How to explain abstract concepts of friendship and love to a child with Aspergers

Filed under:Aspergers Communication — posted by admin on June 9, 2009 @ 11:43 am

Hi and welcome to this week’s blog post …

Before I get into it I want to talk briefly about the summer holidays.

I know that the long holidays can be a very difficult time for many parents so I am wanting to offer some help …

In the next day or so I am going to put out a quick online survey where you can ask me your most important question about the upcoming summer holidays.

And I’ll answer as many of them as I can in my brand new ebook.

So look out for that email in the next 24-48 hours …

Here’s the blog post …

Question

How to explain abstract concepts of friendship and love

Answer

Talking about abstract concepts with a child with Asperger’s Syndrome can be challenging. Typically, children with Asperger’s have a very difficult time understanding abstract concepts, especially those that have to do with social interactions. When you talk to you child with Asperger’s about friendship and love, understand that this will not be something he can grasp overnight.

A great deal of the conversation depends on the age of your child. Young children, especially elementary age children, will likely be talked to about friendship many times. Keep the conversations as concrete as you can, using specific examples. If you son has a good friend, talk to him about what sorts of things he can do to nurture that friendship. He can invite his friend over for play dates. He can share his toys. He can talk to him, especially when his friend wants to talk. He can be a good listener. Using specific examples, you can explain to your son, over time, what friends do for each other, and what friendship means. Helping him understand this will enable him to better create and nurture friendships when he gets older.

When your child is young, you will want to introduce the concept of love to him. Explain that love is a feeling, and talk to him about times when he might feel that feeling. He loves his mother and father. He loves his siblings. He loves his pets. Helping him to identify that feeling will help him understand the emotion. You can also talk to him about how he treats people he loves. Give him concrete examples of ways he can act and things he can do to nurture a loving relationship. This might include holding hands or hugging, or a kiss good night.

As your child gets older, you will need to continue to talk with him about the changing nature of his feelings and the nature of his relationships. He may have feelings for girls that he has trouble identifying. Talk to him about those feelings and help him give them names. You will need to talk about the varying degrees of love, such as the love he might feel for a good friend and the crush he might have on a girl in his class. Discuss appropriate ways to act on those feelings.

It’s important to help your son identify his own feelings and give them names. He will then need to talk about the appropriate ways to act when he has those feelings. A good reference for parents is a book entitled “Life and Love: Positive Strategies for Autistic Adults” by Zosia Zaks In this book, the author writes about concrete ways to deal with challenges that come up in daily life, about friendship and love. Ms. Zaks writes for autistic adults and stresses the relationship between self-esteem and independence. This would be a great book to have your older child or adult child with Asperger’s read. This would give you a common language to talk through some of these issues.

Take Care

Dave Angel

============================================================

Articles posted this week at The Parenting Aspergers Community

============================================================

I have an issue with your Asperger’s tips, they are all geared to boys and the girls present very different symptoms in a lot of areas, especially at school. My 12 yr old tries to participate and when the teacher responds negatively or worse with sarcasm, she either gets really upset or shuts down. She tries to interact socially, but ‘trips over her own tongue’ and will say things to really upset her peers. Can you help?

Boys and girls do present Asperger’s symptoms differently, and have a different rate of diagnosis. According to the Asperger’s Foundation (www.aspergersfoundation.org.uk), Asperger’s is diagnosed in four boys to every one girl. It is thought that Asperger’s affects children at a rate of ten boys to one girl. Consequently, when discussing Asperger’s syndrome, more often information is geared toward boys than girls. Girls tend to present Asperger’s symptoms differently. Girls with Asperger’s tend to do better socially than boys with Asperger’s. In your daughter’s case, it seems she has trouble …

To read the full article go to: –

http://www.parentingaspergerscommunity.com/members/263.cfm

============================================================

My child with Asperger’s seems to be developing anorexia. What should I do?

Anorexia is a complicated illness. It is an eating disorder where a person controls the amount and type of food she eats and creates a situation where she is starving herself. Typically, people who suffer from anorexia are grossly underweight, and yet continue to perceive themselves as fat. An anorexic might …

To read the full article go to: –

http://www.parentingaspergerscommunity.com/members/264.cfm

============================================================
How do I help other people in the world understand my son’s behaviors?
Here is a brief description of Asperger’s Syndrome. Asperger’s is a developmental disorder that affects a child’s ability to socialize and communicate effectively. Children with Asperger’s syndrome typically are …

To read the full article go to: –

http://www.parentingaspergerscommunity.com/members/262.cfm
============================================================

comments (9)

