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circumscribed interests?


Guest mrsgeorgebailey
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Guest mrsgeorgebailey

I typed a very long post earlier but my computer shut down suddenly and it was lost.... So here goes my attempt at a recap: My kids (DS10 and DS6) have gone through some big separations (when DS10 was 5, his other birth parent and I got divorced, and then there was a 6 month period that my ex moved away, although he has been a solid presence on weekends for the last few years... right now, my current partner (of almost five years) and I are separating, and so my kids are going to have less time with her and with her kids). When DS10 was young, we were unschoolers (but definitely not "radical" unschoolers), but we have gradually added more structure, until we've arrived at our current arrangement, which involves spending 2-3 hours a day on WWE (he is one grade level behind), Spelling Power (he's right on track), Singapore Math (he's one grade level ahead), and A Little History of the World, while also being members of a homeschooling co-op where he takes a science class and a bunch of gym classes (for extra fun).

 

When he was 5, we switched from having virtually no screen time to allowing occasional family movies. We have now gotten to the point that we have between half an hour and two hours of screen time a day (my current partner's kids have no limits on screen time but are in public school so they aren't around during the day). Over the course of the last few years, I've noticed that my son has become incredibly focused on just a few interests, principally basketball and minecraft. He can talk for hours about those things to people who are similarly interested, and has all of the nitty gritty details memorized (stats of players from forty years ago? check.). I think this is really awesome, actually. The problem comes in when it's time to talk about something else. He has a really hard time staying engaged with other people's interests. He also doesn't like to play things that aren't at the top of his list of things he likes to do, either with his little brother or with friends. Or alone.

 

He complains a lot of boredom when he can't play Minecraft or go out to play basketball. I get all kinds of books for him to read but he seems to have lost interest in reading... When he was seven, he could read for hours, but in retrospect I realize that he only read the same books over and over again (Harry Potter). He used to proudly tell people he had read all seven of them twelve times (plus the times we read them together!). Again, I'm a geek, I can appreciate that.

 

But I wonder sometimes if there are more ways I can steer him to broaden his horizons a little bit, or to function better in social situations (he often doesn't know people don't want to talk about basketball or minecraft, although I would say he is pretty good at reading people's emotions and is empathetic).

 

I feel compelled to mention that I was a lot like this as a kid, and even now as an adult I often struggle in a similar way. I can get incredibly passionate about something (getting a library science degree! writing the great American queer science fiction novel! studying bugs! just focusing on being a parent!) and then spend months or even a year consumed by it, somewhat to the exclusion of other interests. There have been times in my life (when I was a teen) when I literally could not be interested in things that didn't gel with my Things of the moment (Doom Patrol comic book? Dragonlance novelizations? Feminist punk music?), as well as very distressing times when I would oscillate sometimes within the same day between strong, compelling identities based around Things, sometimes leading to expenditures on things to fulfill my Thing of the moment, or the destruction of currently irrelevant things to fulfill former Things. I didn't get any help with that, but as I got older it got easier, and being a parent means that I've had to grow up and be a person who can do a diversity of Things and listen to my kids' many Things being discussed, as well.

 

Maybe I'm projecting?

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i think you just have to keep slowly encouraging it. kids develop as they develop and they are who they are. we can give them opportunities and we can give them discipline but we cant change their core personality. my son goes through more obsessive phases and more easy going phases. you know, right, that this sort of thing is typical of aspergers? my son was dx'd aspergers but probably does not really have it - he has plenty of other issues tho

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Guest mrsgeorgebailey

Thanks for responding. When I was 20 I was convinced *I* had aspergers, but my counselor disagreed because I'm very good at making small talk and can be charming. The main thing I had going on was this same phenomenon of circumscribed areas of interest getting in the way of normal functioning... however, i could easily NOT talk about my interests. i just couldn't maintain interest longterm in doing things that weren't my current obsession.

Now, with my son, I wonder if he could have it, but he is extremely well-coordinated (his handwriting isn't great, but he is good at video games, okay at drawing, and VERY good at playing basketball (he can beat kids significantly older than himself)). Is sports ability a deal breaker for this diagnosis?

 

I wish we weren't between health insurances right now. I might like to get a conversation going with a professional just to see what they think if i could.

 

But, yeah... I realize he is an individual and that i can do a limited amount of gentle molding/encouraging. i love him so much as he is and will enjoy him in my life even if he doesn't change at all in terms of this stuff, but i don't want to fail to get him help he could benefit from.

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btw, a lot of people think aspergers is underdiagnosed in women because it presents differently. Since women on average tend to be more socially aware, women are often better at figuring out the social rules and being able to 'pass' - it doesnt mean it comes easily to them or naturally.

 

my focus has been on gently training my son in things which are obviously being a problem at the moment, and letting other quirks go for now - you cant do it all at once, you have to pick what to focus on. but we've never found any outside help that really helped except for med (my son ended up w a bipolar dx - the meds made a huge difference - he's still quirky and needs a lot of feedback, but he's not so defensive and prone to outbursts)

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