Category Archives: Aspies Socialization

Jan 13 2015
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Adult Aspies and Social situations, Aspie Adventures, Aspies parenting, Aspies Socialization, Autism Spectrum, behaviours, John Robison

Aspies: Two Generations Can Have an Explosive Impact.

In a Psychology Today April 2013 article titled Father and Son, Aspies Alike author John Elder Robison describes the pitfalls of two generations under one roof having Aspergers.

His son, Jack, was fascinated by ‘energetic reactions’ in chemistry.  This meant that he liked building experimental things that depended on explosive reactions. Things like rockets. Other chemical formulations that he set to explode in the field behind their house.

John Robison knew that his son Jack was uploading instructional videos of his experiments to You Tube.  But it never occurred to him, as it might to some non-Aspie parents, that this might attract some undue attention.

In Jack’s case, it was the FBI FTA branch.

Jack was not charged with any offence and his brush with the law proved innocent enough.

But maybe it’s better when you’re seeking an outside opinion?  To ask someone who isn’t an Aspie.

John Robison’s books include Raising Cubby,  Be Different and Look Me In the Eye.  His son, Jack, along with Jack’s friends Alex Plank, founder of You Tube’s Wrong Planet, have created a series of videos about Autism issues.

Yours truly,

Margaret Jean.

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Jan 11 2015
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Adult Aspies and Social situations, Aspies Socialization

Small Talk: Three Tips For Aspies

Help!

I’m alone in a roomful of people–people I don’t know!

And I want to make a good impression.  What do I do now?

In  Unforgiving, Memoir of an Asperger Teen, I talk about the gaffs I made at a dinner especially arranged to introduce me to some theater people.  I really wish I ‘d had Dr. Carducci’s book and Jeffrey’s videos back then!  These two experts on small talk really know how to ace a social situation.

You’ve just listened to Jeffrey’s video.  He’s a guy who’s given more than 3,000 presentations and met many people.  His comfort level with strangers is very high. But even he says it takes practice.

Dr. Bernardo Carducci is head of The Shyness Institute at Indiana University South East, so he has a lot of research behind his book, The Pocket Guide to Making Successful Small Talk; How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere about Anything.  

Like Dr. Bernardo Carducci, Jeffrey Benjamin says step up and introduce yourself to someone standing near you.

Don’t interrupt a conversation to do that.  Just find someone who is standing alone and go for it.

This is called breaking the ice and while to an Aspie it can feel just as dangerous as falling into freezing water on the skating pond, practising this manoeuvre will make it less stressful each time.

Both experts say listen.  Listening in this sense, means being able to repeat back key phrases of what the other person has just said.

Repeating back a brief summary or phrase tells the other person you truly are listening, not just waiting for a pause in the conversation so you can jump in with your favourite topic.  Listening like this also keeps you on topic mentally.

Benjamin actually says Listen more, talk less. This is the best advice anyone can give, and probably the hardest for an Aspie to follow.  Discipline yourself.

Benjamin’s last item?  Be positive.  Dragging negativity around is not only pointless?  It’s also terribly boring.  Bring a positive attitude to the party.  After all, you got invited didn’t you?

Yours truly,

Margaret Jean.

 

 

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Jan 06 2015
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Adult Aspies and Social situations, Aspies Socialization, behaviours, UNFORGIVING

Two Big Reasons Aspies Need To Learn Small Talk

Why perfect the art of small talk?  The ability to to communicate socially on what may seem to Aspies to be the art of meaningless chit chat?

Two reasons:

First, for your physical health.  That’s right!  Dr. Dean Ornish cardiologist and author of Reversing Heart Disease says this:

“being able to initiate and maintain relationships is integral to heart health.”

He goes on to explain:  “being able to interact meaningfully in a reciprocal relationship with another human being relieves stress and the feelings of loneliness and isolation.”

