Published on 12, July, 2020
We have an adult son who we think may well be autistic. We are in the process of trying to get a diagnosis. Over the years we have noticed so many things but overlooked it as in the main his behaviours are similar to most of us; and we are all somewhere on the spectrum, right?
Why I say we need help, is because we want him to be able to help himself in certain things and to understand that we believe small tweaks to his habits and behaviours will help him massively. We might be wrong, but we want him to try and see if things improve for him. For example, he will do something in a certain way, which takes a long time. To help explain what I mean, when he was younger he had a paper round. He would start at No 1, then cross the road and do No 2, then cross back, do No 3, cross back and do No 4 etc all the way up to 106. He would be crossing back and forth all the way taking more than twice as long to do the road, than if he just started at No 1, did all the odds and cross once and do all the evens. We explained this and he seemed to agree and understand, but then continued to do it his way. We tried to explain that doing it in this way was taking him nearly 3 times longer to do that same task than someone else. He agreed, or at least seemed to agree. We asked him to just try it our way so he could see for himself the difference and if he still wanted to do it his way, great, but then he should understand that people may think that was inefficient, eg a future employer.
Another example is his parking of his car. So we live in a road where we have some parking bays on one side and none on the other. When he parks he drives in face forward and straight into a parking bay. No issue really with that. The problem is that when our neighbours opposite arrive on the none bay side they just park on the road in front of their houses. This now makes reversing his car out much much harder. I have suggested to him that when he arrives to reverse park into the bay, so that when he wants to drive out and our neighbour’s cars are opposite he can easily manoeuvre his car straight out. He finds reverse parking easy to do and agrees that the driving straight out is also much easier, yet he still parks face forward and then struggles with trying to get his car out when the neighbours have parked up.
I guess what I am asking is that despite his agreeing with us, he still practices the ‘inefficient’ or ‘difficult’ option and there are so so many examples. We need help in maybe explaining it so that he genuinely does understand, as it seems that he is just agreeing and then doing his own thing. It is so so frustrating. It causes arguments and we so so desperately want to help him but equally want him to help himself. It almost feels like he nods, but doesn’t actually get what we are saying, so we need to say it differently, maybe.
Anyways, any help welcome. Sorry to go on...
autistic people do things differently which sometimes discovers new ways of doing things ------ i can see he is following the number line and ignores the logically the higher view you see. He may really like numbers. The car thing, i would do the same as him and i dont know why, a sort of impatience to get in the door home. Autustics make up their own minds and when we do we are like a hugh oil tanker that takes miles to change course/ or stop. In scientific research we quite often follow a path all the way to a discovery irrespectiful of what other researchers are doing. In a way it works and in a way it doesnt. Keep explaining he's not ignoring you not at all. He inputs what u say and then re-decides himself to follow a pattern. Sit back and watch his beauty who else would do that ?
ask him why he does it his way in detail --- it could be the direction he approaches houses. He may not like to walk past windows a sort of anti-rudeness 'proper ways of doing things' rule I have many of those :)
my nephew ( more autistic than me ) can spent all day on a single joint when making a table and would not listen to me about spending too much time making a table ( ie it would cost too much ). But over 2 years he has gradually improved by using machinery to get the same perfection he wants quicker..
I love my different way of thinking !
Thank you for your reply, and for explaining, despite being upset with me. I appreciate that.
The oil tanker taking miles to change course makes so much sense. Really opened my eyes.
We do ask why he does certain things in certain ways, but he is unable to explain. I personally tend to have a very logical approach to things and he does not, that’s where we clash. I really want to understand his thinking processes so we can help him and present things so they are easier for him to grasp. This is a massive challenge. What do you suggest we do to overcome this?
Thank you again.