February 2, 2012

The End of this Road

Keeping three blogs proved too much for me.  Something had to give, and it was Asperger’s at Home.  I continue to blog about my younger son’s Asperger’s and issues surrounding the autism spectrum at my other two writing homes:

  • Quarks and Quirks:  We homeschool, largely because that works best for my two boys, one with Asperger’s and the other with dysgraphia and ADHD.
  • Finding My Ground:  This is my more personal blog, including writing about my son’s Asperger’s and how it affects our lives.

Occasionally, you’ll find my writing at The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism.

 

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September 12, 2011

Advocacy Outside the Classroom

Morning karate class kicked my butt on Tuesday.

After a summer of on-again, off-again attendance, due to travel, heat, and general lethargy, returning to our small a.m. group of a few adults, another homeschooling boy, and my crew felt great.  It’s a more intimate and somewhat more casual class, and I have treasured friends with whom to spar, grapple, and gab.  I knew I’d be out of step after such scanty attendance, and I dreaded the remembering phase that inevitably follows even a week-long absence.  I knew my older would pick up where we left off.  His memory for the physical far exceeds mine.  I knew my younger, Bryce, would scramble with me, searching his brain for the moves that came so easily so recently.  So is our wiring.

Sure enough, somewhere between Basic Combination (series of three movements) 9 and 10, my brain ground to a halt, three combinations transforming into three different combinations in my mind.  Bryce, always a bit closer to me during class than I like, was grinding gears much earlier than I.  It was going to be a struggle today.

Then came forms.  Forms (or katas, as they are called in Japanese forms) are longer sequences of twenty or more actions that can be continuously improved but never perfected.  No danger of perfection here.  I like forms.  When I can empty my mind, they’re meditative.  Done continuously (over 100 moves in sequence), they’re fine exercise.  Good stuff, those forms.  But today, there was a twist. “If you make a mistake,” our instructor told us, “drop down and do a push up.  Then return to the form, catching up to where the group is.  If you make another mistake, do two push ups then return to the group.”

Yikes.  That’s not a bad exercise, since re-entering a sequence at a random spot takes more mastery than starting from the top and going straight through.  It’s a logistical, neurological nightmare for Bryce, however.  Staying with the group is hard enough for him, what with the visual distraction of other bodies doing moves while he’s trying to think and maintain his place.  The looking around kills him every time.  Add to that the penalty of push ups.  Let’s just say that Bryce has odd-looking push ups.  I spent years averting my gaze when he performed them (and we’re all supposed to be able to do 50, and not the on your knees kind).  He’s a lean, stalk-like child now, all knees, elbows, and winging scapulae.  Between the lax ligaments and some lingering hypotonia, even maintaining the starting position for push ups challenges him.  I keep vowing to work with him on that, but it’s yet to happen.  I didn’t dare glance his way as we prepared to start.

Begin.  The rhythm of one of my favorite elements of karate begins.  I don’t want to make a mistake because I don’t want to lose this flow.  It’s been awhile, and I remind myself that mistakes are inevitable.  Exhaling on each move, my mind and body return to the place where there is flow.

I don’t know when Bryce first dropped a beat, but it was either in the first or second of the five forms.  He did his push up, then stage whispered to me, “I’m just so dizzy.”

Rhythm dropped.

We both leave the floor, him holding his head, eyes wide, panic written all over him.  I’m irritated by the break in my flow, but mostly manage to swallow that and usher him to a chair.  I know he’s physically fine, aside from the mad adrenaline rush that likely began when he heard the directions for the activity.  He sits.  I bow back onto the floor, breathe, and try to return to the flow.

But I can’t.  My mind is on Bryce, wondering when the kid will ever catch a break.  Wondering when I will.  The neglected practice of forms and push ups looms large in my mind, and the noise in my head forces out the nuances of the moves, the parts that make it a step better and are still only in my head and not yet in my muscle. My instructor — a kind, wise man of few words — coaches me on tightening my moves.  My hands are dropping to my sides or flailing out.  My concentration is shot.  I’m excused for a drink of water.  He knows my head has long left the floor.  Upon returning, I approached our instructor for a postmortem.  He noted that he’d seen Bryce freeze as soon as the instructions were given.  I scrambled for some words to explain why it the exercise freaked him, stammering something about his wiring just not making those quick switches possible, at least not now.  This kind, wise man of few words nodded, and we returned to work.

Eventually, Bryce returned to the floor, ready to try again.  We’d moved on to other forms, and he was willing to start again.  As the lesson proceeded, I found my groove, kinda, and Bryce found his, kinda.  That was kinda good.

Still, I left the class with a knot in my stomach.  Some of the knot was guilt.  We should have attended more classes, despite our travels and busyness.  I should have practiced with the boys at home.  I should have worked on his push ups as I’d planned months earlier, returning him to the on-the-knees style and gradually building up his strength and endurance.  I should have returned him to physical therapy for more core work.  The list quickly became long, overwhelming, and depressing.

The hardest question in my mind was how and when to advocate for my son.  I regularly rejoice that as a homeschooling parent I’m saved from the IEP experience.  I don’t quite know what to ask for at karate.  Certainly to test to the next level (black belt), he should be held to the same requirements as anyone else.  No question there.  But in class are there supports that would make a difference, or should he just buck up?  It’s hard to explain the special needs of a kid that is so bright, so articulate, and so, well, typical looking (aside from his resemblance to a stick insect, a condition both of my children had at age 10 and seems to be outgrown).  Generally, when needed, I offer the data pertinent to the situation, if any, and hope for a knowing nod.

