Need advice to deal with adolescent son with no insight

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I am new to this forum but am reaching out to all of you for advice.

I have a 15 year old son who was diagnosed with aspergers two years ago. He is in his third school. We are in therapy as a family to learn to deal with him. But we are stuck.

My son seems to have no insight into the damage he is doing to his life. He is refusing to go to school, participate in therapy, follow rules or abide by limits that are set. It seems to me that it is his way or no way at all. His therapists want us to petition the court to have a probation officer assigned to him so he will do what he is told. This is screaming BAD IDEA to me. It sounds more punitive than a way to help him to be better and gain insight into his behavior.

I am angry, sad, scared, and tired. I am reaching out to all of you. I need advice, and support.

I agree that punishment isn't likely to help.

How does he seem to be doing emotionally? Is he acting scared or sad? Sometimes this sort of behavior can result from anxiety or depression.

He has a history of depression and anxiety and has been on medication. But he started having reactions to the meds so his doctor took him off. He seems angry, defensive. He acknowledges the disappointments he has had, but doesn't seem like he can accept them or work through them. He just wants everything to go his way. When I say that I seems child-like. I feel like his therapists are going in the wrong direction. But what if I am wrong? It doesn't feel right to me.

I am confused so I am going to ask some questions, OK?

I would presume if he is not attending school, he is already running into legal truancy issues. How would being assigned a probation officer help that? What is the purpose? Would it not accelerate his legal problems?

I do not understand the supposed benefit of actively involving law enforcement.

I have dealt with enough counselors to see this as a pretty typical reaction. The counselor sees nothing but a punk with a bad attitude, so he is going into every interaction looking for confirmation that this is a punk with a bad attitude. Everything this kid does or doesn't do confirms it, because the boy is definitely acting out. The counselor is then following a standard checklist they have for bullying teens with bad attitudes who think they are the biggest and baddest thing to ever walk the planet into toeing the line.

The problem here is that this teen, while showing every evidence of a bad attitude, is probably having deeper issues. His mom sees it, or she wouldn't be here looking for answers, saying that all her instincts are screaming that the legal involvement is a Bad Idea. The boy has a history of depression and anxiety, is not on his meds for those things, and I am going to guess that the counselor hasn't even considered that those two things might be behind the boy's refusal to go to school. The counselor is just a person, and one who is probably frustrated and angered by whatever garbage is spewing out of this boy's mouth. They are supposed to be bigger than to let that influence their interactions, but in my experience they usually aren't.

Also, talking about confirmation bias, the boy has been through three schools, all that change, all those people telling him he isn't good enough, he isn't worthy of their time and effort, he's too different. All those new people and places to deal with when by definition of being on the autism spectrum, he doesn't deal well with change, and he is probably looking for ways to defend himself.

The kid is 15, going on 12, if he is anything like most of the kids on here with Asperger's, and kids that age, when backed into a corner lash out like wounded animals in a trap. He is probably having a lot of hyperbole in his thinking. "Why bother going to this school? I'm just a loser, and they'll see that and hate me, just like all those others saw it and hated me." "I gave it all I had at school A, and I failed, and it hurt, so I am not going to put myself out there enough to let anyone at school C hurt me." <--Only a lot less concise. At that age, he probably doesn't even know why he's acting the way he is, but with the immaturity, history of repeated social failures, depression, and anxiety, I'd bet this has a lot to do with it.

I don't know how you get through all those defenses he's thrown up, but I do know that backing him further into the corner isn't going to do anything but further confirm to him that nobody cares about him, everyone is out to get him, and that he needs to do even more to protect himself.

Last edited by MiahClone on 25 Jul 2013, 11:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't know where you are, but let me give you a little heads up here. My daughter had a chronic health problem and was home sick a good number days from 8th grade to 10th grade. The nurse practitioner we were taking her to see couldn't find anything wrong and diagnosed "schoolitis" meaning "doesn't want to go to school". She called the school nurse who called the truant officer and we were drug into court for the "warning program". Well that didn't put her on probation but I fired that nurse practitioner as my kids health care provider and took her to the new doctor in town. He's an MD and he sent her to a specialist and she was on meds, had tests, etc and had notes from the doctor and the specialist saying that she had a complicated medical problem that they were trying to diagnose. She was an a student and never in any trouble -teachers pet type. But the truant officer kept on because the original CRNP said she was faking (even though I took her in to the office to see her every time she was sick) and even with personal letters written to the judge, copies of her medical records and tests she was put on probation.

Her problem was that she threw up in the mornings, every morning, summer, winter, vacation, etc. Just stomach acid. She would usually make it in to school but sometimes she would still be sick and have to leave. Sometimes I'd keep her home and the doctor would send an excuse. She kept up with her work and was truly sick. Turned out after tests and tests and tests, she had to have her gallbladder out. That solved it.

