(no subject)

[cahn]

-So the big thing I'm doing right now is watching Bablyon 5 for the first time via the rewatch on selenak's DW, which went from "I'm mildly interested, guess I'll watch further since ase and selenak really seem to like it" ("Midnight on the Firing Line") to "Yeah, I'm vaguely invested now" ("Mind War") to "OMG WHAT EVEN IS THIS SHOW MUST FIND OUT WHAT IS GOING ON" ("Signs and Portents"). Still in S1, it would be easy to join the watch if you wanted to!

-I realized over winter break that E.'s social skills are... well, they're probably reasonably okay for a first grader. (Note that E. is in sixth grade.) Anyway, they need a lot of work and we haven't been working on them explicitly. So we've started doing ten minutes every day of social skills work, scripting out conversations and responses to things, and techniques like mirroring (I'm not sure if there's a technical term for this, but basically, if someone asks you how your winter break was, asking them how theirs was), and troubleshooting responses I hear when she plays virtual Minecraft with friends. She reported that a kid in her class asked her how her break was, and she said fine, and then she asked them how theirs was, and they said fine, which she said was better than she would have done before :P

I am now running into the issue that she doesn't want to try practicing conversational work with kids her own age, which, fair, they are on a whole different playing field than she is, so I'm asking her to try short conversations with younger kids at her school. It's a good thing her school is tiny. I have no idea how high school is going to work.

I know I should probably get her into therapy, but therapy is... really hard to find right now, and also I think honestly I've done so much analyzing of socialization myself that I can provide a fair amount of that; what I think she really needs is practice, and that's the thing that's hard because unlike most kids (including the other ASD kid whose parents I'm friends with) she doesn't seem to get a whole lot of intrinsic enjoyment out of socialization. I think she does enjoy being with other people, but it's more of a... second-order effect? Like, she likes the kinds of things she can do with other kids, like Minecraft, but actually talking to the other people (other than exchange of information about their Minecraft missions, or whatever) is sort of a necessary evil for her (and yes, we've talked about how socialization will make it easier for her to get the things she actually does want, like friends to play Minecraft with -- but it's another layer to have to deal with). But she does really like playing with A., and they have a lot of hilarious fun times together, it's just that I think she needs to be very very close to someone to have that kind of relationship, and there's no one else who really fits that for her right now.

I think she is progressing, though! This year was the first year we have had zero reports of blowups at school (down from about weekly last year) -- which is partially better regulation, but also seems to be in large part because she has finally internalized that she should maybe care what other people think. Which is funny because I feel like everyone else who's a parent of an almost-teenager daughter is trying to get their kid not to care as much what everyone else thinks, and I'm like, "no, care more! Care enough not to throw loud obnoxious tantrums in front of them, at least!"

-A. is expressing displeasure with the extracurriculars he is either doing or trying out right now, that is, karate (which he begged me to sign him up for last year) and math circle (which he was super engaged with and fascinated by during the zoom meeting, and then declared he didn't want to do it). He says he wants to do basketball, but unfortunately by the time I signed him up, we were on the wait list. The neighbor girl did get into basketball (girls' basketball isn't quite as full up), but judging from how A. behaves when they play together, I don't know how much he would actually like it.

On the other hand, we have come to an agreement that he doesn't have to go to karate on Wednesdays (it's supposed to be 2-3x a week; he goes on Fridays about once every other week *sigh*) if he takes a walk with me, and these are lovely and hilarious and we have great conversations where we talk about what animals have only two legs, and he tells me his big plans for building a combination see-saw/slide, and we see parts of the neighborhood we've driven through but never walked through, so that's been lovely :D

Besides his inexplicable hatred of extracurriculars, he is just... it's like he got parceled all of the emotional intelligence, both his own fair share and E's as well. In first grade, the age at which his classmates totally spazz out a lot, he's a total pro at meeting E's often-extremely-emotional outbursts with a calm, non-confrontational, patient response, which is just crazy to me. I mean, yes, he is also a total pro at winding her up, don't get me wrong, and I'm betting that a bit of his patience is him figuring out that if she's the one who blows up that she's more likely to get in trouble -- he's not 100% an angel. But kind of amazing for a first grader!