Today, we returned to our morning karate class.  While the items to practice were the same, the method was different, and my younger came out feeling strong and capable, not because of false praise or lowered expectations but simply because he was far more on top of his game.  Hmm.  Perhaps on the spot advocating with bits of information that are specific to the task at hand is the right approach.  Perhaps he just had an “on” day in class.  Having two days stew over the issue in my mind, I’d come up with little but dropped most of my “shoulds” from Tuesday. (Except the push ups.  We really need to make time for those each day.)  I can’t go back, only forward, and, guilt and remorse don’t get me anywhere.  As for me?  I was a bit better, too.  There’s still plenty of room for improvement.

For those of you who need to advocate for your child outside of the school system, how do you do it?  Do you do it at all?  

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September 5, 2011

Why We’re Home (with Asperger’s)

Exploring pi and the history of the number on the driveway.We didn’t start homeschooling for the benefit of Bryce, my son on the spectrum. Our road home started when he was three years old and enrolled not-so-happily in a public two-day-a-week preschool.  His older brother (who really needs a name here), had passed happily through a Montessori for ages 4 and 5, lost his love of learning at a different Montessori in first grade and entered our public academically talented program for second grade.   At seven, he’d seen what school after kindergarten was about and was stymied at what it had to do with him.  His father and I knew the public program was our last best option for reasons ranging from academic fit to logistics to cost.  So by December, when our older was slipping further away in misery in the classroom (too loud, too long, too unchallenging), we switched gears and became a homeschooling family the following January, nearly 7 years ago.

Bryce stayed in preschool. And when he turned four, he started the first of two years at the same Montessori where his brother had thrived.  Bryce thrived, too, although his social deficits were noticeable even in that welcoming, nurturing environment.  Come time for first grade, we gave Bryce the choice:  homeschool or go to school.  He chose home.  Each year, the choice is always presented:  home or school.  Each year, his answer comes with conviction and a hint of desperation: home!

So here we are.  Homeschooling with Asperger’s.  And with anxiety, ADHD, sensory issues, and a bunch of other little stuff that sometimes isn’t that little.

Most days, I’m glad we’re here.  I’m always grateful that I’ve had the option, even post-divorce, to educate my kids in a way that works best for them.  That’s what brought my older son home some seven years ago, and that desire keeps us here, even on the days when I’m ready to pack one or more of them in the car, immunization cards and proof of residency in hand, and drop them off at the buildings they’d call school if we’d made a different choice.  Homeschooling is a privilege paired with responsibility for all of us, and I don’t hesitate to sing that refrain when needed around here.  It’s not exactly a morale booster, but it is effective.

The decision hardly goes unchallenged by friends, family, and strangers, the latter who don’t know about Bryce’s ASD diagnosis and either think homeschooling is great or hold that their children would never listen to them and they wouldn’t have the patience anyway.  Gentle challenging comes from those closer in and know how difficult some of our days are, knowing how much I struggle to find a way through Bryce’s defenses and worries on a day-to-day basis.  Perhaps he should try school, they say.  Perhaps he’d learn from the other kids how to manage social situations.  He’d be on top of the class academically, and he’s enjoy that, they say.  He’d do just fine.

Perhaps.   Although I don’t think so. The thought of navigating the school system (again) with a twice-exceptional kid (gifted with learning challenges) still gives me chills, even seven years after leaving school with my older, also twice-exceptional although not on the spectrum.  And while I could buck up and do it if we absolutely had to, I don’t absolutely have to.

As for Bryce?  He hates the idea of school and completely has it nailed why he should never go:  too many people, too much noise, not enough hard academic work.  It’s hard to argue with that list.  A room full of 30 other kids his own age means far more than 30 relationships to navigate.  All the relationships between the other kids play into the dynamics of the room.  Bryce’s social skills are coming along, but he still prefers humans in small doses (me, too).  Homeschooling allows us to choose our socialization opportunities more closely and make academic time largely about academics, not about navigating relationships. His online classes allow some of the classroom experiences, like raising a hand and waiting to be called upon, without the noise and bluster of a physical classroom.  Religious education class and karate give him some “live” class experience without the all-day of school.

The noise.  I’m with him there.  All three of us, for as much as we talk, don’t do so well in a loud environment.  We’re introverts and prefer intense quiet when working.  Come college, quiet places for study abound, and classrooms (labs aside) are generally quiet and orderly.  I doubt Bryce would place himself in a noisy, crowded environment for word when the time comes, so this learning preference now should be adequate for his future needs.

His academic concerns are likely spot on as well.  He’s a serious history buff and has been since age 5.  Discussion about the nuances between earlier and later ancient Roman weaponry or comparison and contrasts between the falls of ancient civilizations and the current peril of modern ones is hardly elementary school classroom material, nor is Lord of the Rings standard fare in the 4th grade reading class.  I’ve neither the will nor desire to tug both ends of the accommodation string, and without stimulating content in history, science, literature, and math, he’s likely to lack incentive to bother with the classroom.

“Besides,” he’ll whisper, “I’d get teased.”

He would.  Teased and, likely, bullied.  It’s happened in the warmth of our small, accepting UU church.  It’s happened at day camps.  He swallows it, unsure of how to respond, then explodes hours or days later, either at his brother or I, before finally bursting out, “How can I be nice to you when I was teased earlier!”

