How to Confront my Wife's family???

Post Reply New Topic

hey guys, I am in a bit of a difficult situation. My daughter who is diagnosed with mild/moderate autism last year is currently staying with my wife and her family since the diagnosis. Due to my personal commitments we felt this was the best option for my wife as she would get the extra help.

Now coming to the point. I've never really interacted much with my wife's family before. she has a older sister and a younger brother, now just recently i spent a good 3 months with all of them, during this time, firstly with the older sister I have noticed a lot of signs of autism or is it just me???

firstly, as a child she apparently never spoke a word until she was just over 4 years. She never ate solid foods until she was 3. She is currently in her mid 30's, when she is watching television, i've noticed that she can never keep her leg still, its always moving. secondly, when she is reading she is constantly rocking back and forth. I've also noticed a few mood swings. Am i on to something here?? mind you, she is a very well educated professional now and does very well for herself. she is not married.

Now to the younger brother, what i've noticed that he is very particular with schedules. he always needs to do things at certain times. dinner should be at 7pm, in bed by 9pm otherwise seems to get a little grumpy. Has no friends and avoids social interaction. Is very happy around family but very awkward around others. eye contact also is very less. Once again, he is also well educated and does well for himself.

Now I did bring this up with my wife without being direct, but she refuses to acknowledge any of it. However the problem arises when we see the doctor and they ask if there's a history of this in the family? my wife promptly says no but i cant help but wanting to mention the above. How should i deal with this?? and based on what i've mentioned does anyone agree that there's an issue with the sister and brother??

They have tendencies, but I do not think it is your place to say anything to them(answering the title part, here). You barely know them, and you have no idea if this info is welcome. Keep in mind I am a kind of person who dislikes getting unsolicited advice/information from people, so this may color what I am saying.

That said, I think he natural person to make that judgement call is your wife. If she rejects it, I think as far as approaching her family, you drop it. They are doing well, and happy, anyway, yes? What is the reason you want to tell her family members you think they have autistic tendencies? If they are happy, they probably do not want or need help, and not everyone wants the self-knowledge thing. (See first paragraph for personal bias)

As far as informing doctors: Since it troubles you, and you don't want your concerns to effect your marital communication, I would probably talk to your wife and let her know you are tempted to tell the doctor that you think you've seen tendencies in your wife's family (for whatever reasons you think this will be helpful), but then reassure her that if you do say something, that you would be honest and say that she (your wife) does not agree, and that no one in the family has been officially diagnosed (assuming that is the case.) If your wife still disagrees, then it is a judgement call as to what you do.

If she is too upset, I would honestly just say when asked by doctors that no one in the family has been officially diagnosed, and leave at at that. Family history is an indicator, and it helps in diagnosis, but your child has already been diagnosed, right? I am not sure what real help this would be at this point. Even if she was not diagnosed, yet, a lack of family history isn't supposed to preclude a diagnosis, it is just useful background info, I think. It is not at all unusual for a child to be the first diagnosed case in a family. That is what happened in our case.

Edited to add: I am not even sure doctors take non-official diagnosis very seriously. It probably varies with the doctor, and if they consider it, I doubt they weight it the same as an official diagnosis. Sometimes doctors don't respect non-doctor opinions.

When my son was diagnosed and we finally opted to tell our family, we mentioned that one of the reasons we wanted to tell them was that there is a strong genetic link with autism that family members might want to explore (we said this in a general email to all our families, it's clearly on both sides.)

This fell on pretty much deaf ears. Most are happy to label my son the "identified patient" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identified_patient and excuse all their own weird behavior some other way. For a short time, it looked like one person was going to take on some responsibility for the more destructive aspects of his neurology, he actually read one of the books we'd recommended, but nothing came of it.

I doubt you would do anything but create family unrest. My usual response to this is to leave reading material around about autism, but it has to fall on an open heart.

ASDMommyASDKid - thanks for the reply and I guess you are right, they are doing well and me bringing this up is not going to change anything for my daughter. My intention was mainly to bring more awareness to them especially since both of them are not married or have kids so would help them to be more aware for their future.

momsparky - thanks for the reply. you are right too, i am not sure how well it will be taken if i did mention this to them. They generally dont seem to care much about my daughter or her diagnosis anyway so why bother.

When asked by drs about family history, I would answer:

We have no diagnosed autism. However, DS has an aunt who didn't speak until she was four and and uncle who has some issues with ridgitity.

I said that about my grandfather, just described the things that were unusual.

Kailuamom, when you did mention this to the Dr, what did he have to say about it? I'm just curious because I've never had a chance to mention this to any of the dr's we have seen so far.

The Dr. just included it in his notes. However, I think that it helps them from a diagnostic perspective.

Funny, the Dr. who I am thinking of (that I answered this to) is an Aspie as well. I later learned that he has elaborate scoring spreadsheets where he enters a value for every answer you give. This provides him the data analysis on possible dx and meds to try.

I think that this is good advice.

I wouldn't say anything to your wife's family about their situation since the people suspected of having autism are adults with jobs. It will just upset everyone, and it is not really your place to say anything. The likelihood that the brother and sister will get any sort of therapy is very low anyway if they don't want it.

thanks for all the advice guys, I guess saying nothing is the best way to go. Kailuamom, will certainly use your approach the next time we see the dr.

Good advice. I mentioned to my son's psych that his father had some kind of IEP when he was very young, but no diagnosis. His mother doesn't even know what it was for!
Also, I have two brothers who had speech therapy but no official diagnosis other than OCD for one. (I think the other is borderline Aspie personally).

The Dr. made a note of what I said, so must have thought it of some worth. More information is always better, so it won't hurt.

As far as family, they need to realize things in their own time. I know if I approach my brother about being an Aspie, he'll reject it. He is divorced, but doing well and has a good job.
After all of the reading I did and having my son diagnosed, I pretty much suspected my husband would qualify as an Aspie. But have not said anything to him about it at all! I knew he had to process everything in his own time. The more he read about our son's situation, the more he might see himself. It's been months, but JUST this weekend, he said in response to something, "Honey, you MARRIED Aspergers!" We both laughed. It's kind of a relief to see him reach his comfort level with it in his own time.