How can I launch my daughter with Asperger’s into adulthood
Hi – I just discovered your blog & feel excited + relieved to learn the potential joyful life for an Aspie woman. My creative, severely anxious yet improving child probably fits in the spectrum. There are about ten thousand events I wish to recount and then ask for analysis, but…
1 – What suggestions do you have for a part time time job for her? We live in rural northern NY State with access to a mall, fast-food places and parks/YMCA. My sense is that it’s time for my daughter to get more skill building, but it terrifies me that she might go into tailspins, experience traumas etc. I virtually force her to complete some tasks which come easy for most, have her repeat them and reinforce her success – such as pumping gas, using the self-checkout at Walmart. Need I add that she lives on-line, writing lots of fiction?
2 – How can I help her get into the school to sit for the SAT? No, she has no accommodations for her anxiety because she won’t go to a psych assessment (epic fail a couple years ago).
3 – Do you know any phone apps which would help with her executive functioning tasks? All that I have checked out seem only to help already-highly functioning people move from an “A-” to an “A+” whereas moving to a “D” would seriously be success for us.
Thanks a million from Mom of a Fabulous Daughter!
If your daughter still lives at your house then she follows your rules. So if you tell her she needs to get a psych assessment then she needs to get one. It’s not so important that she does it to get into school (she probably doesn’t need a degree) but it’s important because she needs to understand her deficits and start learning how to ask for help. The people who do best with Aspergers are those who ask for help.
She can do any customer service job because it’s the same verbal exchange over and over again and she doesn’t have to make decisions. Any unhappy customer she gives to her manager. She just needs coaching to get through the interview and that’s a really important skill for her to learn now — how to interview — way more important than taking the SAT.
She needs anxiety medicine. You can force her to take it now. Tell her if she wants to live at your house then she has to try it. This can come after the psyc eval of course. I coach lots of people in their 20s with Aspergers. The difference between the kids whose parents got them on meds and the kids who didn’t is night and day. And in fact, seeing that different — how much higher functioning the kids on meds are — is what made me go on anxiety meds.
She can’t use a phone app for executive function. It’s too disorienting. She can use an alarm, but that’s it. She needs paper and pen. But she only needs to improve executive function for things she wants to accomplish. She needs to be motivated.
Some things she probably wants:
A boyfriend
Independence from you
Alone time on her computer without you telling her to get off
Use executive function to make that stuff happen. It’s like a little puzzle for you. How to tell her that she has to do minor but difficult-for-her executive function tasks in order to get those things she wants.
I hope this helps. Good luck.
Penelope
If I were in your shoes I would look into sending my daughter on an Outward Bound course, or something similar.