Why is he teased?  For the usual reasons, plus some. He chews his shirts, doesn’t care about popular culture or style, struggles with athletics, and moves in the slightly unique way many on the spectrum move, especially when running.  Did I mention his tics?  The two psychologists who have cared for him blanch when I mention even considering returning him to school, urging me to continue educating him at home. But we don’t stay home because of their urging.  We stay home because it’s the best option for now.

So we homeschool, and while we didn’t come home because of his Asperger’s, his Asperger’s is a mighty good reason to stay home for as long as he wants and I can continue to do it.  Homeschooling isn’t for every family, and I’d never encourage one to jump in the homeschooling pool without a long look at the lifestyle (love it) and demands (high).  As I always say to those who ask when we’ll stop and “let” the boys go to school, “It’s working now, and as long as it works for all of us, we’ll keep doing it.”

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August 28, 2011

Homeschooling on the Spectrum

I’ve recently realized that while I’ve written quite a bit about my experiences parenting a child on the spectrum, but I’ve yet to discuss homeschooling that same child.  His Asperger’s informs and influences our homeschooling plans and the execution of those plans, and, as our school year is starting the day after labor day, I’ll write more about that.  For now, here’s our plans for fall.  We’re unlikely to follow them to the letter, and they are likely to change at any time.  They take into account a child who is highly/profoundly gifted, somewhat writing reluctant, and history obsessed.  With those caveats out there, here are our plans for 2011/12.  Where applicable, I’ve linked to my reviews on some of the materials.

Math:  Last year, more independent mathematical work was one of my goals.  My younger still has a fair amount of panic about getting problems wrong, so generally he checks in with me after each problem.  This drives me nuts, honestly, and while he’s sometimes willing to forgo that pattern when he’s feeling super-confident, he has a long way to go.  We slowed math down last year when his panic at the word “math” began to mount.  He’s highly mathematically talented and minimally mathematically interested, and I really struggle with his aversion to something he does so well.  We added some of Theoni Pappas‘ work for fun, and Penrose the Cat is a hit.  Anything with a cat is a hit, but I have yet to find the all-cat math curriculum. We’ll continue with Pappas and similar material as we finish up Singapore 6B and Singapore Challenging Word Problems 6, a project that shouldn’t take long.  Upon his request, we’ll work through Pre-Algebra I and II from Life of Fred. (He saw a friend’s copy and thought it looked okay.)I didn’t bother with pre-algebra with my older son, heading straight to Jacob’s Algebra after Singapore 6, but this child needs confidence despite his obvious talent, and I hope time and some diversions into other aspects of math provides that.

Science:  We’re all on to Earth Science this year, using CPO Middle School Earth Science for my younger.  It’s an inquiry-based curriculum, which means that questioning comes before vocabulary and scientific thinking trumps rote comprehension questions.  I’m a fan of the inquiry method and excited to try this well-reviewed curriculum.  It’s not designed for homeschoolers, and I’ll try to keep track of changes we make and materials we need so others might benefit later.  We have a bit of Middle School Chemistry to finish still, but we’re reaching to finish line on that.

History:  After a highly successful semester with Online G3‘s History of US 2B (1899 to the present), my younger’s eager to take the rest of her offerings.  First semester, he’ll take the corresponding 1A course, covering the first three books of the History of US series by Joy Hakim.  He’s likely to pick up another in the series come spring.  I imagine he’ll want to take on another of her American History series the following semester as well. Formal history is in Headmistress’ Guinevere’s hands. Whew.

Language Arts:  My younger devoured two levels of Michael Clay Thompson’s Grammar and Vocabulary books, so this year he hits the big leagues with Word Within the Word I and Magic Lens I.  As did his brother, he’ll do these with Online G3, but while I left his brother does his own devices and kept my nose (mostly) out of the class, I’ll keep tighter reign on my younger son.  We’ll read the books together, and I plan on more outside work on the vocabulary for him.  I probably should have done the latter with his older brother last year, but it just didn’t happen.  We’re only half-way through Paragraph Town’s 20 lessons, meaning the book has been read but that other activities are left to be done.  At the end of last school year, typing skills sharp from Online G3 classes, he started a blog (Bertram’s Blog).  He’s abandoned it so far this summer, but it’s built his confidence as a writer.  Hopefully, we’ll move into Essay Voyage as the year progresses.  For the fall, he’ll takeLightening Literature 7, again with Online G3.  Can you tell we adore Headmistress Guinevere and her classes?

The Rest:  As a family, we’re trying Rosetta Stone Spanish I in hopes of providing all of us with some exposure to the language before someone takes Spanish in a classroom (likely my older son, who needs two years of it before college).  Karate continues to be our main source of PE, and we may be up for our black belts in March (not sure at all Bryce will be ready for this).  Piano study for my younger also continues.  Spelling with Steck-Vaughn materials was a wild success.  Who knew we just needed a traditional old workbook approach for that subject?  He’ll move onto the 5th level this year, and he’s delighted.  Handwriting issues have hit and hit hard. A year and a half of cursive via Handwriting Without Tears has produced many tears and no usable cursive.  His older brother fared no better, so, like his older brother did, we’ll move him back to print and finish out Handwriting Without Tears Can-Do Print.  His printing is far better than his older brother’s who has some serious dysgraphia issues, but it is still a work in progress.  Thankfully, both boys type quite well.