However, she was on probation from 8th grade to 10th grade because of the word of that one nurse practitioner, who they believed over three MD's, - family practice, GI, and surgeon. During the time she was on probation I would have to take her in monthly or so and she would be grilled by the "officer" about her school work, etc (still honor student) and read the riot act about how important it was to go to school. We had to pay for this privilege. We paid a monthly probation fee, and fee for surprise urine tests (always negative!! !), court costs, and even the lawyer fee because he lost the case for us and was a local court appointed boy.

Well, I'm not going to go into all the court appearances we had, the other lawyer we hired, the days DH missed from work to take us up there to sit in court all day for nothing, etc. But that's what they can do when they file a petition. Even when they have no proof and you bring in the proof that your child isn't doing anything wrong on purpose.

The therapist can call and have them file a petition and go around you. They like to have the parent do it so the parent can be "involved" but if they want to they can call and say they think he's defiant or truant, or whatever they come up with and you will go to court and have to prove that that therapist is wrong, and it may be hard to do. Even with other docs.

So, be careful about this, and I'd really leave that therapist right now and find someone else. Don't tell them why, just cancel and make an appointment with someone else. Interview the new therapist first. I'm not trying to scare you, but if they get their hands on your child it can be very hard to get them to turn loose, and the PO would even have the option to have the kid sent to juvie for truancy or behavior, etc, even without your permission.

Changing schools is pretty stressful. It is hard enough to make new friends in a new school and even harder for a kid on the spectrum. If teachers don't understand the challenges of an AS kid, it's no wonder he doesn't want to go to school. School becomes a hostile place for him to be. Dealing with other kids and teachers who do not care to help him just further isolate him. I feel so bad for your son. I know that here, if the school cannot provide an adequate learning environment for the kid, that you can put them in a private school or tutors and then the Board of Education has to pay for that private schooling. Find out if you have that option in your district, or even if you can hire tutors and get reimbursed if he can get home schooled. That poor guy is getting shortchanged. Find out what your rights are. No way is it his fault. The school is not doing its job properly. I'm sorry you are going through this!! !

OliveOilMom, that is really horrible that they can do that. This probation sounds like a really bad thing. From what you and MiahClone say (whose experiences also ring true to me) I cannot see any upside in this at all.

The only upside to the fact that they can do that is if a kid is really truant and really a problem and the parents don't believe it or won't do anything about it then they can step in and do something. There are times it's needed with some kids which I've seen around here, but they weren't just kids who did what mine did or hers is doing. These kids were into some pretty bad stuff and the parents wouldn't try to do anything about it. I'm talking about stealing, serious drugs, that kind of thing. So, you can see why the school or a counselor, etc has to be able to call and file a petition on them if the parents won't, but they go overboard so much about small things. My youngest son's friend got put on probation for a year when he was 15 because a cop saw him walking down the street smoking a cigarette. (underage). The cop should have taken the cigarettes and took him home to his mother and told on him and let her handle it, but he went straight to filing a petition.

I think the truancy thing is tied up with the No Child Left Behind Act. That's where schools get funding based on how many kids show up a certain number of days. If they kid is sick they can opt to accept doctors notes, a certain number of parent notes, etc. It's up to them what to accept but they are so afraid they won't get any money I've seen parents be taken to court over one more unexcused absence than is allowed (and all parent notes over ten per year are considered unexcused - that's ten days, not ten instances of being sick a day or two). It's so crowded on truancy day here that you have to park a block or two away because of that. And on truancy day, they only handle truancy cases at the court house. Nothing else.


ETA, I saw this advertised on tv the other day and found the link for you. I don't know anything about it, but maybe it's something you could do so you don't deal with the truancy officer. <Link for K - 12 Public school online>

One of the other parents on here usually replies to posts like this with information about pragmatic speech deficits. She does a really great job with her son as an example. Maybe she will respond to this post as well, but if not, type in pragmatics in the search and read some of those posts. It seems to be a familiar story around here.

LOL, hi, Eureka - just getting to this thread late.

Pragmatic speech deficits are very common in kids with AS, and for my son they caused a lot of the symptoms you're seeing in your 15-year-old. http://www.asha.org/public/speech/devel ... matics.htm Often, poor pragmatics are mistaken for defiance when the child is really trying to express the literal truth of their situation.

Basically, pragmatics are social speech use - so they include all kinds of things like tone of voice, facial and body expressions, word choices: the parts of language you wouldn't find when reading a textbook. Your child may speak "normally," in terms of his expressive language, but may be missing some or all of the social nuances of speech - we realized during the speech test that my son was getting only about 70% of every interaction. This created an incredibly frustrating and upsetting world for him where he did his best but people were constantly angry with him, or scared, or even sometimes happy with him for no reason he could discern: imagine what that must be like for a young kid.

