As I remember my teen years I recall seeking independence, never wanting to show weakness, and touting knowledge where I had none. So, this morning I ask Tommy to boil some water for me and 15 minutes later or so it occurs to me that I still had no boiling water. Upon inspecting the stove I found the tea kettle on a burner on medium heat. Our knobs are labeled 1 to 10 with 1 being low and 10 being high. Tommy chose 5.
Tommy loves to cook and does a very good job. He particularly likes baking cookies. He has been in the kitchen enough to know his way around.
When we label someone, Asperger for instance, we create an outlet to funnel excuses. "He does that because of his Aspergers." This is ok because the child does have Aspergers and the parent needs a coping mechanism to deal with the child’s behavior. Unfortunately for the child, and the parent, the funnel is sometimes too large and sucks normal things into it; our children fall under a huge microscope. Where an undiagnosed child many do something, like set the burner to 5 to boil water, we laugh it off and declare it "cute" but with a labeled child we sigh and feel the need to teach, counsel, and tutor the child over something normal.
Today may have been the first time Tommy has boiled water. Perhaps he was not fully awake and turned the burner to the commonly used medium heat. Maybe he simply did not have the knowledge and like any other teen would rather risk being wrong than show weakness by asking for help.
A couple of years ago we took all the children to Harry Potter’s birthday party, or maybe it was a book release. I took a moment to objectively look at the coward. I saw my family not as my family but just as other people in the bookstore. My children were having fun but each of them exhibited more discipline and better behavior than many of the other children. It was at that point that I realized the techniques, fights, disciplines, and micromanaging of Tommy over the years had trickled down through all the children. I had to ask myself if we had been overbearing parents and I honestly answered no; they are simply well adjusted, happy children with good manners. However, I did come to the realization at that point that Tommy had succeeded where many people thought he would fail. And we as parents could lighten up and not assume every little behavior is related to Aspergers. For instance, there is nothing in our DNA that inherently makes us know that you boil water on high.