And the Asperger’s part: After discussion with his therapist, we’re leaving the social skills group he’s attended the past three months.  He’s not challenged enough there, and we need to put our resources (time, money, and energy) into interventions that really help.  A return to physical therapy is on the table, with core strength a focus, although theoretically, karate and swimming should be helping this.  I’m investigating speech therapy options with a focus on vocal qualities (he is SO loud and tends to sound angry).  At home, we’ll return to Asperger’s:  What Does it Mean to Me?, a workbook for parent and child about many of the defining characteristics of HFA and AS, focusing on self-knowledge.  He’s loved learning idioms, so we’ll work on more of those as well.

My fingers and toes are crossed as I finish up at least our first few weeks of scheduling (and I’ll post soon about how we manage scheduling and planning with an anxious Aspie kid.  The short answer?  Not well enough yet.)

If you’re homeschooling a child on the spectrum, what are you doing this year?  If your child is in school, what is happening there? 

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August 25, 2011

Cliff Hanging

I have a strong affinity for Cliff Hanger from the PBS cartoon, Between the Lions. He's resourceful, but he's always left on the edge of that cliff.

I’m tired.  Specifically, I’m tired of Asperger’s.

I don’t hate it or my son who has it.  I’m not angry at the brain he has, that brilliant brain that thinks in completely different ways than my neurotypical brain.  I’m not out to “fix” him or “cure” him.  He’s not broken or sick.  His Asperger’s is part of who he is as much as his grey/green/blue eyes and his love of all things cat-related.

But I am exceptionally tired.  Tired of the explosions rocking our world.  Tired of walking on eggshells, wondering if this time he’ll accept my “no” with a head tilt and relaxed, “Okay,” or whether he’ll erupt into a tantrum of Vesuvius proportions.  Tired of guessing how he’s understanding what he’s hearing and seeing, knowing it isn’t how I see or understand and and that he often forgets just how differently he perceives the world, at least differently than his brother and I do.  Tired of hearing myself yell when I can’t take it anymore.  Tired of crying when I hate that I yelled at my kid, my kid with Asperger’s.

He’s tired, too.  He’s tired of traveling and returning home and all the routine-breaking that goes with that.  He likes the places we’ve gone, the family we’ve seen.  He liked Stunt Camp, even though he was teased by one of the other kids.  He really liked SUUSI, the Southeastern Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute (read:  giant UU church camp) we attended in July, a place he marveled at, summing it up in one tear-jerking statement, “I like it here.  No one teases me here.”

Like these trips and visits or not, the transitions torture him.  And when he’s tortured, so am I.  Yeah, I’m the mom.  I should be able to weather his storms time and again, always staying calm (since that works better with almost every person when they’re upset) and sane (as that works better for dealing with life in general).  I should not yell, not scream, not threaten with school, not slam my door and cry in frustration over the moment, in fear of his future, in sorrow for mistakes of the past, in anxiety about keeping the three of us in one piece emotionally while he pounds on my door again, yelling to be heard again.  Yelling, pounding, crying in frustration, crying in fear, sorrow, and anxiety.

It’s messy that way, at least for me, parenting a child with Asperger’s with a large dose of anxiety and a dash of ADHD on the side.

There’s plenty of frustration, fear, sorrow, and anxiety all around.  There’s also anger, anger that’s usually anxiety turned sideways, fear turned upside down, and sorrow turned inside out.  Anger is his default emotion, since the others are often just not accessable or expressable or something.  The others just seem lost in translation, with only anger surfacing.  The anger wears me out.  His and mine.

I’m desperate for another emotion from him.  Occasionally, he’ll talk about being afraid: afraid of his room, the backyard, the front yard, some math problems, new piano pieces, and countless other places and conditions that he hasn’t yet expressed or can’t name.  He just assumes I know what he fears, how he feels, what he knows.

But of course I don’t know.  While it may not be true of all on the spectrum, a lack of Theory of Mind is part of Bryce’s Aspergers. He has a terrible time seeing from another’s point of view, at least in real life. He’ll admit it freely and has even volunteered is challenge when flustered.  Sure, offer him a hypothetical Theory of Mind test, and he’ll give the right answer.  He has enough logic skills to do that.  In real time, with emotions running high, it’s a different story.

Worse yet, he struggles to interpret his own internal milieu.  Thanks to lots of conversation between the two of us and some time with a fine therapist, he’s more often able to label at least his anxiety and sometimes communicate it.  He still generally screams it in anger, but screaming,”I’m really anxious about this math problem,” mid-meltdown at least gives me a bit more information than his usual rants.  And, if I’m not too far over the edge (lately, I tend to be hanging by a fingernail), that bit of information gets through and allows me to reframe the situation and change my (highly ineffective) all too-frequent response of yelling back.

So I’m tired.  Perhaps not so much of his Asperger’s itself, but of hanging onto this cliff during this siege of meltdowns.  Emotional regulation required emotion recognition, and that’s still in early stages for him.  Somehow or other, we’ll find a way up, and I’ll come off the cliff and stand on solid ground again.  Somehow.

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August 18, 2011

Love, Love Me Do

20110818-075502.jpg

“I love you,” I’d say.

“I love you, too,” he’d reply, often snuggling into me speaking the sentiment with his body as much with his words.

