To - some advice

[Guest guest]

,

I'm glad that you wrote to the group before your son returned. I am

the mother of a 17 yr. old female with Asperger. She was diagnosed

only 3 yrs. ago after many years of unsuccessful treatment

(medications & psychotherapy) for anxiety & depression. Since we have

no special programs in our area, she attends a specialized boarding

school in another state. We have learned a lot of lessons the hard

way. My daughter has been misunderstood for many years. We still work

at understanding her brain & personality. She needs environments

that understand her and support her areas of needs. Let me share some

principles that I hope will help you & your wife when these

" surprises " happen:

1. Take time.

When your son's behavior is problematic, take time to regain your own

calm. Take time to regain your reasoning power before you determine what

meaning you give to your son's behaviors. Try not to judge things by

success and failure terms so much. Most environments are not set up

for people with ASDs. There will be a lot of failures if you continue

to measure with this standard. This will probably discourage you,

your son and the rest of your family.

People with ASDs have central nervous systems that work differently

than most of ours. This amounts to comprehensive " learning

disabilities " but the " learning deficits " are in the complicated

areas of social interactions and emotional understanding. Some of the

differences can be explained by simple behaviors such as looking

someone in the eye when you talk to them. However, especially by age

12, much of the " deficits " are more complicated such understand

things like: pecking order among subgroups of peers, retaliations,

behaviors that bring popularity and praise from peers; behaviors

that bring ridicule, behaviors that bring adult attentions and

restrictions, etc. In a 24/7 camp situation, it can get pretty

confusing. Also, at the same time, he's got his own feelings that may

confuse and/or upset him. If he wants to become friends with another

camper or group of campers, does he know how to become friends? does

he feel he's been successful at friend-making before. Probably not.

All of this is happening while he's away from his usual supports such

as the home & family routines. He probably won't really have much

insight into any of this since self-understanding and insight more of

those vague, social understanding areas where he has problems. He may

or may not be able to talk about much of this. So, I suggest that you

take time to think about the context that your son is reacting to.

Talk to him and ask him questions about what the other kids or adults

were doing before. Find out what he understands. This may give you a

clue to his world.

2. Use your resources.

Take time to use your family (adult) resources before you determine

your explanation and the consequence for the problem behavior. It's

most helpful when both parents understand things the same way and

come up with explanations and consequences together.If you haven't

already done this, learn about ASDs. Keep learning. It's complex

and hard to wrap your head around. Also, we're learning more & more

all the time about these complex disorders. In our family, my

husband & I often saw my daughter's behavior problems very

differently. We became angry with each other and when we were angry

with each other, this complicated things and confused our daughter more.

3. Be concrete, specific and when there is a consequence, be clear.

When you calmly, approach your son whether it's to ask some

questions or to explain why the behavior was a problem in the

situation, be specific and clear to the situation. It's our

experience that our very bright and verbal daughter does very poorly

with social/personal concepts and abstractions such as words like

courtesy, manners, self-respect, dignity, or even, friendly, cruel,

mean, etc. I think the " explanation " will mean more when it's

specific to the circumstance, clear and short. (The same goes for the

consequence whether it's a loss of privilege or penalty).

There's a lot of learning that your son will get from his family.

Since a lot of the social and personal lessons come from family life,

parents of kids with ASDs have to become " special educators " . We do

a lot of this with all kids when they're young, but we usually bow

out towards middle school. I hope you & your wife stay with your son

on this journey. He needs the social curriculum. It's hard work and

most schools haven't really figured out how to teach the complex

lessons of the social/personal curriculum very well. Keep looking for

specialized camps and good school programs. Good luck.

Best regards,

Sue