Asperger's, Manners and A Mother's Worry

I'm currently reading the book "The Way I See It." by Temple Grandin. In it she discusses some of the day to day issues of raising a child on the Autism spectrum. One topic particularly caught my attention, it was on manners.

With all our children (I have three), we have done our best to teach them good manners and model them as well. As my son entered his threes and was diagnosed, we never saw that as a reason to excuse him from a bad behavior. It has often meant more patience, more redirection (especially, being creative as to how we redirected him) and more repetition of the behavior we expect.

Recently, my son had what can only be described as a very bad day at school. During class (this told to us by his teacher), he was feeling frustrated and in turn, this was making him lose focus. The teacher told us, that he took him out to the hall where they could talk privately and give Jonah a chance to regroup/refocus/calm down.

However, my son was already in such a state, that this gentle redirection didn't work and he wound up yelling at his teacher. Thankfully, he has a wonderful teacher and instead of being REACTIVE he was PROACTIVE. When he told us what happened, he stated he did not send Jonah to the office as is normally the case. The teacher saw how upset my son was in regards to his outburst and how out of character this was for Jonah. Instead, the teacher chose to work with directly with us, in how we handled the incident. Note that - he worked WITH us, he listened and followed our wishes. I am so very grateful for this.

So...how did we handle it? Consequences. We have always been firm, that both good and bad actions have consequences. Some you might like and some you won't. The first step was a face to face apology to the teacher, stating what he did wrong, why it was wrong and how he would endeavor not to do this again. The second step was a letter of apology, expanding on his verbal apology. Lastly, his privileges at home, for a week were determined by how he did each day at school. The teacher would let us know in his agenda, how the day went and from there he either earned or was denied use of the tv/computer/DS.

I've been working on this post for almost two weeks now...it is hard for me, when our son has moments like this, to put feelings into words. It touches upon deep-seated worries and fears for him and his future...and yet, who knows what the future will bring? Each day we do our best as parents, educators and as people on the spectrum.

We hope its enough, we pray its enough and watch with worried eyes as our loved ones navigate the neuro-typical world.

We are hyper aware of how others perceive our children. Each small act of kindness, understanding is treasured and stored away in memory.

We ask for patience, awareness and friendship.

We don't ask for pity.

Lastly, I leave you with an excerpt of an MSNBC interview with Temple Grandin, on the topic of the importance of manners for children on the spectrum. I encourage you to read her books, as they are wonderful source of information and inspiration.










Temple Grandin: "The other thing is, teach these kids manners. I was raised in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and manners were drilled into me. I see kids [on the spectrum] today that have no manners. That’s going to hurt them. You can’t punish a child who is acting out because of sensory overload. But it’s unacceptable to see kids throwing things and slapping people. I see kids with Asperger’s [a mild form of autism] who can’t hold a job because they are constantly late. Teach kids to use an alarm clock. This is common sense and sometimes we forget about common sense. Autism is used too much as an excuse for bad behavior."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35150832/ns/health-mental_health/