It’s been over two years since we’ve shared that exchange. Two years — perhaps three — since I’ve heard Bryce, now 10, tell me he loves me.

I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt. If I said that it was just words and that I don’t care about the words, my nose would grow like mad. Truth is, I know he loves me, but I ache to hear him say it again.

On a recent night around the dinner table during a visit with my mother, the subject of love arose. Bryce pronounces, “I don’t love anyone.”

Now, my mom’s hip to the abrasive mannerisms of my Aspie son, so she didn’t blink, but she did purse the subject with him. Bryce held his ground: he loves cats and his Magic the Gathering Cards. Period.

If I had to guess, I’d say his understanding of love is a good feeling all the time with no demands on him. The cats and cards offer that. Relationships with humans do not. That night at dinner, he avoided the question of what love is but was fairly certain about who he didn’t love and why. He doesn’t love me because I tell him to do things and correct him. He doesn’t love his brother because his brother does things he doesn’t like. Love, it seems, requires complete obedience to him perfection on the part of the beloved, two nonstarters with parents and brothers. Thus, he’s left with cats and Magic cards.

Despite his lack of affection for the word love, I tell him I love him several times a day and always right before bed. I’ve wondered if this burdens him, since the word obviously troubles him, but I’ve decided to sally forth and pair my declaration of love with a back scratch, head pat, or, at night, snuggle, which are all sanctioned ways of receiving expression, at least from Mom. He’s yet to ask me to stop saying it, although he rarely replies with even the neutral “okay” of a year ago. Perhaps I hope the words with the fuzzy feelings of those touches will pair in his brain. Perhaps I just can’t imagine not telling him that I love him.

And I can’t. Nine out of ten times, I don’t even blink at my verbally unrequited declarations of love for him. Most of the tenth time, I listen more closely, hoping it’s just so quiet that I can’t hear him. I’m a word person, and his silence sometimes thunders in my heart. I yearn for the words and wonder if he’ll ever say them to anyone. My mind flies decades ahead, and I wonder who will love a man who won’t declare love in return. My eyes fill as I wonder if cats and cards will be enough for him then. It’s a mom’s worry, raw and deep, recurring when not expected, quelled by some self-talk but simmering all the while.

But I know he loves me, at least as I understand love. I know by the way he finds my face when unsure of a situation and so often before answering all but our closest friends. He seeks me out with his rage when the world disappoints him, although oftentimes I am the target of the same rage. I know by the way he seeks out my comfort at night, often unable to explain why he’s afraid of his room, of being alone, of the dark. I know by the way he curves into me before he goes to sleep, after a back scratch and a bit of silly conversation. I can see it in his eyes, even when they’re filled with angry tears aimed at me.

And, perhaps the most, I can hear he loves me in the way he purrs. Sometime in the last year, after one of our occasional conversations about love, we made an agreement. We could safely exchange purrs with head rubs, like the cats he knows he loves. He has not doubt what that purr and rub from mama cat to kitten means, and somehow that gesture seems more certain than a made-up, confusing word like love. The purr is the real thing, the heart of the matter. It’s love, at least in my book, and I’ll take it any time.

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August 10, 2011

God and Aspergers

Bryce was not yet five when he announced, “I don’t believe in God,” from the backseat of the van on our way to his twice-weekly physical therapy appointment.

“Okay,” I replied, unsure of where this line of thought originated and where it would go next.

So I did what I do when faced with a subject that I’m not sure how to broach.  I talked and asked questions.  In the 25 minute drive, I differentiated atheism from agnosticism, and each boy firmly planted a foot in each camp, my younger far more certain about the absence of the divine than the older.  I mused about uncertainty, and, before long, we arrived at physical therapy and the subject was dropped.

Within the previous year, we’d left an Episcopal church that we’d attended for a few years.  This followed a long period of Catholic Church shopping, settling for a few years here and there, long enough to have both boys baptized and for my then-husband to formally become Catholic.  Our path into and out of both faiths is a chapter in itself, but suffice it to say that these pronouncements from my baptized progeny occurred after we left Christianity and before we found our Unitarian Universalist community of the past four years.

A year later, we joined a Unitarian Universalist church, a welcoming congregation where spiritual searching is encouraged and differences in ways of being are accepted.  Bryce’s religious education classes exposed him to world religions — a chance to hear what others believe.  History studies at home allowed us more opportunities to examine religion from many angles.  And, over the years, my own beliefs have changed.

Bryce’s have not.  He remains a staunch atheist, although over the last year, we’ve had more discussions about what he DOES believe, attempting to guide his definition of who he is to include more of what he does hold true than what he does not.  His main argument against a god (or at least against “the guy in the sky pulling the strings,” as he’s come to refer to the divine), is that, well, there is no proof that there is one.  Bryce is a literal thinker and rather black and white.  There is no more room in his mind for “maybe I can play Minecraft on the computer today” than there is for “maybe there is a God.”  Minecraft either can happen or not happen, and knowing is better than not knowing.  God, to Bryce, just isn’t.  My son doesn’t care for maybe, so that’s not the spot to park his thoughts on the God question.

