Our Aspergers Teenage Boy

Dad reports:
Mom and I are at wit’s end. I think we are both at the brink of wanting to just send Tommy away. We’ve even had discussions of sending him to his biological father. Tommy says he doesn’t want to go up there but during the trip Tommy seemed to be having a fine time.

This morning Tommy stirred easier but became irritated when I would not bring his clothes to him. Already I let him get away with rudeness, backtalk, disrepect and actions that regular kids would be punished for severely. Am I supposed to be his manservant too?

He became enraged when his bus arrived and slammed his fist down on our glass top stove to which I had to tell him not to hit our appliances and it ended in raised voices. When you are saying something Tommy doesn’t want to hear, whether or not he was speaking, he interupts you to yell, “Stop interupting me!” He makes you want badly to give him a belting.

Dad reports:
Tommy slept until noon. Got up ate. Now sits at the table refusing to bathe. It’s 1:18pm. He has a doctor’s appointment at 4:45pm with a 20 minute drive time so basically he as 3 hours to prepare. His baths have been running 2 hours. We didn’t make him bathe yesterday at all.

And we just where do we draw the line?

Mom reports: Tommy has declared that he WILL NOT do chores on the weekend because that is HIS time. During the week he’s too tired to do anything around the house. Tommy won’t carry the basket of clean laundry upstairs for me to fold because laundry is not his job. Tommy won’t even pick up the garbage or dirty clothes off his floor because “It’s his room and he doesn’t care what it looks like.” I asked Tommy when it’s my turn to have relax or have fun and he informed me that I’m an adult and I’m not supposed to have fun. I’m supposed to clean, grocery shop and do laundry. All of this the day after Tommy gets to spend 24 hours being entertained by his grandparents and then go out to play D&D for several hours with his father (while I stayed home and did laundry).

Dad reports:
Tonight we played D&D with Tommy’s friend and his friend’s sister. His friend’s dad was the DM. Much fun was had by all. Tommy laughed manically for much of the last 1 ½ to 2 hours but everyone put up with him. Most of that time was spent with him saying, “I cut open the belly of the beast to see what’s in it.” DM, “you find rats.” Tommy, “ok, I cut open the bellies of the rats.” (manic laughter) Or “I run away and climb a tree then shoot my bow into the crowd. I hope I hit the monster and not my friends.” (manic laughter) “I swing my sword at anything that moves.” (manic laughter) During a battle when one player is about to die, “I spin in circles.” (manic laughter)

I decided not to lecture or fuss at Tommy and just let him enjoy. Let him have happiness and maybe he will decide he likes that better than anger.

Dad reports:
Tommy was at his grandparents last night and today. It took them 2 hours to get him off the video game. He kept saying, “I just need to make the next level to save.” They asked his little brother if he knew how to save and he replied, “no but I know how to turn it off!”

He argued getting in the bath then argued getting out. No amount of encouragement seems to help. When told that he was going to get to play D&D with his friend tonight he got excited but did not rush his bath and returned to the bed after getting out of the bath.

No amount of negative nor positive reinforcement motivates Tommy right now.

Dad reports:
Tommy missed his bus then had a big hissy because “it’s not fair!” and when I replied with “yes Tommy. It’s not fair to the bus driver when you aren’t ready.” he yelled at me and said truthfully, “I don’t want to be lectured right now. I’m upset!”

This screws my morning but when does one of Tommy’s moments not throw a monkey wrench in the whole works.

Today I’m supposed to have an extremely important meeting from 1:30-2:30 then spend the afternoon in discussions regarding an issue that could cause my project to be thrown out the window. By some miracle, I’m supposed ot pick Tommy up at 3:30 since the aid, that was assigned to the bus specifically because of Tommy, won’t be on the bus today.

How do people with less flexible jobs or single parents survive an Asperger child?

Dad reports:
So the high school uses block scheduling. This means Tommy’s classes are an hour and a half long. The premise is that for half the year you get really intense English. Then the next half of the year you won’t have English but will have really intense math. I contend that for a class like a foreign language this would be great. Lab classes like chemistry could take great advantage of block scheduling. However, fundamentals like math I don’t see effectively fitting into a block scheduling. Math needs to be constantly practiced, not crammed in half year blocks of knowledge. Also, the brain turns off after so much and an hour and a half is too long for math for regular students much less an Aspergers child. Now thrown in a class that is an hour and a half long that Tommy either doesn’t like the material, the teacher or the students and its a formula for disaster.

Dad reports this morning:
Yesterday the school called to say Tommy disrupted his 3rd block class and threw something which hit another student. They wanted him picked up. I asked if he had calmed and they said yes. I suggested maybe we weren’t picking our battles and that it would be in the best interest of the student to have him go to his 4th block and continue his work. Apparently they did that and all worked out. I suggested in-school suspension if 4th block didn’t work out.

I fear being sent home will become a reward. Child’s mind: “I don’t want to be in this class. All I have to do is act up and I can go home and sleep.”

This morning Tommy is refusing to get out of bed. The puppy and I just went in to rouse him and he barked at the dog (pun intended) and griped that he didn’t like her “sitting on him”. In actuality the dog was standing over him but not biting (nibbling) nor sitting on him. I encouraged him with food and the desire for him to not be late or miss his bus. I went on to say “I can’t drive you to school today.” All he did was growl at me. Al I was trying to do was get him to sit up.

Dad reports this morning:
Tommy refused to bathe last night. He also stated that he didn’t want to bathe until after school. Now he is refusing to get out of bed and pronouncing “dad” with 4 and 5 syllables every time I try to rouse him.

Dad reports:
Tommy has me near speechless.

He has slept in school everyday. His planner (our way of communicating with school) was hidden behind books in his class. He has earned a detention for repeated lateness to one of his classes.

Tommy continues to yell for the slightest reasons although his outbursts are becoming shorter. The 2.5 year old now yells at Mom everytime Tommy does.

Our therapeutic approach? We are basically not demanding anything of any of the kids. We are shooting for zero stress and total happiness. Tommy yells and we try hard to maintain. Tommy insults and we resist the urge to call him an asshole. We ask Tommy to bathe he barks “I want to go to sleep” so we let him. If we don’t there is yelling so loud that all our ears hurt, I end up forcefully removing Tommy from the house and he yells at the neighbors for ½ an hour to an hour, the kids cry, the toddler copies Tommy, Mom has contractions, and I end up so stressed that I cannot work on anything other than going to bed.

Tomorrow Tommy will smell horrible. I will be unable to get him up early to bathe but I’ll try anyway. This morning he missed his bus then gripped because “we” were making him late to school. I wonder if he’ll miss tomorrow.