10/09/2023
Do you feel guilty or embarrassed at the amount of support you give your Autistic teen or young adult?
You should stop.
There are many things related to the autism diagnosis that make acquiring life skills a longer process than it might be for typical children. or adults.
These are not things that parents are told to be aware of-- the difficulty with life skills is something we seem to stumble upon and take responsibility for. We tend to think it is some shortcoming in our own parenting that has resulted in a child unable to do age-appropriate activities of daily living.
Truth is, our children are just as capable of learning, but they need a different approach that takes into account their learning styles, sensory and motor needs, and levels of anxiety. Since knowledge is power, let me share a bit of information to help you understand this issue.
Autistic children very commonly struggle to learn life skills. Challenges in this area are something that many of them carry into adulthood. This area of difficulty can happen for a variety of reasons. Here are some of the main ones:
• Parents may be so focused on helping them with academics and helping them to find friends that life skills seem less important by comparison.
• Challenges with fine and gross motor skills makes it difficult to fasten clothing, load and unload a dishwasher, fold laundry, carry a basket of laundry down the stairs, get bundled up for cold weather, tie laces, do up skates nice and tight, bag, carry and unload groceries.
• Sensory differences can interfere with life skills. Children may be averse to seeing slimy, half-eaten food on a plate, and so are never the ones to scrap dishes and load the dishwasher. They may have difficulty applying the right amount of pressure to cut their own foods or squeeze the right amount of ketchup out of the bottle, even as older teens or young adults. The smell of garbage may be very aversive, so they don’t get that chore, either. The feel of the shower water falling on their skin feels like tiny knives, and the texture of shampoo can cause anxiety. They may stay in the shower until the hot water is all gone, and exit without washing their hair.
• Executive functioning challenges can make it difficult for the child to manage their time, remember steps to a task, establish priorities, organize their lives or their spaces, plan ahead, figure out how to proceed if things aren’t working out, remember what they just learned or were asked to do, or imagine the consequences of their actions or inaction. This can make it seem impossible to clean a messy room—they just don’t know where to start or how to move forward to finish.
• Central coherence: our Autistic children may focus on details and miss the main point. They can struggle to utilize all the information they have to address the big picture. An example of central coherence for young adults? As our Autistic kids look for work, they may focus only on the job interview questions, and not realize they have to research the company, groom themselves for the interview, have interview- and weather-appropriate clothing, clean shoes, and make sure they have transportation arranged. In other words, they have to see the big picture. There is much to do to be prepared for the job interview.
• Anxiety can derail them from remembering what they were supposed to do. When the emotional brain (limbic system) takes over, the thinking brain (pre-frontal cortex) goes offline. This can mean a kid can literally forget what they were supposed to do and how to do it when they’re anxious—and our Autistic kids of all ages are very often highly anxious.
• Learning differences can mean they are taught the same skill over and over again but the learning doesn’t seem to stick. Why? They may be overwhelmed with verbal instructions, and are unable to keep them in mind. They may require verbal instructions to be supplemented with visual support, such as step-by-step instructions with a checkbox. These ‘instructions’ can even be a simple to-do list.
• Our Autistic children often do not just pick up life skills by observing others. These things need to be taught directly and taught in the way the child learns best. Parents don’t know this when the child is young. It’s only as they get older that we realize life skills are not keeping up with the rest of the child’s development.
• As parents, we have busy lives, especially in the mornings when our children are getting ready for school. It may seem easier to help our Autistic child to get ready than to provide the teaching and the tools for them to learn independence. If they arrive late to school, it feels impossible to get them to go in because they are so anxious. So, what do we do? We help them to be ready on time by helping with their life skills.
**Please note that first and foremost, we should make sure that our Autistic teen will want and accept our help. This will help to keep their self-esteem, dignity, and autonomy intact. It is up to us as parents to help them understand the relevance of the task to their life, and the value of the task to their life. If we can do this, they may be more likely to accept our support as they work toward independence.
For any or all of these reasons, our children may reach their teens or 20s and still need help to get through the day in terms of their life skills. They may not pick appropriate clothing for the weather or the occasion. They may constantly forget to wash their clothes or to put them in the dryer, and never quite get the hang of putting a shirt on a hanger. Regular grooming may be forgotten or avoided.
As parents, there can be a tendency to focus on their school performance and social needs. School…because, well, it is what will get them employed one day, and social needs because the lack of social relationships makes them very lonely, anxious and even depressed. We don’t like to see our children sad at any age. It is no wonder parents may put life skills on the back burner.
If your Autistic young person hasn’t mastered age-appropriate life skills, you can teach them yourself (more likely to end in conflict and shouts of, ‘I know how to do it!’), or you can find an occupational therapist to help.
The good thing is that when motivated, our older kids are quick to learn these skills. For example, if they are looking forward to living in residence, the school year before is a good time to learn the independent living skills needed to feel confident and be successful living away from home.
Wherever your teen or young adult is in terms of acquiring life skills, you’ve done the best you could with what you knew. Good parents help each child to the extent that the child needs. That means we may provide different levels of support for each of our children. We strive for equity, not equality when it comes to raising our Autistic kids. The different ways our kids learn, experience the physical/ sensory environment, and interact with others can impact how they acquire life skills. As a result, we distribute our emotional, physical, financial, and time resources based on the individual circumstances of each child. We know when our Autistic kids need us, and we are there for them.
Without judgment and in consideration of their dignity, we help them get through the day. No guilt is necessary.
Meme photo courtesy of Austin Kehmeier on Unsplash.
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