The word “believe” seems to be problematic for him.  Belief isn’t based on facts and natural laws, and it’s not concrete.  Instead, Bryce knows or doesn’t know, and he cites facts or sources to back up what he knows.  Yes, he’s wrong plenty of time, but, boy will he build an argument, and just that process is enough to wear a listener down and agree.  Anything to stop the barrage of possibly relevant information.  Belief is more nebulous and personal, and those are fuzzy areas for him.  An online piece from Scientific American about Asperger’s and religion notes that some psychologists explain that the lack of “theory of mind” that so many on the spectrum experience makes it hard for those on the autistic spectrum to see the purpose or intent behind what others say and do.  This, they theorize, makes it difficult to consider the divine, a purpose behind our lives.  Makes sense, since the main role in many faiths of the divine is as doer, the force behind action and the meaning behind life.  Take away the ability to understand the intent of others (and Bryce is often wrong when judging intent), and the tendency toward atheism makes sense.  For Bryce, and for many atheists (who, in one study, reasoned teleologically about the divine, while those with AS did not), things just happen.  No doer, no mystical or spiritual purpose.  Just natural laws at work.

For him, his atheism seems to spring from his Asperger’s mind rather than from time spent questioning and thinking over a period of time.  While pondering this topic, I wandered onto some forums  and blogs by and for those on the spectrum, and atheism and agnosticism ran rampant. (Wrong Planet,  Aspies For Freedom, PsychForums, along with a host of blogs.) Logical thought and adherence to natural laws (scientific thought) topped the reasons for unbelief, but concern about the way religion has been used to condemn those with different beliefs from ancient history through the present also was a reason.  My highly unscientific review revealed a good deal of thought similar to Bryce’s:  there’s no proof.  Yes, there are theist Aspies.  But it’s interesting to me that so many on the spectrum reject the idea of the divine.  And, sure, the child was churchless at a time, being raised by questioning parents, and now attends a Unitarian Universalist church where likely half of the members are atheist and agnostic.  But his decision was made well before all that.  He made it soon after we attended church regularly, while we said grace at dinner each night (we still do), when his father and I were reading him children’s Bible stories and general books about God and spirituality, when he attended his grandmother’s conversion ceremony to Judaism and then her Bat Mitzvah.  He did not adopt his atheism in a spiritual vacuum.  He has been encouraged to think freely, although he’s hardly required encouragement to do that.  Since  free and responsible spiritual searches at 4 and 5 aren’t the norm, I’m drawn back to the understanding of his religious beliefs as part of his hard wiring.

Not to say that he’ll always reject the spiritual or even the divine.  He’s young, and has a lifetime before him to consider, explore, accept, reject a whole manner of beliefs and ideas.  Now, he’s in a church that encourages that process while stressing respect the worth and dignity of all humans.  He has plenty to build upon, spiritually speaking.  Or not.  And that’s fine, too.

Addendum:  In no way do I see atheism as a lesser way of thinking or as a result of “black and white” thinking.  In the studies cited in the Scientific American post, atheists without Aspergers reached their atheism via different thought patterns than the Aspie atheists.  Different minds following different routes reaching the same conclusion — that’s fascinating to me.  I blog about my spiritual seeking at Finding My Ground.  Follow me there.

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August 2, 2011

Nothing Wrong with Slow and Steady

Slow and steady, like this Black Turtle.

Processing speed.  In the US, we want it fast.  We love the computer with a quick processor (my iMac is a fine example).  I push the button and whoosh!  My document or webpage appears in a blink.  We struggle mightily with the one with the slow processor (ah, like the Dell laptop my older son uses).  Push the button, take a nap, and check back later.  Or, better yet, just push the button faster, harder, and more frequently.  Surely that will get the thing moving.

Bryce has a slower processing speed.  Honestly,  it sometimes drives me a bit crazy.  I should embrace his delay in responding to the simplest of questions, breathing through his pause, staying in the moment, respecting the work his neural networks are doing.   What’s the hurry, after all?  Let the kid think!  But sometimes, it just drives me nuts.  I’m a fast, frequent talker.  His older brother is a far faster, random talker.  Bryce can keep up quite the verbal flow, too, and pausing for another to get a word in edgewise or otherwise is unusual.  His words just flow continuously, at least in his awake hours.  That’s the conundrum.

How can a kid who can speak so eloquently and fluently process so slowly?  Somewhere, in that amazing brain, input just takes time to find its way through the circuitry.  That’s fairly common for those on the autism spectrum as well as those with ADHD.  Slow processing can make a person look mentally, well,  slow, but many a brilliant kid needs more than an average amount of time to take in what the world offers, work it though, and push information back out.

And that’s my son.  He’s a brilliant kid, quite frankly.  Like many people with Asperger’s his memory for facts that interest him is encyclopedic.  He is a treasure trove of facts about Ancient Greece and Rome, Magic the Gathering, the Warrior books (Erin Hunter), weaponry from medieval times, mythology, and chemistry.  But he has more than a fine memory.  He can weave those seemingly disparate topics together, creating a thesis, support, and conclusion, spontaneously.  When faced only with his own thoughts, he can take ideas from ancient history and apply them to the fiction he reads or a situation in his own life.  I hear these verbal essays all day long, and while I tend to drift when the topic is Warriors or Magic the Gathering, I’ve heard enough to be convinced of and amazed by his ability to do more than remember facts.

However, when dealing with input, the story changes.  When new information goes in, the system slows.  Sometimes, it seems to stop.  Despite sharing air with him for the past ten years, I still forget on nearly a daily basis that he needs time to process.  Since often his “I’m taking time to process” look is identical to his “I’m in my own head and don’t hear anything” look, frustration and confusion on the speaker’s part are understandable.  Is he simply not hearing because his mind is elsewhere, or is he processing?  Only he knows.  Ideally, I’d err on the side of assuming processing, but when I’m asking for the third time what he’d like for breakfast, I tend to assume he’s lost in his head.

