Our Aspergers Teenage Boy

Dad reports:
Tommy has this thing about failure. It seems like he likes to fail. The negative is strong for him. He seems to prefer scoldings to compliments; you can see him ask for it and his body prepare for a verbal lashing even when one is not coming.

So when Tommy starts doing well with something like group therapy. He takes time to learn the things that will make it go not so well and then he pushes buttons until he gets removed. Now, this could be a “comfort zone” thing. Perhaps he is not really trying to get kicked out but has become so comfortable with the routine that his confidence is risen to the point that he thinks he can get away with stuff that he should not be doing and he knows this stuff will get him attention, even if it is negative attention.

Yesterday at Star, a program that he was on a waiting list for 3 years to be able to participate (that’s 1/4 of his life he was on the waiting list), he was rude, confrontational, disobedient, disrespectful and dangerous. I believe he thinks he is being funny. Just before going to Star Tommy back talked me (back talking is a new suit that Tommy has been trying on for size) and we had a serious talk about respect and back talk and how it would get him in trouble. The instructor used “back talk” exactly to describe one of the things Tommy was doing. He refused to use his grooming equipment correctly despite the volunteer’s promptings. He was rude to the volunteer and at one point squeezed his legs together on the horse to make it jump at the volunteer which scared her very badly and was a danger to her. The volunteer told the instructor “I can’t work with him.” And the instructor had to get firm with Tommy which she explained to Tommy (in my presence) that becomes scary to the little, younger riders; that they don’t know what to think when the instructor “becomes mean” to a big kid.

The instructor made it clear that if Tommy continued this behavior he would be removed from the program. Knowing the way Tommy’s mind works, he probably doesn’t believe it and will try next week to see if we are serious. I told the instructor that on the first offensive next week she pulls him out of the class and brings him to me.

It makes me sad that Tommy does this.

Dad reports:
I remember Middle School as being the toughest 3 years of my life. I don’t mean the hardest or most difficult. I mean chest strutting, bad attitude, standup and take it tough. There were fights everyday and the students would create this human chain 3 people deep in a circle around the kids fighting to help keep the teachers off them a few more seconds so the fists could land a couple more times. The teachers can’t possibly watch the students all the time and the nerdy ones were targets. There was this one poor child, probably not unlike Tommy, that daily would have the flap of his backpack flipped over his head; I even did it once and felt so guilty afterwards that I may have even apologised to him. One day in gym class, this kids was walking toward the bleachers from the locker room. He is about center court and the girls bleachers are packed full as well as the boys bleachers; there must have been 50 or more of his peers staring at him. Another boy runs up behind him and grabs his pants and pulls short and underwear down below his knees. The kid drops to the floor sitting on his bottom and wrapping his arms around his knees still revealing himself to the entire gym glass. He absolutely didn’t know how to react but who would for such a terrible act. The victom was humiliated; the antagonist never caught (to the best of my knowledge).

I am certain that Tommy is receiving similar treatment (hopefully not as extreme).

Tommy reports to me that another child in his gym class slapped him in the face so hard that his glasses flew off and nearly broke. The nearly broke is certainly one of Tommy’s exaggerations; he likes exaggeration so his stories are hard to decipher sometimes. The other child was flicking bottle caps at Tommy also (remember holding a bottle cap between your thumb and middle finger and snapping your fingers to make it zing accurately, hard and far? I’m sure that’s what the child was doing). The abuse was prompted by Tommy’s actions yesterday when he and, apparently, the coach were teasing a female student (who Tommy’s teacher claims Tommy has a crush on). So today, a female friend of the student approaches Tommy and explains how angry they all are with him; he claims he gave apologies. A male friend of that female was the abuser. Tommy claims there are about 15 guys in the class that have been abusing him since he started gym class. We know of one other student that was in this class that used “abuse” as one of the reasons for leaving the school. The coach tells Tommy “just stay away from him.” This coach needs some training in how to help Tommy because his gym class could be a world of learning for him and for the other students provided the coach isn’t one of those guys that’s been tackled one too many times and uses the class as his own personal break.

If you buy two or more psychiatric medications for another member of your family, you should be eligible for a daily dose of valium. Maybe we should move someplace where medications don’t require begging and pleading. “But doctor, I can’t sleep and I feel like screaming.”

Tommy was moving slow today, but he made it to the bus with shoes and socks on his feet. He asked me a dozen times to go check my e-mail. Mr. No-sense-of-humor stuck a post-it on the bottom of my mouse just like he did last year. I shudder to think what he’ll try at STAR this afternoon.

Dad Reports:

Tommy didn’t want to get out of bed and I got a little gruff with him and he groused at me. He rose at 7 and dressed quickly and is now going to have cereal. He is grumpy. He got upset when I made him use a different bowl for cereal. We have these exceptionally large bowls and he fills them to the brim with cereal then adds milk and anything that falls out he eats dry. “Hey cool it’s chocolate milk!”

Dad reports this morning:
Tommy received medicine at 6:20 and immediately rolled back into a deep sleep.

I have mixed chocolate into the gallon of milk that Tommy drinks from. Tommy drinks 2% while the skinny siblings and toddler drink whole milk. Let’s see how Tommy reacts. This is my only April’s fool joke on the kids (since the bed switching failed so bad).

Dad reports last night:
Tried moving Tommy into Sarah’s bed but couldn’t figure out how to lift his weight (191.8 lbs at last weighing; 87 kilograms; 13.7 stone – Thank you OnlineConversion!) and he kept waking when we would try.