Almost every school that tests for speech can test for pragmatics, but remember that the score should reflect the difference between his pragmatic ability and the other speech tests (so, he could get a passing score and still have a deficit if his expressive language is highly developed - this is because we have a higher expectation of a child with a developed vocabulary) Schools also offer therapy for pragmatics as well.

There's an index of posts stickied at the top of the board: poke around there and see if anything strikes you. For a look inside the mind of a person with Asperger's syndrome, a good place to start is this e-book, written by one of our members: http://www.asdstuff.com/

We've been through a real journey with my son, who didn't get an appropriate diagnosis until he was 10, and with that and us learning to take his disability seriously (and to hold the school accountable) he has made nearly a 180 degree turn-around. It was really frightening - but I credit this forum and the advice from the community here with helping us figure it out.

(There are obviously other issues besides speech, but we found that to be the lynchpin of helping my son. We still work on flexibility, some motor skills issues, and executive functioning problems - but getting the communication problems addressed were, for us, the most important place to start.)

Wow everyone thank you. I have been feeling like I am crazy. I can't sleep at night, I am worried, scared, sad, and angry.

For background, at my son's middle school he was bullied mercilessly. He threatened suicide, ended up on meds for depression which helped for a while, and was diagnosed with ASD.

Second school was better, but the anxiety about homework that he could not do, not because of academics (he is really smart) but because of anxiety, sent him into a downward spiral and he "couldn't" go to school. He completely decompensated and shut down. It took almost 3 months of fighting with my town and hiring a lawyer to get home bound tutoring. His school won't take him back (private school) until he can work through his anxiety and the town has placed him in a therapeutic day school.

School three, the therapeutic day school has him going to school this summer, which is fine with me. But we are still working out the kinks. Its an hour away and another transition. He is struggling but he is going to school.

He doesn't like his therapists. They are intensive therapists provided by the state for kids in crisis, which he was back in March. They are the ones bringing up all this stuff about a probation officer. They are not able to engage my son and feel a probation officer telling my son he has to participate in therapy is going to work. This is ridiculous.

We'd been seeking help from therapists since my son was 3. Unfortunately, autism really requires a specialist to overcome the communication issues - if they're using traditional therapists and traditional talk therapy, you're going to get this kind of a result. The problem isn't his attitude, it's that he can't communicate appropriately, and he needs help with that first.

One of the big eye-openers for us was how clueless all the so-called "professionals" were. When we finally found people who had experience in actually helping people with autism, things were different (still hard at the beginning, but we could see a glimmer of hope.) I don't know what kind of resources are available to you, but we finally found the support we needed from a multi-disciplinary group of specialists for developmental disorders headed by a pediatric neuropsychologist and a developmental pediatrician. They also offered advocacy at the school to make sure DS was getting what he needed.

To that end, they gave us this article, which is as good a place to start as any: http://www.casenex.com/casenex/cecReadi ... ntTips.pdf

Cstrych, I don't know much about getting help for AS and ASD's, I thought my kids were all NT's but within the past year or so I'm really suspecting my youngest son to be AS like I am. He has ADHD and is treated for that just fine, and my older boy had it too but back then it was only Ritalin and he couldn't tolerate it so he just had to deal without it, so I don't have much experience in getting treatment for spectrum disorders. I was dx'd in my 40's and never got it treated, just my depression and anxiety.

I prefaced this with that statement because I'm sure you have called around to everyone you have there trying to find somebody to work with him that will help, but I know a guy on FB who works with an organization that helps kids on the spectrum (his son is ASD) and most people are referred to it by United Way Information and Referral. They have lists and info on MD's, speech therapists, play therapists, OT's, Physical therapists, whatever other kind of therapist or specialist anybody would need PLUS they have listings for lawyers who will handle cases for parents and kids when they need it for something like custody, or the state trying to change or impose care, etc.

Now, I don't know if you have anything like that around there, but I had never heard of this agency even though it's been around a long time and was in the city I lived in all my life. It's still named what it was maybe from the 60s or early 70's, so it's probably offensive to some, but I didn't name it so don't hold it against me. It's called something like the Association For R<the word we don't say here> Citizens or something almost like that. They get most of their clients through United Way Information and Referral and sometimes other professionals. They are basically a referral agency and can help you find something.

This place is near me, but I'm wondering if there is anything like that near you that could help you find somebody else and especially a lawyer in case they try and jam you up with the PO. I know United Way Information and Referral is in the phone book here, but you may be able to find one near you online. I'd at least call them and ask if they have any referral agencies or services listed for folks on the spectrum and see what they have. It can't hurt to try.

