For my part, however much I love his Dad, I am at a point where I feel that I deserve happiness and not the stress that has become our reality. As the Mom is unwilling to travel to the city where we live to see her son, he is with us 24X7 making it difficult to even plan an evening out. If this boy's own mother is incapable of enduring the burden of patience and support that he needs, how can I possibly be? Where I should be happy, relieved and grateful for every day, I am tired, stressed and frustrated because a man who once professed his love for me, has no time to invest in me and our relationship any longer. I am fairly certain of what I need to do, break my own heart for the better of my boyfriend and his son. I guess this post is to just ask you to be a bit more compassionate when non-parents ask for support, you don't know their journey.

It has been 2.5 years since the last post to this thread, we really need some kind of lock or warning so old threads don't get taken up again so much later. (A new poster can always put a link to an old thread if its relevant.)

I'm glad there isn't a lock warning, and I'm glad it got taken up years later. It's nice to hear someone say "me too". Isn't that what we are all here for?