Our Aspergers Teenage Boy

Dad reports:

Our Aspergers children have their quirks but sometimes aren’t satisfied with them and seek new ones. Tommy has been doing so well. His Tourette syndrome behaviors have been almost non-existent. Aspie’s often show some tic or twitch and it is exasperated by the ADHD medicines.

Tommy has picked a new gig. A few weeks ago he started wearing one sock and having other shoe barefoot; or perhaps one boths socks but only one shoe. He will walk all over the house like this for hours. We paid no mind and only once has he tried to suck us into his game with an exaggerated limp routine through the living room. He does this at his grandparents also.

This is a good example of an Aspergers behavior that can easily be ignored. If it gives Tommy some bizarre pleasure or comfort, so be it. The one shoe on/one off just looks like he started to remove both his shoes and got distracted. This far different than constantly drawing circles in the air.

Dad reports:

Tommy really does have a great sense of humor.

Dad reports:

It’s the evening before the last day of school and we have bawling tears, screams, moans, yelling and flat out defiance. Nope. This is not about adjusting to change. We made the glorified mistake of asking Tommy to study. He has 3 pages front and back of fill in the blank questions to put in a couple of words each as his study for his final exam. He claims one took him 30 minutes because I asked him to write down the page where he found his answer. He wrote down that he found the answer in the glossary. After being unable to show me where the answer was in the glossary I volunteered to find the answer for him. So, using one hand while holding a baby, and using a book I’ve never opened, I found the answer in 30 seconds.

I ask, is this a battle worth fighting? What would Alan Shore do? So far Tommy has spent time with the mosquitoes on the porch and I’ve threatened to take his computer away. He has put severely more time into fighting this than it would take to have finished the work but I also feel he really has no clue how to use a reference book. I feel like I should help him learn but who wants to endure this?!

Dad reports:

In an IRC a few hours ago someone joked "Hey, I can multitask. I don’t have aspergers." Several things went through my mind. My initial thought was "this guy has Aspergers!" But then I began to think maybe not and I wanted to be offended that someone would joke about Aspergers. Instead I was glad.

I find it interesting to have been ahead of game learning about Aspergers before it was widely recognized. To have watch the growth in available reading materials and resources boom from almost nothing to a great wealth of information. Please, joke about Aspergers! To joke about it means the common person understands it.