Life With an Asperger's Teen

I wanted to share a little more about myself with you so I am adding a blog section to the site. I hope you enjoy hearing about my family and our experience with raising a child with Aspergers.

My daughter is currently 14 years old and a freshman in high school.  She seems to have made the transition fairly well and in general is a pretty average teen.  She asks me questions and then completely ignores my answer. I found this so frustrating that I finally asked her;

“If you are going to ignore what I say why do you ask me the question in the first place?”

Her reply

“Well, sometimes you surprise me Mom and actually know stuff.”

I just love that total honesty.

We have been very lucky in where we live and the help our daughter has received from the school and private therapy. I know that no one solution will work for every child but here are is a list of things we have done that worked for her:

1.      Chiropractic care – she went to a chiropractor for 5 years during grade school and middle school – this significantly improved her sensory issues and her behavior.

2.      Diet – When she was in grade school we changed to an all-natural diet for the family. No additives, no preservatives and no food coloring. Again it really helped her behavior. We were very strict for about a year and then started to slide, but by then she could handle a limited amount of these chemicals. Now she eats a pretty standard diet except no pop and very little processed sugar. It works for her.

3.      Social Skills therapy – she got a lot of therapy in school but we added social skills groups through private clinics as well. I believe the exposure to multiple counselors and teachers really helped her to learn the skills  and integrate them faster and more effectively

4.      Lots of sensory activities – one of the things she struggled with was her sense of touch and sound. Everything was too loud and nothing felt right.  We spent a lot of time doing activities that involved touching a wide variety of objects. (Think Sandbox/fingerpaint/playdoh/dirt/sugar) Over time this seemed to help her get comfortable with textures.

5.      Lots of love – Children need to feel accepted and loved just as they are. Sometimes we really struggled with the fact that she didn’t feel a need to have friends. Both my husband and I were concerned she would become isolated and lonely.  While she made ‘acquaintances’ very easily she didn’t keep any friends for more than a school year until she was in seventh grade. She now has 3 friends with whom she has maintained a friendship for 4 years.  I think the fact that we focused on her getting the skills to make friends when she wanted to, instead of putting pressure on her to make friends, helped her to use those skills when she felt ready.

These are just 5 of the many things we tried.  There were other therapies we used to help her with specific skills she needed and some skills just never worked for her. For example she has never been able to enjoy playing team sports.  There is just too much going on for her to keep track of. She struggles in gym class at school because of this, but it just isn’t important to her. (she recently told her gym teacher that she only wants to do enough so that her parents don’t yell at her for getting a bad grade)

Every child is different and every child on the spectrum has their own needs. Remember you are not alone. This website is dedicated to helping parents find the resources they need to help their children grow into the best adults they can be.

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