Mother of aspie

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My daughter is 11. I am new to this asperger thing and am not the most educated. She will be a teen before I know it and from my limited navigation here, I am learning that many of you are aspie's , young adults and teens. I would LOVE for some if not all, of you to contact me and tell me about how it was growing up with this, any suggestions in how to react to my daughter's little quams and how to help her. Coming from those who have been there, what can I do to make my daughter's life easier!!

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Growing up with Asperger's Syndrome isn't easy. In some cases, if not most, it is impossible for a child to assimilate themselves into a classroom with their students. I always had a different way of looking at things than all the other students, and sometimes my actions and words, while having good intentions, got me into trouble, and I was never sure why. So in your daughter's case, perhaps it would be best to explain to the teacher, that he/she needs to overlook a lot of your daughter's behavior. It isn't going to be her fault when she thinks differently and acts differently. She will learn in time.

Especially in her early teen years, there will probably be a lot of emotional turmoil. This is due to hormones and the overall fact that when someone has AS, it is hard to identify with other people, and the subsequent feeling can be that of alienation or just plain loneliness.

On these boards are a lot of people who would be willing to share advice with you. I suggest coming and posting if you have a problem with your daughter, and we can give the AS aspect of the scenario for you, if it has to do with AS at all.



Good luck, and welcome!

Honestly, Teenage life can be a nightmare. You'd hope that the teachers cared about their students, but when they dont understand or know that an aspie isn't the same as everyone else, we get held to social standards that don't make sense to us. We tend to live more on the logical side then anything(black and white, to the point). Its not that we dont have imaginations, some of us can become brilliant writers and artists, but that we don't have the instinctful social and coping skills most people are born with. Many aspies have a high IQ, meaning they can comprehend and learn, but it doesn't mean we know everything. You have to realize there are things you wont be able to change about her. She's already become comfortable with a lot of things she does by now. Listen to her opinion and just try to help her understand life and know she's loved. Emotionally, aspies can get very deep in feelings, being overwhlemed with anger or sorrow. It's going to be a long and hard road but if you keep these things in mind, you should do better than my mom did.

There need to be some ground rules for you and your daughter to learn to properly communicate. As an Aspie, these will be natural to her, although some of them may be a struggle.

1. Eye contact. Always have eye contact, all the time. If she does not have eye contact, it's your job to tell her. If she looks away as she talks, you must interrupt her and tell her. It will be annoying to her but comforting- she will make the connection between "eye contact" and "communicating" and from then on will always make eye contact.

2. No yelling, hitting, screaming or tantrums. If she is having one she must stop then you must calmly discuss it with her- why were you screaming? Does screaming change anything?

3. When you use words to objectify her, use them as braodly as possible. For example, don't say "you look pretty in that dress", instead say "you always look pretty but in that dress you're extra pretty".

4. Time. She needs to have a fundamental understanding of time. "Bedtime in ten minutes" means bedtime in ten minutes, not 12. She needs to understand how time passes. With me and my youngins, I used cartoon shows... "bedtime in half an hour. A half an hour is one cartoon show". From there you can break it down. "One cartoon then a commercial is 12 minutes" and "the commercial break itself is 3 minutes". Young Aspies have trouble with the progression of time and few parents make it any easier.

5. Definitive answers. "Come here now" means you have 5 seconds to come here. And going to the bathroom takes no more than 5 minutes. And when you ask her something, ask it bluntly- "pick up those socks" instead of "can you please pick up those socks".

6. Mine and yours. She has her space and this is her personal space. It's hers; no one can take it away from her. She is free to keep her space a little messy, but not a pig sty. Make sure she has a well-defined personal space. This way, when she feels a tantrum coming on she can go to her space... this spatially helps her cope knowing this space is hers and no one else's.

7. Treat her like an older child. No baby talking, no "special needs talking"... Aspies have a very good vocabulary and generally relate to others older or younger than herself. Use bigger words, don't use baby words.

8. Encourage her to express herself. Art, blocks, clay etc... she has a talent for something, it's your job to find it.

9. Dealing with other kids. As long as she understands etiquette (points 1 and 2) and time (point 3), she can have normal friends. Friends should come over at a specific pre-determined time and leave at an established time. As long as there is control over the interaction (ground rules), there's no reason she can't have "normal" friends.

10. Aspies need to be touched, hugged, kissed and loved more. Aspies percieve things differently and sense things differently. If an Aspie child grows up without touching, as an adult they won't like being touched. Aspies like having their backs rubbed for hours- the sensation of your warm hand on her back is comforting.

That's all I can think of.

Be there for her, give her your support, make her feel safe. That she knows what's happening around her, no surprises, unexpected things. Give her routines, daily routines I didn't have that as a child and I didn't feel safe.

Also we hate changes, don't change too much, don't move.
Give her a comfort zone.

I have told you what I missed growing up, if I had had these things I would have been much happier.

>>My dad ordered me around like that all the time. In a very rude tone, too. And not because he knew I had AS, but because he was a jerk.<<

A note to all NTs. Aspies can't understand the subtleties of speech and etiquette the same way you do. Since Asperger's is a lifelong condition, what is ultimately best is to at raise your kid with a clear set of yes/no instructions, any extraneous information becomes muddled.

A child raised with yes/no parents will inevitably come to have disdain for their parents in one degree or another. But a child who was never limits will grow up severly dysfunctional.

If someone's gotta be the bad guy, and if the bad guy is not your parents, then who?

>>And what is with limiting bathroom time? How anal is that?<<

You should also give the child a clear perception of time, as in- how much time it takes to get stuff done. Allowing a child to, for example, spend all day in the bathroom will only lead to well, them spending the entire day in the bathroom! This leads to stimming, which all Aspies do. As long as the child has their own "personal space" that no one can take away from them, you are free to impose any rules you wish, including a rule that "bathroom time is no more than five minutes" and "dinnertime is no more than half an hour" and "9:00 bedtime means 9:00 bedtime" and so on and over time, the child will learn by themselves what a reasonable amount of time for any task is and as such, will be able to function normally along with NTs.

Your putting everyone together again. I get time and I prefer it when people say please to me, no aspie is ever going to say please if she is never said please to.

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I am thankful it is easy for me. I am 11, and I do just fine now. I suggest you do some research.

First of all, knowing that your daughter has AS is going to help a lot. I wasn't diagnosed as a kid and my parents were always confused by me! I can't give advice from a parent perspective, but feel free to PM me if you have any questions, and I'll try to help!

Welcome! I'm another female Aspie. I'm fifteen at the moment and I was also diagnosed at eleven. It's a bit of a shock, hey? I wish my parents had been more amenable to researching it; I had to do most of my research on my own.

I agree with some of the other posters that the teen years are pretty awful, but I definitely think that the middle school years are worst.

Frankly, ladakh, I think you're way overboard.