Our Aspergers Teenage Boy

Mom reports: After a recommendation from Arcite I ordered “Speed of Dark” and “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”. I am still waiting for “Asperger Syndrome, Adolescence and Identity: Looking Beyond the Label” to arrive.
Reviews coming soon.

Dad reports:
Tommy wore shoes with no socks all day and made the paint wither off the walls when he removed his shoes. Whew!

Tommy is desiring money again. He hopes to earn $25 for helping me clear some of the property but he doesn’t work very long without getting distracted and he quits at the first bit of weariness.

Dad reports:
No-swords United in Righteousness (1898-1901) recently paid the site a visit.

I love their description of Tommy’s reading ability “…can read like a vacuum cleaner…” That is so accurate!

They ask 2 very good questions, one of which made me go back and re-read several entries in this blog.
1) isn’t there some danger he’ll find it?
2) And be embarrassed?

1. Yes. He made find the blog. I don’t view that as a “danger” though. Matter of fact, he is aware of the blog as he as personally typed entries. Here is an example and regarding his weight and more on gym and there are others.

   I do not anticipate that he will stumble across the blog and if he does I doubt it would hold his attention at this point in his life. However, it would serve him well in the future as it is an accurate journal of his life. He can return to this one day and better understand himself and some of the frustrations that we as parents experienced. Tommy is continuing to mature and become a functional person. At some point, reviewing his growth may be very interesting and helpful to him.

   As a parent of an Asperger’s child you frequently feel very frustrated and isolated. The child is frequently against you; the school system figths your every effort; society questions your parenting ability and blames you; your job suffers; and the legal system and government lack support for you. It’s good to have an area to vent; it’s better that other Aspie parents can see that they are not alone.

   Tommy has a selective memory. He can create what you and I would call a “lie” and he stores it as a memory and a “truth” in his head. I also think that one day this blog will help him sort out some “un-truths.”

2. We are not concerned about the blog embarassing Tommy because we only report the truth about what he does.

   Very little bothers Tommy unless he wants it to bother him. In the 5th grade he would use nudity to get out of doing things at school. He would strip down and run up and down the halls.
   He regularly does things in public that would embarass you or I terribly such as wearing clownishly mismatched clothing. A bad habit he does regularly and seems bothered little by is picking his nose, inspecting the findings, and eatting them.

   I am not saying that Tommy doesn’t get embarassed. As a teenager many things are beginning to embarass him. Nudity has become a huge embarassment. Mention nudity (whether it is in an art concept or a discussion of appropriateness or the naturalness of it) and he gets angry. He also gets very embarassed as the subject of girls. It is such a relief to have him exhibit such a normal response to that! We drove past his middle school yesterday and two girls were walking down the side walk and I said to Tommy, who typically rides in the car with his eyes in a book instead of out the window, “look at those two cute middle school girls.” I got a major brush off but his eyes were looking out the window. A nice hint of age appropriate behavior.

For anyone interested in learning what it is like to be Tommy (without having to live with him), I highly recommend reading Haze by Kathy Hoopmann. A good reader could probably get through this book in an hour or two and it describe’s an Aspie’s life very well!

I hope that one day we can convince Tommy to write his own book. We are also hoping that his eldest sister will write one from the perspective of a sibling of an Apsie.

Thank you No-sword for your visit and the good questions!

Dad reports:
When I left for carpool with Tommy’s brother and eldest sister, Tommy was undressed and rocking on his bed complaining of being cold.

I returned from carpool to find the bus sitting in front of the house (means Tommy waited until the bus pulled up to begin getting dressed and gathering his things). Tommy came out in no socks and shoes untied but otherwise dressed fine. I felt that he was sneaking something in his bag but I wasn’t going to search him in front of the bus particularly after he had given it an obvious delay.

I understand why authority figures (principals, police, parents) become obsessed with the actions of recidivatists. It doesn’t take long before EVERYTHING they do looks guilty.

Dad reports this morning:
Tommy received medicine at 6:15. The timing on Tommy’s mornings is important. Wake him up too late and he has delays getting to the bus. Wake him up too early and he has time to plot and sneak things to school.