NT parents versus AS parents?

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I came to this site with an idea, about how many AS parents there are dealing with their AS son? I sort of have minor AS tendencies. I don't desire too many friends and so forth. My husband has more trouble than I do with conversation. My ds conversations are very egocentric, much more so than my husband.

Yet my ds does not seem to get along too well with my husband. My husband can be headstrong, maybe that's it. My son likes calmness and has what they call a 'fight-or-flight' response to anything where he may perceive tension to exist.

What I'm thinking though is something like this:

Is an aspie parent for an aspie better than an NT parent for an aspie? I imagine that aspies can understand aspies more. I am probably more NT than aspie. His behaviors sometimes confuse me. Some of it also confuses my husband.

What do you think? Should I try to take advice from an aspie parent more than an NT parent? Not to be discriminating against anyone. I just want what's best for him. I want him to be understood. I want people to understand him. Maybe if I can get advice from aspie parents I may find it a bit easier to get through. I don't know. What do you think?

hi amanda, and i think your topis is so interesting.

i am 34 m aspie with a 4.5 yo aspie son, and yes there is an empathy there between us and a bond that exists and so much so that his mother has noticed it and tried to upset it..but thats another story.
i am unable to empathise or express emotions with others...i can learn to but they dont come naturally, but with my son it is a doifferent level of awareness i i truly understand him and love him only because i know he and i have aspergers.

but this is our story......my father who is also aspie and i have not spoken for a long time......i dislike him and mistrist him immensly...he was unaware of his diagnosis and i was unaware of mine too , so 2 undiagnosed aspies in a house together is a recipe for distater in my experience.....but my experience with my son is special and different and not a generalisation.

Anybody can give bad advice (lol)- whether they are NT or AS so I don't know if one is necessarily better than another. Someone who has AS but may be in denial or who is not willing to see a spectrum of AS behaviors may make it harder for an AS child to understand. On the other hand, someone who is NT who is so self absorbed in the NT only outlook on things is not going to be able to offer much practical advice either except to normalize. So I guess it is best to consider advice from those who are able to see beyond their own particular interpretation - but know that both AS and NT people have issues with that. Personally I have seen some NT parents not even make an attempt to understand things from their kids perspective but think that once they make them normal they will be happy. And I have seen some people with AS be very unsympathetic to other parents of kids on the spectrum. There was one recent thread on another Aspie groups where some were basically saying that anyone who was having issues with their kids that it had nothing to do with AS apparently on the basis that they were totally compliant or their kids had no behavior issues.

My father is an Aspie and my mother is NT. They are both good parents, and they have been more suitable to help me in different ways (eg, my Dad could help me with Science and my Mum could help me with History during my GCSEs)

I do not think you should take advice exclusively from Aspie or NT parents.

I think each person/situation is always going to be different. In our house my dh and ds are both on the spectrum, meanwhile my dd is the uber-NT, and while I'm NT, I prefer solitude and don't like social interactions, don't understand much of what goes on in "groups", like office politics, and so end up getting stabbed in the back alot. It may be why dh and I hit it off so well to begin with.

However, dh and ds are generally like oil and water. They are so much alike, they repel one another! Meanwhile my son and I are very close, he comes to me about everything. Oddly enough our daughter tends to lean towards her father more, even tho he usually admits to not knowing what she's even asking about half the time!

I have spent a lot of time trying to learn more about both of them since finding out, and found the best advise I've gotten is from adults w/AS, whether parents or not - as they can give their perspective from when they were kids.

My thing is, I need to do whatever it takes to give my son the best chance he has, to be the best HE that he can be.

my hubby is aspie, and i'm NT....sometimes he's better with our son, and sometimes he's just too strong-willed to settle things....sometimes i'm just clueless about the issues....