Comments

[cahn]

I will say that I would certainly greatly prefer if E. developed empathy, and this is something we talk about as well (how does it make you feel when X happens, how do you think Y feels about X'?) and I do think she is developing some empathy, but yeah, perhaps because I'm not entirely empathic myself, I don't care nearly as much about that as about her being able to be independent and happy :P and, like you say, having the skills to make sure she has what she needs is the big thing there.

Me: But I don't want people to talk to me unless I know them and like them! If I smile and say hi back, then she's going to talk to me *more*, and that's the last thing I want! Why are you telling me to do things that will lead to the exact opposite outcome from what I want?

Lol. Yeah, okay. I think if you'd been my kid we would have had some discussion on both long-term/unforeseen effects, as in my previous comment (lol, maybe with you I'd be like, well, so, some of your acquaintances' parents are friends with me, and they tell me about stuff like that really fun math camp, which they are less likely to do if they perceive you as being mean to their child...), and also some discussion on how to use body language to make it clear that you are smiling and saying hi because you don't have negative feelings towards them, but not inviting further talking, so that you wouldn't suffer negative consequences from doing the Thing I Want :P (I do feel for your mom! It must have been very hard for her to have a child like you -- appealing to empathy is supposed to work for kids!) (E was also the kid who had not read any of the childrearing books, at least that was our explanation for why she didn't follow ANY of them once she hit toddlerdom. A. came along and he apparently had read them all, all the techniques in them worked for him!)

But, like, a big difference there is that E does have the option to go to super fun math camp --

Looking back, most of my dynamics with people up until age 20 or so had to do with a sort of Maslow's hierarchy of needs: Getting my intellectual needs met first was an absolute. Until they were met to my satisfaction, I was going to fight and fight and fight for them. Only once they were met did I have the luxury of starting to expand my interactions with people to be more supportive of their emotional needs.

Ironically, had my mother invested more in making sure my needs were met and less in telling me I was ungrateful for having them, she would have had a much more receptive child, who would have reached the emotional maturity necessary to have the kinds of interactions she wanted me to have with people, much sooner.

This rings true to me. Also, I feel like your parents interact with my brain in sort of the same way FW does, in the sense that I keep forgetting how terrible they were :P Like, I know you were starved for intellectual nourishment as a child, and I still keep blanking on it sometimes because in the circles I move in, and the way I was brought up by my parents, it is almost unthinkable to me to neglect one's child intellectually in that way. I mean... in theory I know it happens :P but like, how does a parent even! I literally had a conversation with my mom last night in which she was super judgy about how my sister should clearly have started helping my niece earlier with school (recall, she is 7) because that might have made the difference to her being in the gifted program (she did not test into) and being with gifted peers, and "otherwise she could grow up to be average!!" (direct quote)

But yes, with E, making sure her intellectual needs were met was absolutely the biggest problem for her and we could see it was going to be a problem without intervention as early as first grade. A. is a different animal -- although I think he will probably get to that point soon (possibly as early as a couple of years from now), he isn't on the same scale as E.

But, yeah, if someone like you were my child I don't think we'd be completely free of conflict by a long shot, but I think I could have done a much better job than your parents :P (Well, heck, my parents could have done a much better job than your parents :PP My parents were actually for the most part good parents for me, or possibly for someone like you -- because they did prioritize meeting my intellectual needs, which was most important for me as well, and some of the other stuff might not have been great but mostly slid off me by the time I was an adult -- but were absolutely horrible for someone like my sister, because (and huh, I never thought about it in these terms before) she had emotional needs at the top of her hierarchy and never got those needs met.)

Not sure if it's the same for E, but the reason I think dogs are great is because you get the affection without all the demands. I specifically like dogs that instantly love you and everyone else with an undying passion, not the kind where you have to earn their affection. Pretty much the exact opposite of my standards for people, in other words. :P I specifically give people dirty looks to tell them to back off if they're being more emotionally enthusiastic than I think our relationship warrants.

