Autism Dads: How Do You Make the Connection with Your Kids?
To be honest, I've met many more involved moms than dads - and I suspect that's not just coincidence. In part, of course, it's because more dads are the fulltime breadwinners - and many simply don't have time to attend conferences, social skills groups, and the like. But there are other issues, too.
I can't tell you how many times I've met dads who mourn their relationship with their son with autism - because they have no clue how to relate to him. The reason is simple: dads in our culture are provided with approximately two ways to relate to boys. The first is through sports. The second is through bonding activities such as home repair.
Few kids with autism, lets face it, are likely to be recognized for their amazing sports prowess. And many dads feel completely at a loss when "tossing the ball around" or coaching a sports team are no longer options. And while quite a few kids on the spectrum are terrific at fixing engines, building machines, and so forth - it can be tough to really share the experience.
My husband, Peter, is an unusual guy. He and Tom bonded at first over classical music and art museums(!). Later, they shared an interest in dinosaurs. And now, they're working together on a model railway project. It's a terrific relationship, but far from typical.
Dr. Robert Naseef and Cindy Ariel shared their thoughts on the subject in this article:
Helping Dads Connect with Autistic ChildrenBut their advice is just a starting place. How do you - Harold, Kevin, John, and the other dads out there - connect with your children (especially your sons) with autism? Share your ideas and suggestions!
Comments
A boy, his and many a bike ride!
And a new red mountain bike for Christmas picked up today.
Obviously, the link should have read,
A boy, his dad, and many a bike ride!
From the moment I found out about Marco’s autism, I made a decision to be his greatest advocate. I did that because he is my son and naturally, I love him more than anything in the world. It is also my job to raise him to the best of my abilities, regardless of his starting point. This is the job I was given, I helped make him. It’s that simple.
Helping him meant getting trained in Verbal Behavior and other therapies. I read stacks of books and attended many conferences. Some folks don’t have the means to do such things, but there is plenty of free material on the internet. You just have to find the drive, you owe to your child.
As for connecting with Marco, I started with just tickling for a period of time. It was easy to get engagement this way. From there, I moved onto simple but different games that were in his skill set. For each game, I made sure that the primary objective was our engagement. What I discovered while doing this was that I was able to maintain a rich non-verbal connection with Marco, which was greater than any other connection than I had with anyone else. Because of our connection, Marco will pull me places to play and many times sit on my lap facing me and start to giggle and hug me. He loves me. This is my reward, and in my opinion, there is no greater bounty.
It is important to rid yourself of the expectations you had before autism for your child. Those are society’s expectations and not yours. If I expected Marco to be the next batting champ, I would be very disappointed and missed out on my reward.
Well, I know it may seem wierd because of what I am about to write, simply because I am writing this for my husband.
It seems to me in our house, we share the connection fairly evenly with all our children, special needs and not. My husband and my child with autism are extremely close, and my son wants to do everything with him when he is home. Only when my husband is out of town for work (1-2 times a month) does my son really want to do the fun things he enjoys doing, with me.
Does it bother me? At times. But I am so thankful I have a husband who is extremely involved with all of our kids, who doesn’t shy away from taking our son to therapies, who actively sits down with me and discusses autism and how our son is doing.
We are thankful for eachother, in that we both are able to share in the joys, trials, successfullness and cheer on when our kid(s) face and conquer their challenges.
I realize that someone may write that I am extremely lucky because they are a single parent, and in all honesty, both my husband and I have experienced that too…for 6 years. We just got along better living under 2 seperate rooves for a while, but the connection of love that my husband had then and always has had with our kids plus the love we share for eachother is stronger than any challenge that has come our way in our 15 years together.
I just feel bad that more fathers aren’t more celebrated for everything they do contribute to their family life. It’s every bit a tough job they have as what moms have, and they seem to be easily disrgarded.
Thanks guys for speaking up. My hat goes off to you too.
Cheers
Caroline
Well, I’ve never been one to really give a monkeys about the convention of bond through sports etc. My non-autistic teenage son and I like similar movies (guns, explosions, monsters) and Xbox games as well as the fact that I am lousy at DIY (British for home repair) and would probably try to mend a plug with a hammer.