Isolated?  In my book, Unforgiving, Memoir of an Asperger Teen, I show how I felt that way a lot, and how damaging it was to me socially to be unable to connect with my peer group as well as my parents and elders.  As Aspies, I’m sure we all know what those feelings are like.

And the second reason to learn small talk?  Because it’s the key that opens the door to successful social relationships.  It seems meaningless, but on the contrary: it’s important!

Small talk is the way people conversationally explore their comfort zone with the other person.

It’s where you and the other person communicate briefly about the world you both live in before deciding if it’s desirable or even safe to go into further fields of conversation.

Initially?  Keep it small, keep it light, and get connected.  Ultimately, small talk is good for the heart and good for your mental and emotional health.

Yours truly,

Margaret Jean.

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Dec 29 2014
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Aspies in the Workplace., Aspies Socialization

Aspies and Small Talk: Ellen’s Monologue and Bernardo Carducci’s Guide.

I wish I could make small talk, an Aspie recently confided to me.   

Whether we’re visiting family, in a workplace or out with friends, small talk can feel like treacherous ground for an Aspie.  In my book, Unforgiving, Memoir of an Asperger Teen, I show how impossible it was for me as a teen to make small talk with girls my age.

Nowadays there’s an excellent resource book, Dr. Bernardo Carducci’s Pocket Guide_To Making Successful Small Talk.

And the subtitle is encouraging, too: How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere About Anything.

Some tidbits?  Be nice but not brilliant.  You’re not trying to wow people, just converse politely.

Practice your very brief introduction speech.  Hi, I’m George and I haven’t met you yet.

Join in the conversation with a brief remark on the current topic.  If there is no topic, you are initiating conversation, current events are good.

Rather than just abruptly leaving the conversation, part with There’s someone I must speak with, please excuse me. Or, I must go, but it’s been really nice meeting you.

Get the guide!  I know it will help.

Yours truly,

Margaret Jean.

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Sep 06 2014
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Aspies Socialization, Autism Spectrum

Grandin: Understanding Individual Brain Differences Can Help Control Behaviours

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFP7ubENTAM

You really get Temple Grandin’s enthusiasm when she talks about brain differences.  Just knowing how your brain is unusual can help people with autism better understand and control their behaviours and emotions, Grandin says in her latest book, The Autistic Brain.

She gives the example of her own brain.  For instance, the amygdala is the part of the brain that processes emotions like fear.  Just so happens, Grandin’s amygdala is enlarged.  Since this is the part of the brain that signals the fear emotion, Grandin credits this brain anomaly with her hyper anxiety.

Because she now knows that her brain construction is probably responsible for her high levels of anxiety, she finds that anxiety easier to deal with.

Grandin gives the example of students talking  under her bedroom window at night.  This creates anxiety for her regardless of whether they are talking softly or loudly.

Knowing that this state of anxiety is not caused by any real threat, she can reassure herself that the problem is not outside;  the problem lies within her brain.

She can then deal with the fact that threat is not real.  What is real?  How she feels about it.  And that she can deal with.

 

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Aug 24 2014
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Aspies in the Workplace., Aspies Socialization, Aspies volunteering, Autism Spectrum

Which is more limiting? The Autism Label? Or Our Parenting?

Temple Grandin, whom I greatly admire,  refers to parenting as a “major source of therapeutic momentum”.  But she adds, when children are diagnosed on the autism spectrum, parents may not have enough expectations for their children.

 

They bring the child through school to graduation, but in the meantime, they have not given the child the kind of experience that teaches them life skills, leaving the graduate either unemployed or under-employed.

Autistic children need to learn how to work, Grandin asserts.  They need to learn basic coping skills, like how to shop, how to order food in a restaurant.  Showing up on time, being responsible for a task outcome, these are skills that are needed in order to learn how to be on the job.

 

That’s why I personally feel that involving kids on the autism spectrum in some kind of volunteer activity, where they must show up regularly, and perform expected tasks, is invaluable to today’s kids, autistic or not.

