Guilt...Guilt...Guilt

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Sue J, I am adult with Aspergers and never had any interventions as a child. The main thing I think might have helped was being put into a gifted class and allowed to do more advanced work. Perhaps some social skills training in high school would have helped too. The major thing I found bad was being told I was stupid and expected to become mediocre and not think I was "better than everybody else".

Unless your son asks for help in some areas, it is better to just let him be and tolerate his stims such as hand flapping. Also be aware that college might not be the best place for him even if his academic results are good. Sometimes a technical education facility is better. Anyway, let him decide what is best and don't force him into going to university if he doesn't wish to.

Anger issues are common with adolescents and adults with autism as we have spent years being misunderstood and pressured to live up to ieals that we don't believe in. We have to find our niche in life because until we do that, we will be restless and unhappy.

Sometimes this niche might not meet with the approval of others. I don't know if you have heard of the movie "Kenny". Kenny is a man in Melbourne, Australia, who supplies portable toilets for various events. His dad disapproves because he says he didn't send him to school just to clean toilets. His brother is snobby and he and his wife divorced because the job has extremely long hours and she hardly saw anything of him.

He is now travelling to the US and Canada and has become an unlikely ambassador for Australia. I don't know if he has Asperger's but he has this very focused interest in portaloos. It is one of the more unglamorous jobs but somebody has to do it. He is very friendly and not one to stand on ceremony. Because he was kind to a Japanese businessman in the US at a convention (he didn't know this man was the head of a large corporation and wouldn't have cared either), this man put a lot of business his way.

I'm not saying your son should be encouraged to get interested in toilets but if he is interested in something that is unconventional but that he enjoys, please don't squash his enthusiasm.

It sounds like you're a great parent and you shouldn't feel guilty. Just being positive and making suggestions is more than I got as a teenager. I'm quite envious! I've struggled with AS for 40 years without knowing it. My mom is an obvious aspie too, and she still doesn't know it. Anyway, we always had a difficult relationship as you can imagine. Talk about pathetic, I cannot remember the last time I hugged my mom! Don't get me wrong, it's understood that we love one another. Still, it's taken years and help from family to reach an uneasy truce.

I still rememeber in high school when we were given some assignment to go home and tell our parents we loved them or to hug them and share their reactions with the class. I went to hug my mom as soon as she got home from work and she exploded with an annoyed "Get off me!" I didn't try that again. Often, one of us was bound to lash out in frustration at the other with our aspie quirks. The woman was a total wreck when I moved out. She couldn't handle the change.

I love to play like a kid with my nieces on Sunday, and she can't help yelling at me to stop. "You're worse than they are! Stop jumping on my couch! I just cleaned!" as she obsessively wipes down the house. Argh! Simply being aware of his condition and sensitive to his needs is alot more support than some of us old timers got. Just don't push. My worse memories and the things that have given me the worse trouble have been the times when I tried too hard to be like an NT. I do try to mingle with new people here and there, but I often pull back at the first sign of inner disturbance.

I pray that you're son will check out the site! It's helped me. "We tell ourselves stories in order to live" and telling and hearing each other's stories here is a great relief. He really should submit a story to this sympathetic audience. Good luck!