9 comments »

I care for my nephew who looks on me as his mum..He uses the wrod love alot because we are a loving family..My problem is he is constantally saying he wants to marry me..We have tried to explain he will meet a girlfriend when he is older but he really doesnt get it….Any Ideas much appreciated..
Comment by sharon — June 9, 2009 @ 4:48 pm
my son use to ask me to marry him all the time. I told him that I was very happy that he loved me but that I could never marry him because I am his mother. He said he didn’t understand. I told him he would think differently when he was older. I told him that in the mean time I would always love him as his mother and he as my son. I promised him that we could open the same discussion when he turned 18 to 21. He was happy with that. He is 30 now and we have not had to reopen the discussion. He has had trouble understanding different whims of women, however. I explained to him that most men suffer this dilema and not to feel bad. Thats why the book was written Men from Mars and Women from Venus. Love is a difficult word for him to comprehend and after a few abrupt situations he became more cautious. He wants to marry but he does not understand courting. I never understood any of that either. We do not understand feelings very well. We tend to depend on trust and expect that others think the same. I talk with him and use myself as an example as I have had numerous experiences and had to learn from them. I still learn. I hug him and tell him The Apple didn’t fall far from the tree as he is just like me.
Comment by Karen — June 9, 2009 @ 5:24 pm
My son also use to tell me he was going to marry me. His dad just made it a game saying no she’s my girl; and they’d go back and forth with “no, she’s my girl.” He’s 15 now, and no-one was more shocked than me – he had a date!! He met a girl at the movies and they have been calling each other. Don’t worry they out-grow it.
Comment by Michele — June 9, 2009 @ 6:20 pm
When my son was younger, he would say he wanted to marry me. He also wanted to marry his grandmother, his teacher and his babysitter. When he wanted to marry me, I would tell him that we could not get married because I was already married…he was 5 or so when all this went on. He seemed to get the fact that sons can’t marry their moms but he still has a hard time defining friendship. Everyone he meets is instantly his friend – he doesn’t understand the dynamics of people pretending to be your friend just to get something from you. This has happened to him a few times (people being nice & then stealing his things) but he still doesn’t understand why they did that because they are supposed to be his friend. He is 10 now, so I am hoping that with time, he will be able to come to understand this all better.
Comment by Lela — June 10, 2009 @ 1:09 pm
My son is now 18 and has decieded that rules are not for him and freedom with his friends trumps everything else. To this end he has moved out and is living with a friend and his family. We know this is a bad situation for him as he has drinking issues and is a real follower. The house has people with habitual criminal activities. We have tried in vane with all our counselors to talk him into coming home. We are at a lose and because we didn’t get a diagnoses until he was about 16 or so it has been a long battle and we were not able to lay the groundwork we should have been able had we known earlier. A lot of your help is for these younger kids but what about my older kid. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Comment by Eliott Schultz — June 11, 2009 @ 12:07 pm
In your articles you keep presuming that the children will have at least one friend, the whole point is they don’t! At primary I managed to engineer a play date with one child for about a year, now he is 16 and has ‘mates’ he might bump into in town but never goes to parties etc and he is fairly mild.
Comment by Catherine Dawson — June 11, 2009 @ 2:27 pm
I am a mother of not one but two teenage Aspergers boys. I have been living with them for almost 20 years now. I have not found a support group in my area and have had to learn all about AS on my own. Through trial and error until about 7 years ago when we learned that our sons both have AS. They are as different as day and night. One is outgoing the other wishes to keep to himself. They have many folks to help them with their problems but not one is able to help me help them. I get to watch them help my boys but they can’t help me help them. Thank heavens that I am now going to school on line to get my masters in Crimiology and Justice Specialist Psy so that I have access to the information I need to help them in my own home. I also think my husband and I might have AS to different degrees but will not be able to be diagnosed because of our ages. Oh well life goes on in this here world good luck folks in caring for your AS kids
Comment by Vanessa (Ness) Sorth — June 11, 2009 @ 8:04 pm
I have a 16 yr boy with Aspergers and hormones, puberty, yikes. Did I say Yikes…He has this year found “girls” and has just been dumped by one, the whole she just wants to be friends. Thanks to his Aspergers he just wants to smother them, gifts, holding hands, kissing what ever his mind thinks is a normal relationship he wants to do. And do it now, I can’t wait. I am old any of my conversations are old school advice……
Comment by patricia — January 20, 2016 @ 1:21 pm
wow I just read how old this feed is ha ha my bad
Comment by patricia — January 20, 2016 @ 1:22 pm