 

As a volunteer, they must learn to be courteous (a missing factor in today’s world, Grandin laments) and to be reliable, to learn certain work routines and to cope with organizational structures.

As a volunteer, they will also meet retired people who have similar interests and who can mentor them.

The best part?  The child can choose the type of organization he/she wishes to volunteer with and select from a schedule of available days and times those which would be most suitable for them.

These kinds of situations force spectrum kids to interact with others, and Grandin says to insist on social interaction for your child is not only desirable, but necessary if you want him to succeed.

 

“The skills that people with autism bring to the table should be nurtured, for their benefit and for society’s.”  That’s why Grandin believes parents must help their children get out into the work world, learn coping skills and the basics of social etiquette.

As parents, we either help, or hinder.  While we cannot help how children are viewed by others, our most important work is in how we encourage our children to see themselves.

 

Quotes from: http://www.templegrandin.com/

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Aug 19 2014
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Aspies Socialization, Autism Spectrum, behaviours

Autism Spectrum Children Over-Protected: Temple Grandin

The main thrust of personalities on the autism spectrum is social awkwardness, Temple Grandin, an autistic scientist, best-selling author and public speaker maintains.  Her most recent book, “The Autistic Brain” is the topic of her speech available at  www.chicagohumanities.org.

“It’s like our brains have been programmed with all the social circuitry left out.” Grandin says.  “Who do you think invented the spear?”  She asks.  Certainly not those social types sitting chatting around the fire!

 

But Grandin is concerned that children today are allowed to become recluses in their bedrooms or the basement.  They are over-protected, she asserts, and as a result, they become adults on welfare sitting home playing video games.

 

Because kids on the autism spectrum are socially awkward, Parents may tend to protect them from social situations, allowing the children to avoid all participation. The problem as Grandin sees it is that as parents, we are not pushing our autistic children hard enough.  Listening, I can hear that Grandin is looking back at tasks she was made to do as a child which she dreaded at the time.  Now, however, she sees the value in her mother’s determination.

 

For instance Grandin’s mother forced Temple to play hostess at her cocktail parties, to take on family tasks and to visit relatives independently each year.  Nowadays, these daily routines are missing.  Grandin mourns the loss of paper routes which taught children how to work, and chores which taught children basic skills like cooking and sewing.  Grandin also regrets the loss in some schools woodwork and metalwork classes.  These lessons taught not only basic skills, but also practical problem solving and resourcefulness.

 

The solution?  Autistic children need their boundaries pushed.  Her message is that children need mentors and to have that, they must socialize.  Common interests are the threads that bind autistic people with others socially.  Her suggestion?  Retired people who work with the skill-sets that interest your autistic child are the kind of people who could be good mentors for your child.

 

Her talk is interesting and thought-provoking. For anyone with autism spectrum issues in the family, it is well worth the hour spent listening.  Her video is available at: http://chicagohumanities.org/events/2013/animal/temple-grandin?gclid=CjwKEAjw68ufBRDt0Zmrn4W_8AwSJADcjp1c8n1Utyy3mnJeYdd940H2AEKV1F2Imhly0MZsHZr5SxoChdfw_wcB

A shorter version can be found on You Tube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWePrOuSeSY.

 

 

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Jul 20 2014
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Aspies Socialization, behaviours

Asperger Traits: The Real Life Effects.

The traits I want to illustrate today are twofold: the way we give what people say a more literal interpretation than what others do, and two?  The fact that we do not naturally learn correct social behaviour from observing others.

My parents knew they had a problem child in me.  Their solutions for me were rote.  Whenever I’d set on a course they deemed foolish, like when I wanted to shave my legs or tint my hair, because the other girls were doing it, my parents had a standard response:

I suppose if all the other girls jumped off a cliff, you would, too?

Of course I wouldn’t, I’d reply, stung by the stupidity of the suggestion.

I took this saying quite literally to mean that I was not supposed to copy the behaviour of my peers.