What does that mean for us as homeschoolers?  First, it’s another plus of being at home in a classroom of two.  Without other hands shooting up with answers, he has time to process without feeling like he’s always behind everyone else.  When in an online seminar, he can feel pressed, but his instructor tries to fairly distribute the turns to answer questions and is patient at his sometimes long verbal pauses before he gets to his answer.

Second, it means I have to learn another level of patience.  I’ve learned to pause and takes several breaths after I ask a question when we’re discussing a grammar lesson or science experiment, especially if the question requires more than a reflexive, factual answer.  In math, I tend to ask a question and, if I receive no response, ask another question designed to help the child break the first question down into smaller parts. This infuriates him, and it took me years to figure out why.  After the first question, he’s thinking.  Slowly thinking.  My next question interrupts this.  As a result, he has to start the processing over.  He generally yells at me, and sometimes I return the volume in my response.  Anxious and angry, his processing speed drops to zero.  Slowing down, allowing him time to run the problem through all those channels, does the trick.

Third, it means avoiding quick-response computer learning.  Typing programs (aside from the free, untimed BBC typing lessons) are lessons in frustration and fury.  All those programs designed to speed your math facts along?  Ditto.  Nightmare, tantrum material with no learning.  We learned to avoid those ages ago.

Finally, it guides our choices in outside activities.  Karate works well for the most part, with a focus on gradually learning series of movements.  It’s quick-trigger only during sparring, and guess what my little guy would really rather skip?   Ball sports are out, given their requirement to visually scan an environment, listen for cues from teammates and coaches, and respond quickly while moving through space.  These just aren’t happening.  As we’ve added swimming lessons this summer, he’s verbalizing his awareness of his need for time to think.  Given he’s a good deal older than the rest of his beginner class, I made him the offer to try private lessons, which helped his older brother over the swimming hump years back. Bryce quickly refused.  ”No.  With group lessons, I can watch the others and figure out what to do before I have to do it,”  he responded firmly.  Makes sense to me.

Know thyself, child.  Know thyself.

Slow processing speed is not equivalent to a slow child, but it does take patience with academic, physical, and even recreational situations.  His brother is gradually learning to avoid barraging his brother with information and expecting immediate response.  His friends are generally just plain patient.  He may take his time getting there, but the results are worth the wait.  Slow and steady wins this race.

Image thanks to NaturePhotos-cz.com.

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July 31, 2011

Reentry Blues

Abundant joy filled us at SUUSI. Bringing it home was challenging.

Our vacation to SUUSI (Southeast Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute in Radford, VA) was amazing. We all thrived in the presence of over 1100 incredibly accepting people, plenty of live folk music, and vast amounts of good food that I didn’t have to cook (mom bonus). I’d anticipated meltdowns from Bryce, either due to heat, too many people, or just anxiety. While he had a few brief snits about scheduling, he had one of the more easy-going, social weeks of his entire life. Really.

Then we came home.

We should have stayed in Virginia. Bryce started going hinky by the time we hit West Virginia. Each rest stop, brief as they were, seemed to stir him up. While he held it together for most of the driving, by the time we reached Columbus to spend the night, he was clearly losing his SUUSI cool. He was anxious, oppositional, louder, and just plain out of sorts. Nothing we haven’t survived before many times, but watching him come undone after so much joy, peace, and happiness saddened me as much as it unnerved me.

Turns out our very quiet stop for the night was be just the start of reentry pains for him. We were all missing SUUSI, and I was bummed about returning to kitchen duty three times a day, but Bryce was suffering the most. And when Bryce suffers, we all suffer.

As soon as we left SUUSI, his appetite plummeted. After a week of three meals a day instead of his usual grazing, I hoped his system would be more in sync with mine. This was not to be. Food at usual hours went (and still goes) largely uneaten. Perfectly able to wait to eat (tons) when on the Radford University cafeteria schedule, once home, his eating was in fits and spurts, as it had been before we left. Perhaps his system thrives on pancakes, tater tots, cheeseburgers, and at least one vegetable a day that mom made him eat. Perhaps all the whole grain, fruits, veggies, rice, and beans he eats at home are really toxic compared to the white-bread and fat fest he had on vacation. Makes a generally sane woman wonder.

His appetite wasn’t the only victim of reentry syndrome. He’d amassed a bit of sleep debt on vacation, but once home, he couldn’t fall asleep. A week later, he’s still struggling to fall asleep in his own bed (no success yet) and falling asleep in mine without me by his side. He’s not my favorite sleeping companion, given his predilection for sleeping parallel with the pillows. I’m short, but I don’t fit on a queen-sized bed in that direction.

The sleeping and eating difficulties would be tolerable if he just weren’t so overall miserable. He won’t (or, more likely, can’t) tell me why he’s so angry and frustrated, and multiple attempts to help him dissect out his angst were met with anger. He was delightful when left to his own devices. Kinda. It didn’t take more than a Magic the Gathering card to be misplaced to throw him into a tizzy. On the long car ride, he’d rebonded with his Nintendo DS. Toward the end of the ride, he began wondering about the whereabouts of a particular DS game, one of the Pokemon series. Have you seen a DS game? It’s about the size of a Wheat Thin but costs good deal more. And he was sure it was somewhere in the house. That would be fine if it meant an organized search with perhaps even a bit of sorting. But no. For four days, he’d have bursts of searching for this tiny item, no matter what else was going. Time for dinner? Time to go to a piano lesson? Want to play with a friend? No to all of those if he was mid-search. Demands that his brother and I search, too, tipped me over the edge. After looking in the places where the game belonged, I bailed. We’re talking a Wheat Thin,here.