Wow, yeah, I would not have been able to articulate your first sentence but the rest of this is exactly how she feels about dogs (and people), ha, which makes me think your first sentence is probably true of her as well. The reason she bonded with Oz and not with Boots (my sister's dogs) is that Oz was immediately snuggly and affectionate towards her, whereas Boots was more the "earn your affection" type. And she HATES any kind of snuggling or emotional affection with people :)

(This might also explain why she has a reasonable relationship with her little brother -- she doesn't want him to snuggle her either, really, but especially when he was very small, he looked up to her a lot (I mean, he just lit up whenever she was around, it was super sweet) and she could make him laugh, but he didn't really demand anything of her. Now of course he can annoy her a lot, but they still retain the core of having fun together, and I'd always been a bit surprised that they started off with such a good relationship.)

The one and only thing I wanted was someone to talk to about my interests (and drive me to bookstores). My peers did not share my interests, and no amount of socializing would make them share my interests. Only adults did (and only a few).

But also, critically, the way in which I got adults (teachers) to be my in-group and get them to talk to me about my interests was not by asking them how their day was. It was by giving them what they on their part desperately wanted: a well-behaved student who was passionate about the material that they were teaching and picked it up quickly.

Very fair! And a) this is how I related to my teachers too b) I mean, although I am now socialized to make small talk, I am still (as you know quite well by this time) absolutely inclined to be all "LET US TALK ABOUT THE THING" instead of asking people how their day was, and if I figure out you are the kind of person who does not care if I ask about your day and who will talk to me about things we are both excited about rather than go through the layer of small talk first, I am always gonna talk to you about the things and let the life stuff come out as it does or doesn't. (This is how my closest friend from college and I had only a very vague idea of what the other person did for a living until it started frankly getting kind of embarrassing -- we always talk about books or TV shows or singing (we met through choir) or personality analysis as relating to those subjects, because that is what we are mutually interested in; I'm not sure I have ever asked her how her day was.) (Also, this is why DW is a greeeeeat way to interact, lol, because it provides interesting interaction initiation while bypassing all the social stuff :P )

This is what I feel differentiates me from people on the spectrum, who are by and large (to my knowledge) struggling with a mismatch between their skills and their needs/desires.

Yeah, fair. As probably not really diagnosable myself, particularly at this point, I consider my skills and needs to be fairly well matched, but I probably wasn't so much as a kid. I've mentioned this before, but I think that my mom's unpredictable temper actually worked out for me to help me develop a lot of emotional perception skills that I wouldn't have been forced to gain otherwise. (In this way, as I think I've also mentioned before, you actually remind me more of D, who is totally NT, and there are people he does like to talk to, and those people think he's charming! And he doesn't approach social skills in the analytical way I do, or you do. But... most people... he doesn't particularly want to talk to or engage with, and he more-or-less has arranged his life so he doesn't have to. Hm, I wonder how E turned out the way she did, with us as parents :P )

In conclusion, alien brain is alien, but it works pretty well for me, and I hope E gets into a situation where hers works well for her. And from what I can see, you're doing a good job of helping her get there.

(Look at me performing caring! :P)

Lol! Well, I've decided the effect is reasonable regardless of what's going on in the backend :P

[mildred_of_midgard]

how does it make you feel when X happens

Me: "Good! That's why I do it! I would like it very much if people didn't say hi to me!"

My poor mother: "What do you DO with a child like this??!"

:P

appealing to empathy is supposed to work for kids!

It worked on my one sister! (The normal one, not the one who has *neither* empathy *nor* a desire to be a mature adult with a well-reasoned set of ethics, and therefore we have *no* idea how to get through to her.)

I recorded this exchange in my DW a while back, about my mother reacting to my normal sister throwing a rock at another kid on the playground:

Sister: "I don't care if his mom would cry if he got hurt, he shouldn't have thrown the first rock at me."
Mom: "But what if you accidentally hit an innocent kid instead?"
Sister: "Mooom. I'm not gonna miss." (This is legit! She was the athlete of the family!)
Mom: "Okay, but what if an innocent kid ran between you and got hit?"
Sister: "Fiiine. I won't throw any more rocks. But he better not throw any at me."

(Notice my mom's consistent strategy of appealing to empathy!)

also some discussion on how to use body language to make it clear that you are smiling and saying hi because you don't have negative feelings towards them, but not inviting further talking, so that you wouldn't suffer negative consequences

WHAT. This is a thing? I can't even get people to not talk to me even if I determinedly look away (out the window, at a book, at a screen) and keep a wooden face and say nothing at all and avoid reacting at all to anything they say or do. Or if I frown directly at them and then look away. What is this magical body language of which you speak that keeps people from taking a mile when you give them an inch?