With Meg (my autistic daughter) it is a case (and always has been) that I work the opportunities in where and when I can. If Meg isn’t sleeping too well then I get up with her and we do some flash cards, or play on the computer or watch a DVD or read some books or whatever.
I’m lucky in that my career (I’m a web developer) means I can work from home sometimes too so all these things allow me to get in there.
My wife and I try and cultivate an attitude that every ‘problem’ is a chance for an opportunity. Sometimes it doesn’t work and sometimes it does. Dads just need to get interested in the things that interest their kids and take it from there.
I am happy to see this.
We have an untraditional house hold where I, the mother, work full time and attend college and my husband stays at home full time. He is also the cheif “teacher” as we homeschool all three children.
My husband is a natural I guess. Our son is 6 and he is a joy and very close to his daddy. They are more pals than if there had been anything different. It is a real sight to see. He brings out great things in all three boys—even if he is a lousey house keeper. TIC.
I am a stepfather to a child who is autistic. He is non-verbal, though communicative (such as pulling you toward the door if he wants to go outside or bringing you a cup if he is thirsty). He rarely exhibits any detectable interests other than self-stimulating behavior, pacing, and eating. My challenge as a stepdad has really been my relationship with the other three children in the house. Marcus, the autistic child, requires so much attention and supervision (preventing him from eating dirt, candles, soap, tissue paper, for example) that the relationships with the other three children are endangered. Could someone else share how they cope with trying to balance the amount of attention they give to siblings?
I’m the father of an Autistic girl. I never have had any trouble bonding with her. He likes to roughhouse and loves music. I play guitar, so sometimes we’ll play songs. We go to the park, etc…
It’s really not hard to do. I just follow her lead a lot. She knows what she likes and I try to help her in those activities.
Learning that my child had Autism was not an easy adjustment for me. I prayed as if this were an item that I had purchased and could return for a corrected model. In talking with my pastor shortly after learning the diagnosis, he said something to me that hit pretty hard but is true. “This is who you are”. This was the begining of many life changing decisions. I stepped down as a Supervisor to free my schedule to attend Doctors appointments, IEP meetings. The free time has allowed for a lot of one on one basketball games, walks by the river, father son zoo trips and many other activities that memories are made of. My son is fifteen now. I have grown in many ways through this experience. If I could change the diagnosis of my fifteen year old son, I would not change a thing. God doesn’t change the world with cookie punched people.
My son and I have a great rapport. Perhaps my Aspergers Syndrome (AS) and my experiences growing up are the primary driver, but I have been the custodial parent since my divorce 7 years ago. I was not diagnosed until this summer, and it has caused me to believe my son is also AS, for which he is now being evaluated. As an AS parent, I would suggest to NT fathers out there find out what the child’s secial interest is, if they have one, and work with that. My son and I talk for hours about his interests and thoughts. The police detective across the street has complimented me many times on my son’s courtesy and behaviour, all of which are more a part of who he is, more than my example. We autistics, no matter where on the spectrum, seem to be just good people by nature. We are hard wired that way.
My son (7) loves cause-and-effect play. When his actions cause me to make a funny face, take a praftfall or to scream melodramatically, his face lights up. I enjoy his laughter and use this type of play to enjoy our time together, and sometimes to encourage speech by introducing vocal prompts into it. Second, I spend more time than anyone else, perhaps, being in his world: if he’s laying on the ground or playing quietly on his own, I’ll do the same thing, close by. I hope he’s getting the message that I think he’s okay (not “weird”) and that I’m right there with him. Well, as close as I can be.
I think that many dad’s of autistic kids are there with their children everyday. I can’t speak for others, but I know that I’m there for my 7 yr old. I’m the one that lays down with him at night and asks him about his day (his mom, my wife, has that time in the afternoon after he comes home from school). Even though 9 time out of 10 he doesn’t provide any details other than “school was fun” answers, I still ask every night. We talk about his day as I try to get him to bring the past into his present. Heck this is a year old article, but I felt that I had ot post. It is difficult to find items on the web that reflect the true life of a Dad of an autistic child…