What We Have Here, Is A Failure To Communicate
September 28, 2006
So yesterday we went out to Uncle A’s new house to help put together some of his new furniture (which looks very nice, if I do say myself). Spiff missed most of school on Monday, due to his accidental mixing of his morning and nighttime medication. It doesn’t pose a health risk, it just makes him very drowsy at a time when he needs to be awake. So he needed to come home and sleep off the effects. This also meant that he needed to make up the work he missed. This meant homework, and lots of it.
When Spiff arrived home, he informed me that he had some good news, and then some bad news. Being a mom, I wanted to hear the bad news first. Apparently he sat in another seat for a group project that someone else wanted to sit in, and he was threatened by that child. As I asked important questions to dig deeper for more information, it quickly became apparent that he didn’t know the child’s name who threatened him, or very many kids in any of his classes for that matter. He did tell his aide about the incident, which was good, but soon the aide will be giving Spiff more autonomy at school and it concerns me that Spiff doesn’t even know some of the student’s names in his classes. So we had a talk about that, but I’m worried that I’m not getting through to him. Based on some of the answers he gave me during our discussion, I’m right in my concerns.
While we were at Uncle A’s, the boys brought their GameBoys to play. We have several games to play on these things, but inevitably both boys want to play the same game, in this case it was Super Mario Brothers 2. Much bickering and arguing ensued, and The Hubby, who was putting together chairs that at one point we thought might make great kindling, lost his mind. Spiff says he heard a noise coming from the GameBoy Scamp was playing, and wanted to fix it. So what did he do? Instead of asking his brother to see it for a minute, he rips it out of his hands, which begins a period of screaming and yelling from Scamp that can peel paint off walls and kill small dogs.
The Hubby lost his shit, folks. I can’t say I blame him.
Cut to Spiff cowering in a corner, now crying because it’s never pretty when Daddy loses it. However, the fun wasn’t over yet. Spiff is still trying to argue that all he was trying to do was help, and that his father doesn’t understand. The reality is that we do understand, we were just appalled at the way he went about trying to fix the problem by ripping the toy out of his brother’s hand without explaining or even simply asking his brother if he could hold the toy for a minute. (unfortunately for Spiff, he’s done that before, and he has a tendency to not give the item back once he has it, so I can understand why Scamp might be a little skeptical about Spiff’s intentions)
Spiff because he is a 12 year old boy and because of his Asperger’s, is very ego-centric. It’s all about him, folks. His brother can cut himself and bleed right next to him and Spiff will ignore him if he is doing something that is more interesting to him; even though his brother could be crying right beside him. He won’t get help, he’ll just tune it out. This exact senario happened last night before they went to bed. It can become very frustrating when trying to explain things to him, we both end up becoming exasperated, most of the time for different reasons.
This morning, Spiff says he’s sorry for yesterday, and because I want to know from him exactly what he is sorry for I ask. He then tells me that he is sorry that we (read: the Hubby and I) made he and Scamp feel like idiots.
Methinks he’s not getting the message here.
This means that I now have to explain AGAIN what happened, and why it went down the way it did, and the cues he missed while it was happening so that he could have avoided the situation getting to the point it did. I then had to explain that it’s hard when a 12 year old sometimes can’t act any better about sharing than his 4 year old brother.
I’m at a loss. I don’t know what to do to help him understand simple cues that will help him understand situations better; help him understand that his continuing to explain WHY he did something (that he ultimately gets in trouble for) only makes the situation worse for him; that it’s important to get to know the names of people you see every day on the off chance you may need to get help from them at a later time; and that just because someone wants you to do something with them doesn’t mean that they are trying to boss you around. Just when I think we have clicked and it looks like he understands me, we wind up back at square one soon after.
I’m tired of this dance. I want to teach him some new steps.
Then I want them to stick. And soon. Before I lose my mind.