E was also the kid who had not read any of the childrearing books, at least that was our explanation for why she didn't follow ANY of them once she hit toddlerdom

Lol, my mother's saying was always, "Kids don't come with instruction manuals."

Me, thinking: "I've been writing you one for years now, it's very clear and explicit, and you're not reading it!!"

Also, I feel like your parents interact with my brain in sort of the same way FW does, in the sense that I keep forgetting how terrible they were :P

Ha!

"otherwise she could grow up to be average!!" (direct quote)

Oh, wow. Total opposite land! My mother gave us all frequent, detailed lectures that I can recite word for word to this day, about how most people are average, and it's okay to be average, and if everyone had their nose in a book all day long and made all As like me, the trash would never get collected and civilization would collapse. As long as you're working hard in school, it doesn't matter what grades you make. Only if your teacher says you're slacking off is there a problem.

But no one in my family had any room to throw stones about being average. Look,

My mom: Dropped out of high school, got her GED, took some community college courses for fun, got pregnant, never got an associate's. Will read historical romances for fun.

My dad: finished high school, went into the military, took community college courses my senior year of high school and freshman year of college in order to get a promotion, got an associate's. I helped him with his homework. Has never read a book in his life that wasn't required, nor even the newspaper. Will read instruction manuals when assembling things, that's it.

My sister #1: hated anything intellectual, made fun of me for liking learning. Failed as many classes as she could, usually intentionally. (This part did get her in trouble at home.) Got pregnant in high school. Dropped out of high school as soon as she could. Was eventually pressured into getting her GED. Took some professional training courses, but kept quitting or getting fired because she refused to do her job.

My sister #2: made As in math, failed reading and was always having to do remedial reading, made Bs in everything else. Liked playing soccer, watching TV, having friends, and doing art. Said she could make better grades if she had her nose in a book all the time, but she wanted to live. Hated reading, had to be forced to do it. Aside from failing a class, this was basically my parents' ideal child, the one they could relate to. Then she died at age 9.

My brothers: nonverbal, still in diapers, incapable of self-care.

My maternal grandmother, the one I had contact with: dropped out of high school as soon as she could, never looked back.

My maternal grandfather, ditto: finished high school, joined the military, took community college courses and got an associate's to get a promotion at work. Would read the newspaper, but not books.

My biological father, of whom I heard stories growing up: made Cs in school, wanted to drop out and join the family business (making moccasins), was made by his father to finish high school before he would be accepted in the family business. Would express skepticism that I was his whenever my mother would report on my academic successes.

I was a fish out of water.

And, like, it isn't that my parents didn't make any effort at all. It's that if their efforts were insufficient, it was my fault for being ungrateful. I should just wait until college to feel intellectually stimulated. We should definitely not brainstorm other solutions. And if a solution I came up with was too far outside their ken, they should freak out, forbid it, and just make me wait until college, when it wasn't their problem any more.

This had nothing to do with them not being willing to do work, and everything to do with them feeling inadequate and freaking out at not knowing what to do with me. The freaking out got in the way of figuring it out.

I saw it again when my mother was talking about my nephew (who was living with her that year, because my sister was a fuck-up) enjoying watching TV shows that taught him phrases in Spanish and Chinese. I suggested he might like a tutor. I was about to suggest that if they looked into what it would cost, I would see what I could contribute (I was in grad school). I immediately got an eruption about how OF COURSE he didn't need a tutor, how UNREASONABLE could I be, it's not like he ASKED for a tutor (he was 7! raised by my sister! I would put money on him not knowing what a tutor *was*), this is NOT UP for discussion, WTF Mildred.

Me: "Right, yes, I'd forgotten that that's what happens when you suggest something outside my parents' ken. Never mind!" (I so sympathize with Wilhelmine wanting to see her father after years away, because she'd ALSO forgotten how bad it was *cough*, and also with Fritz going, "No! Bad idea! You've forgotten because you're FREE!")