I took it to mean that individuality was an  important factor in people’s assessment of each other.

Which made sense when you thought about because it also ensured the preservation of the species.   I mean, who knows what would happen to the population if herds of stupid teenage girls were always plunging off cliffs.

Not that I thought they were, but sadly I never paused to reflect that actually herds of teenagers, male or female, running lemming-like toward the ultimate plunge was an idiomatic warning meant to be directed at particularly dangerous behaviours.  I think partly what confused me was that what I wanted to do was more normal than dangerous.

I didn’t realize back then, as I do now, that the only real danger in tinting my hair or shaving my legs was the fact that it would cost the parents money which they couldn’t afford.

Not to mention the fear that no-one knew what colour Margaret Jean’s hair would end up.  In an era when strawberry blonde was a shocker, this was a real concern.

It wasn’t until I was very much older that I learned to watch how others responded to each other and the community at large.  And copy their behaviours.  Not their words, necessarily, but their timing and attentiveness.  And so far?  I haven’t found myself heading toward any cliffs.

Yours truly,

Margaret Jean.

 

 

 

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Jun 21 2014
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Adult Aspies and Social situations, An Asperger Day, Aspies Socialization

An Asperger Day: From Frustration to Figuring It Out.

Ever feel like you’re drowning in a social situation?  Like  if you don’t get to be alone in five minutes or less you won’t be able to breathe?

I’d spent a wonderful day with a friend.  We’d done the shops and lunch and it was all good.  When she dropped me off at home, I invited her in to see our apartment thinking, of course, that she would then leave.  That’s an Aspie for you.

Instead, she and my husband, Cash, struck up a conversation.  They had no idea that I was done.

To my dismay, Cash did what I, as hostess, should have done–offered her coffee.  I quickly put the coffee on, even thought it meant she would stay longer than I felt I could manage. I worked hard at not showing my disappointment as I brought in the steaming mugs.

Then my husband said the kids wanted to get together the next day for Father’s Day.  “Oh, what did they have in mind?” I asked,visions of them taking him off somewhere for the day dancing  in my head.

“They’re coming here,” he said.

I’m an Aspie, so caught off guard, no filters, right?  I blurted out, “Oh no!”  It was already 5 p.m. and we were having people for dinner tomorrow?   The bathrooms needed cleaning.  Dinner for six planned and prepared.

“Just coffee and dessert is fine,” he said, his face falling at my attitude.  My guest was shocked at my ungracious response.

To change the subject, Cash talked about the trip we were planning to the southern US to visit relatives. My friend had an inspiration:  “A road trip with George and I!” she exclaimed.  “Wouldn’t that be fun! We could take two or three weeks…”  She and my husband elaborated enthusiastically about the vacation.

In my present state, I was now forced to imagine three weeks in a compact car with three other people. In a very warm climate.

Mind and body immediately responded with all the symptoms of intense claustrophobia.

However, I managed to breathe more or less normally while smiling and nodding in some of the right places.   I did not want to hurt my friend’s feelings.  She is a lovely person.

My friend left at 6:20 p.m.

At 3 a.m. I woke thinking about the day.   I had enjoyed being out with my friend.   But, I realized I needed to make my expectations clear when we set out—tell her that when we came back I’d be bringing her in to see the suite, but then I had things to do.  And I should have reinforced that just before leaving the restaurant.

As for the kids coming over—I always enjoy them, but I like to have lots of good food ready, and I didn’t know if I’d have time to do that, and so I reacted badly.

Cash was up by then, too, and after talking things over, we decided to take a chicken out of the freezer.  He roasts a great chicken, and he’d be happy to do so.  I would go to the store and buy his favorite lemon cake and strawberries for dessert after making the apartment presentable.

We hugged after finding our happy solution, and went back to bed.

We had a great afternoon.  Not a speck of chicken was left.

As for the trip?  Well, that has four months to die a natural death.

I’m working on it.

Yours truly,

Margaret Jean.

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