Life with Aspergers

One of the frustrating things about the fathers, particularly fathers of kids on the spectrum is that for various reasons, they're not always "engaged" in the family. Fathers are often used as the "bad cop" in parenting but many fathers go completely in the other direction, permitting anything and ultimately disengaging from their child's development.  In this post, I want to look at the reasons why fathers don't engage, how you, the dad, can parent on your own terms and how to become an important part of your child's life.  Why aren't fathers engaged? Fatherhood today is very different to what it was like in the previous generation. As GenX, our parents were likely baby boomers or traditionalists. Fathers in our day didn't spend a lot of time on things like child-rearing. They were always too busy with work and chores. More importantly, fathers in previous generations were encouraged to bury their feelings and to toughen up. This ha...

Last week, I read a post from a lady who didn't feel accepted by her partner. The interesting thing was that while she knew what she wanted to say, she felt that she couldn't talk to him about her autism.  She was considering the next steps in her relationship but was going into it without the tools to communicate effectively.  Until quite recently, people with autism tended to fall into two broad categories;  Those who were diagnosed with autism because they exhibited behaviours to such an extent that they were unable to get into long term relationships, and Those who went undiagnosed into a relationship.  These days however, it's much more common for people entering a relationship to know that they're on the autism spectrum. In this post, I want to look at the benefits of disclosing autism to prospective partners. Why is it becoming more common? A couple of decades ago, it was relatively uncommon for people to get married with the knowledge that...

Recently, I was unpacking the dishwasher and putting cups away while thinking about how we chose the cups and mugs and how my wife and I have very different thought processes when it comes to buying them. I was wondering if this was a male/female difference, an autism/neurotypical difference or just a Gavin/Joanne difference. Somehow, I got to reflecting on the whole "extreme male brain" theory of autism and why I dislike that model more than ever.  ... and then of course, I started thinking about how people escape these gender stereotypes. The art of choosing a mug My wife used to choose cups in sets of four or preferably six. They'd all have the same pattern (or at least they'd all be related in some way).  Often this pattern would match the walls or benchtop in our kitchen. Sometimes the mugs she'd choose would come with their own stand which meant that they annoyingly took up space on the bench or they'd have a set of special hooks on the wall which...

I was reading an article a few weeks back on the psychological reasons why some marriages last the distance when so many others fail.  It was a brilliant article and it suggested that there were two key traits that successful married couples display; 1. Both partners stay cool calm and collected during conversations 2. Both partners respond to their partner's bids for emotional connection I was thinking about how good this advice was for couples in Asperger's relationships when I suddenly realised that those traits need to operate on a wider scale than simply relationships. These are key traits that affect our interactions with everyone on a day-to-day basis.  Marriage Failures The statistics tell an alarming story on the increasing number of failing marriages. These days, we don't seem to have enough time to even listen to each other properly, let alone work on relationship building. In terms of global statistics, couples in Rome are most likely to stay to...

In my last post , I looked at some of the more "female" behaviours in memes and how they describe people on the autism spectrum in relationships.  This time I want to look at primarily male behaviours. Of course, these aren't really gender restricted behaviours and depending upon the type of relationship you're in, they could be either male or female. This is a long post, so I'm jumping in without further preamble. If you want more background, refer to the  previous post . White Male Privilege I could be mistaken but it feels like feminism is stronger online today than it ever was in the past. This is not a bad thing as women's rights still have a long way to go. Unfortunately not all men are the enemy but feminism can make men feel as if comments are directed specifically at them. This is especially true if you're a white male. It triggers a lot of bad feelings but the worst thing you can possibly do is to try to put your two cents in and d...

The internet is full of amusing sites like Ebaum's World  and Cheezeburger where memes rule and people surface almost any content on the internet in the most disturbing ways.  Just as the culture of the internet flows through the comments on more serious sites like Reddit, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, it flows through the meme sites too -- only with far less censorship. Don't get me wrong, many of these posts are terribly funny but most are not politically correct and some seem to showcase the darker side of human nature.  One thing that I have noticed is that there are a lot of "cringeworthy" posts which show some very disturbing trends towards dating -- on both the male and female sides. Why is this an autism problem? While the behaviours I want to discuss are not in any way restricted to autism, some of the memes and comments seem to echo sentiments I've heard all too frequently in the autism and Asperger's communities. People with autism o...

It seems strange to say it but I’d never heard of Katy Perry until she hit the headlines for dressing “inappropriately” on Sesame Street back in 2010. Even then it was at least a couple of years before I listened to her music properly.  Apart from her music, which I now love, I’ve also got another reason to really like her as an artist. She’s always defending those who are different and in 2012, she did an awesome duet of Firework (an amazing and empowering song in its own right) with Jodi DiPiazza a young girl with autism. I tried to find this on youtube again but sadly the full version isn’t available now.  Rest assured, it was incredibly moving. Lyrics with Meaning One of the great things about Katy’s songs is that a lot of them, though obviously not all, have deep meanings. I was listening to the song, “it takes two” recently and I was thinking about the message within it and how it applies a lot of common sense to couples in relationships. I was also thinking th...

He doesn't look autistic to me...  It's a phrase that every parent of a child on the autism spectrum dreads. Apparently it's meant as a compliment but in reality it's a fairly impressive bit of “multiple insulting“. Disclaimer: Nick Cage doesn't necessarily have autism but I used this photo because it has the right kind of "weird face" required to match the offending phrase. Why is this so insulting? On the one hand,  it's insulting to all people with autism because it suggests that all children with autism can be identified by presumably defective physical traits making them “inferior” to their neurotypical counterparts in yet another way. On the other hand, it's insulting to the person who has autism and their carers because it belittles their struggle and challenges the idea that they have anything to complain about. People often use the offending phrase to suggest that a child or adult doesn't need special treatment or support ...