But, yeah, if someone like you were my child I don't think we'd be completely free of conflict by a long shot, but I think I could have done a much better job than your parents :P

I think so! (Don't make me do music in this AU, please.)

but were absolutely horrible for someone like my sister, because (and huh, I never thought about it in these terms before) she had emotional needs at the top of her hierarchy and never got those needs met.)

Ah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I do approve of my parents telling us that being average was okay, and letting us choose our own careers (wtf, your parents), and taking all the academic pressure off of us. The problem was holding me back when I wanted, and needed, to be above average anyway.

Wow, yeah, I would not have been able to articulate your first sentence but the rest of this is exactly how she feels about dogs (and people), ha, which makes me think your first sentence is probably true of her as well.

It wouldn't surprise me! It's not actually uncommon for autistic people to have needs for emotional affection and/or physical touch, and to not be able to get these needs fully met from other people, because other people Feel Wrong. Animals, like dogs and horses, can be very helpful to people on the spectrum. (Spectrum or no, I am one of those "don't touch me" and also "I am touch-starved" people.)

That might be something to keep an eye out for with her, especially if she doesn't like snuggling. Not liking it doesn't necessarily exempt you from needing some of the neuroendocrinological benefits. How does she feel about weighted blankets? Similarly, I've never used a hug machine, but I can see the appeal.

especially when he was very small, he looked up to her a lot (I mean, he just lit up whenever she was around, it was super sweet) and she could make him laugh, but he didn't really demand anything of her.

Aww!

I am still (as you know quite well by this time) absolutely inclined to be all "LET US TALK ABOUT THE THING"

YES THANK YOU.

I've mentioned this before, but I think that my mom's unpredictable temper actually worked out for me to help me develop a lot of emotional perception skills that I wouldn't have been forced to gain otherwise.

Yep. And I've mentioned in reply before that my mom's unpredictable temper taught me that she was irrational, that there was no point in trying to please her, that I shouldn't respect her opinions, and that I certainly shouldn't listen to anything she was saying that didn't make sense to me. (I might have respected you enough to listen to your explanations of why I should Do The Thing, but her techniques never stood a chance.)

Whereas my mother probably picked up some emotional perception skills from her (perhaps borderline personality disorder) mother? She learned to watch her eyes closely to try to gauge her mood.

most people... he doesn't particularly want to talk to or engage with, and he more-or-less has arranged his life so he doesn't have to. Hm, I wonder how E turned out the way she did, with us as parents :P )

Lol! Well, at least she has parents who have a chance of getting her!

[cahn]

About E and touch: yeah, she haaaates people touching her, except very occasionally in certain specific ways, like, she used to let me pet her as if she were a, well, pet, but now that she's older she doesn't usually like that either. But dogs she's fine with! She doesn't like weighted blankets because they're too hot, but stuffed animals are often fine.

I can't even get people to not talk to me even if I determinedly look away (out the window, at a book, at a screen) and keep a wooden face and say nothing at all and avoid reacting at all to anything they say or do. Or if I frown directly at them and then look away.

Man, I wrote this like a month ago and totally forgot to actually, well, post it *facepalm* :

So -- I've been thinking about this and watching my and other people's reactions, and I can't deny that one factor here is that I've got way more tolerance for ordinary small talk than you do (not least, being in a couple of communities where it's been valuable to me to learn how to do it, both as ingroup-promoting and as information-exchange facilitating), so to a certain extent I probably don't notice very much (except the last week or two when I have been, lol) when people do make small talk. And I'm not sure in what contexts you're having trouble with people talking to you when you don't want it, and if maybe you're just surrounded by extroverted people??

But I also kind of think that I might be right about giving an inch being a more robust solution than not giving anything. Because if you're just not talking to people *at all* and turning away from them, or just frowning -- The thing is that someone not reacting at all, or negatively, is sort of counter to the normal social rules and therefore people don't really know what to do with that, and so half the time they'll assume you didn't hear, or that something might be wrong, so they'll keep trying. I myself, if confronted with someone who was not reacting at all, or negatively, to my presence (and knowing that I haven't done anything overtly to offend them), might feel compelled to ask how that person was doing or something, or even try to draw them into a conversation, because it would ping me as "is this person okay? what's going on?" rather than "I don't want to talk," even if I'm an introverted spectrum-adjacent engineer who would usually avoid saying more than hi, and I dare say that a lot of people would do the same.