Those Day Schools

#1 Do not teach any academics, or very, very limited. Most of them don't even own school books and rely on the school districts the kids should be going to to provide homework. If the school doesn't, then the kid does no academic homework.

#2 The Day Schools are populated by kids with drug addictions, serious emotional disturbances, serious mental illnesses such as bipolar or schizophrenia that aren't currently adequately controlled, kids that have committed violent crimes and aren't allowed to be on regular school property, but can't be housed in the detention center at the moment, even teen sex offenders (though there is supposed to be safety plans in place). They also are frequently small operations and house preschoolers through 19 year olds all in the same rooms and programs (or at least 10-12 up to 19).

#3 These are based purely on purely behavioral techniques. Charts, stickers (or some other marker), instant compliance regardless of any "excuses" (and any kind of prgmatics or executive function issue would be seen as an excuse) or losing markers. Lose too many markers and the punitive threats ratchet higher and higher.

If at all possible, I would recommend extricating your son as fast as you possibly can. Unless you are in Pennsylvania (they have crazy restrictive laws), it is not that hard to get him listed as homeschooling. Give him some time to decompress, while not pushing heavy academics, while you search for a proper therapist for him. I don't know your financial situation, but here, if you're child is on Medicaid or one of the other state programs similar to it, then they do transportation to appointments. My friend had her emotionally disturbed special needs child seeing someone at the Children's Hospital for a couple of years, and they rode the transport van to the appointments and back. It wasn't the greatest thing, but it got them there and he progressed more than he ever has anywhere else.

Even if you can't find a great counselor therapist, you might find that just not having that constant threatening environment would improve his behaviors and attitudes greatly.

Where I'm coming from--My 12 year old has been in and out of counseling for years, and the last place the counselor had similar attitude. We found the kid was better behaved when he felt like he could trust us, which that place seriously undermined with their constant threats to escalate his placement. It worked well for the oldest, who really just needed to learn some anger management techniques and who had a good attitude throughout. I don't hate the whole concept, but for some of these mouthy, emotionally sensitive, kids that aggressive in your face approach only makes them worse and worse. (Also, I used to be a child welfare social worker. We worked closely with the juvenile office, and I saw a lot of kids that didn't have any to shield them from this kind of escalation go through the whole gamut of counseling to juvenile office to jail to inpatient psychiatric to shelter to youth ranch and back and forth when a bit of actual human caring would have worked wonders)

My response would be pretty much the same as MiahClones: what you are seeing are the defensive reactions of a child who feels he cannot succeed. That is what everyone around him needs to understand, and adding weight to the issues with a probation officer will not help at all. As everyone here has universally agreed.

Since a lot has already been covered, I'll address the statement about him not being able to see the damage he is doing to his own life. Honestly, I don't know if he sees it or not, but as long as he feels he has no chance of success in meeting what is asked for him, it won't make a difference. If he feels it is hopeless, he is going to find a self-defensive way to deal with it, and that will mostly involve convincing himself he either doesn't care or that what is being asked is ridiculous. Or, he could make destruction a self-fulfilling prophecy using some twisted logic that at least that way he had control over it. Regardless, having him see the damage he is doing to his own life is a goal that, in my opinion, needs to be tabled.

The communication questions are important, because if he has unrecognized deficits in this area that will be contributing greatly to his failures. Also important is making him feel safe and protected, and that he does have some say and control over his life. All much easier to write as goals, than to tell you how to accomplish.

In the difficult times, you stay focused on the immediate need. It's head down, solve the single priority. In your case, I'd say it is figuring out how to make your son feel that people can understand and listen to him, and that what he says and feels matters. My guess is that he needs to feel safer and less alone, and also to test his wings with things he can be successful at. For the most part, forget how today affects tomorrow because, to put it simply, you have to get through today first.

My son is 16 and while I've been so grateful for so many things and feel we've been lucky in our choice of schools and community, there have been so many times when I saw him start down the road your son is on, and desperately had to search for answers on what was wrong and how to pull him back, make him feel successful, and get him engaged in life. Every time there was some way his needs weren't being met, some severe issue we had to find and sort. My son is a pretty happy person, but not in the way he once was. There are a lot of battle scars that occur in the process of growing up with ASD, and that is true even for a child in a community that understands ASD and has great supports for it. When you don't have that, it is all so much more difficult, and I feel for you and your son.

One of your best lines of defense is your instincts as a mom, so don't let anyone make you question those. When you feel the recommendation from a professional is off, it IS off. I hope you can find better local support in getting your son re-engaged. Regardless, we'll be here for you.