I’ll spare you the explosions about computer time, errands to run, thank-you notes to write, and chores to complete. If it wasn’t his idea, it wasn’t happening. He even took the grief to his father’s, which hasn’t happened in quite a while. He’s honest about saving his vitriol and angst for me, and to have it spill over their meant his distress was far greater than his usual transition struggles. I’d like to say that news put it into perspective, that I summoned the patience and peace to parent him through the time with love and compassion. Nope. I did feel a (highly inappropriate) bit of glee that he’d vented on his father, too, but that was soon dampened by his mood at home.

Somehow, we made it through the week. By Friday, while his sleep and appetite were still off, his mood had improved. He’d returned to his normal. And I was relieved. The mystery of it all is what flummoxed me. I know transitions challenge him, but somehow the transition there was so smooth. Admittedly, the schedule was regular, and I was very accommodating. Since my older could experience SUUSI without me if he wanted, the trip allowed us a vacation where following Bryce’s needs didn’t impact my older son’s vacation. That’s part of why I decided to try it. And, in that way and many others, it was successful. But home, demands are more variable, and we have places to go that aren’t his first choice. That’s as much as I can figure out, not being in his brain and he not being able/willing to share what’s there.  That’s what challenges me the most as a neurotypical mom raising an Aspie kid.  We have very different operating systems.  I tell him tons about how neurotypical minds tend to work and look forward to the day when he can tell me more about how his mind operates.  That will bring joy to both of us.

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July 21, 2011

Step In My Shoes

My sons shoes are not my shoes. He has Asperger’s. I don’t. I know this. I know his brain processes differently than mine, and yet I often find myself holding him to standards that his amazing brain cannot hope to meet, at least not yet.

During breakfast yesterday morning, on our third full day at SUUSI (Southeastern Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute — think family church camp), I tried to verbally coax my son back to the dorm to get ready for our morning schedule. He had a class; I had a worship service. Agenda in mind, I was watching the clock. He was thinking of waffles. Not the quick kind either. The Belgian kind so many cafeterias had, where you pour the pre made batter onto the griddle, close the lid, and gently rotate the pan. Two and a half minutes later, a waffle is born.

We didn’t have time for a waffle. Not just the 2.5 minutes it would take to cook, but for the walk to the waffle area, the line for the device, the application of syrup, and the slow savoring of every bite. My mind was on the time, and my son’s was on the waffle.

So we did what we do when we’re at odds — repeated our respective stances in gradually more aggrieved tones (but now in the presence of dozens of unwilling audience members) until finally, he grabbed a biscuit at we made our way out of the dining hall. Whew. We’ll make it to class and all on time.

It was not to be.

Bryce trailed slowly behind me, walking at my pace but many steps back. By the time we reached the door of our dorm, he was whining loudly while I walked progressively faster. Before we reached our room, we were both seething. My eyes on the time, I laid out the list of tasks before we had to leave for his class and my service. He commenced meltdown sequence, shrieking his resistance for the whole floor to hear. We were clearly in danger of a full-scale tantrum.

Step in his shoes. I needed to step in his shoes. I didn’t want to. I wanted to ship him off to his morning session and make it to the morning talk at service. Time was slipping away, and I just wanted him to cooperate and get out the door with me. Couldn’t he see that?

Nope. He just saw too many transitions. He wanted to make it to that class. While he’s not exactly finding best friends, he’s thoroughly enjoying the programs designed for the kids. It’s just the transitions from the quiet room to the bustling dining hall back to the quiet room and then off to the noisy children’s programing building is a bit much for him. In my mind, it all seemed logical and easy. Rise, go to eat, return and wash up, get on with the day. Simple.

Stepping in his shoes, I saw the problems. Two quarter mile walks plus several flights of stairs. A cafeteria full of people to be negotiated and food to be chosen. Toothbrushing to do (not a comfortable task for him) and sunscreen to apply (a very distressing sensation for him). Another walk, more steps, more people. It’s a lot to take.

Somehow I managed to breathe and slow down. Somehow, we made it out the door, sunscreen on, teeth brushed, shoes on. Somehow, we made it to his class with a few minutes to spare. I signed him in while he sat in protest outside his class, still rancorous at the morning’s pace, which seemed relentless to him. I left him there, still complaining, and told him I hoped that by lunch, he’d be in a better mood.

And he was. When we found each other in the cafeteria at noon, my exuberant boy was back. And yes, I made it the morning service, arriving only a few minutes late.

And we managed all that because I stepped into his shoes, and felt the pinch that he feels when rushed and faced with uncomfortable sensations. I allowed myself to look at the morning through his eyes, at least the best I can, and feel the pace as he must feel it. I didn’t do it perfectly. I didn’t do it with grace. But I did it. I can do it, and he simply can’t. He can’t (yet) look at the world through the eyes of another or step in another’s shoes. So for now, it’s up to me to step into his, walk a bit, and find where he might be.

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