In my experience, the ordinary social way of signaling "I don't want to talk" is in fact not to totally say nothing at all, but (if someone says hi to you), quickly nod or say "Hi" and then go back to one's phone/screen, or walk quickly away, or whatever -- that signals "I acknowledge your presence, other human, so we can consider the social exchange completed, but you are less compelling than whatever is going on otherwise right now." I think most people will accept that as fulfilling the minimum of the social contract and then leave you alone. Another even better trick is to act distracted while doing so, like, when someone says hi to you, wait for a second and then look up from your screen or book, say hi (or "oh, hi") in a distracted/short tone of voice, and then look back down. That one *really* conveys "I acknowledge your presence but I don't want to talk to you and I am giving both of us the excuse that I'm busy," which dissuades most people. Maybe not all, but I'm gonna bet those people wouldn't have left you alone if you didn't say hi either :P

There are certain social situations where one is expected to provide a couple more words than just "hi," and in this case the bare minimum is a little higher before one can step away, and one might have to provide a few monosyllabic answers first. (D is actually quite good at doing this bare minimum and then successfully side-stepping social contact he doesn't want. Occasionally there are people he's happy to talk to (which usually means they're people who are interested in the same kinds of things he is), in which case he is perfectly happy to chat, which I suppose is different from you. But often he doesn't want to, and I've definitely seen him absolutely just kill a would-be friendly conversation straight dead -- or heard about it later -- by doing the monosyllabic bare minimum thing.)

(I am apparently quite good at this by accident? I've heard from a couple of people that when I was an adolescent, people thought I was very stuck-up, which in retrospect I think is because I'd been socialized to say hi to people but I was never really into it, but rather would be really into whatever I was doing that didn't involve them. In high school and college I also spent most of my time with my best friend, and whatever she was saying was almost always more interesting than what the other person was going to say, so there was that too.)

(If you try these techniques, it's probably better if you don't try it with the people who are already used to your not talking, they might get the wrong idea :P )

Now, the rules are a bit different for an adolescent socializing with an adult, where you also have additional social mores around this particular dynamic, many of these driven by the fact that societally, adults are implicitly supposed to be coaching the kid on how these social rules work -- which makes it a little harder to get out of a certain class of conversations (than it is for an adult), if that's one's goal :P (Of course, in E's case I'm also strongly mandating her to have conversations, so...)

[mildred_of_midgard]

About E and touch: yeah, she haaaates people touching her, except very occasionally in certain specific ways

Yeah, then I would probably at some point, at whatever age you think is appropriate, let her know what touch starvation is. She may not end up with it, but if she does, at least she won't be confused about what's going on, because it can be very counterintuitive. I don't hate touch nearly as much as she does, and I still have significant touch starvation.

And if she does end up with it, she'll be in a position to look for creative solutions. There are probably resources for autistic people on this topic.

But I also kind of think that I might be right about giving an inch being a more robust solution than not giving anything.

It does not seem to matter! Whether I smile and say "hi" or "fine, how are you?" or whether I ignore them from the get-go, people are really persistent. Both casual acquaintances and complete strangers.

I did finally, almost by accident, add the phrase, "Sorry, I don't feel like talking," to my arsenal, but it took a really long time--into my thirties--to come up with something that was concise, polite, unambiguous, and truthful enough to satisfy me.

I really wish someone had given me this phrase when I was ten. It would have saved me and everyone around me a lot of frustration. Instead, all I got was, "No, you must be friendly! Other people's feelings!"

I think most people will accept that as fulfilling the minimum of the social contract and then leave you alone.

Hahaha. Maybe "most" people, but a non-trivial number of people will decide this is the opener to a conversation and will plow on ahead to the next topic despite monosyllables. Basically, until I discovered "Sorry, I don't feel like talking," I had two choices:

a) Have the person repeatedly insist on whatever conversation opener they've chosen, in the face of me ignoring it.
b) Have the person repeatedly insist on the next step in the conversation after I disengage, in the face of me ignoring it.

There...really wasn't a whole lot to choose from there, except at least in option (a) I wasn't blaming myself for sending mixed signals.1