Wasn't sure where to put--good son delimma

[1990Domer]

We don’t know what spectrum either of the girls are on or what their stories are. They may, for instance, come from homes where violence is a common way to express frustration.

While we can know what they did is totally unacceptable we cannot know if they have any excuse.

We know these girls. They are in a big-time rebellion stage. One is actually an altar server with him.

His therapist will know the things to say to him. That’s why she has a Ph.D. in psychology, as opposed to us–degrees and advanced degrees in STEM majors.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

I still don’t get how the thought there was more to it than them just giggling and saying hi.
Surely neither propositioned him in the church?
He didn’t deserve to be kicked, but perhaps he assumed too much? I don’t know I wasn’t there. If all they were doing was flirting, he really didn’t need to say anything.
It’s confusing. I’m still not sure what exactly happened and why either arty reacted the way they did.
I need to go back and re-read your posts for clarity,

He has Aspergers and socializing is difficult for people with aspergers. Subtle cues, irony, double entendres all those things are difficult to get. My son has a brain injury. It causes him to see things very literally. Even when he reads.

 

[1990Domer]

I still don’t get how the thought there was more to it than them just giggling and saying hi.
Surely neither propositioned him in the church?
He didn’t deserve to be kicked, but perhaps he assumed too much? I don’t know I wasn’t there. If all they were doing was flirting, he really didn’t need to say anything.
It’s confusing. I’m still not sure what exactly happened and why either arty reacted the way they did.
I need to go back and re-read your posts for clarity,

He said he didn’t want to date but just be friends. The only way I could see why this happened, and this is unlikely, is if they found out my son liked a girl all the way back to kindergarten. They bump into each other around town, but she knows he discerning a vocation. I am friends with her mom since home-school association. But, he said to me that if he did anything with her, it would not be romantic.

Now, one of said girls recently had a boy/girl birthday party. Let me say if he were still in our parish’s Catholic school, he would not be allowed to go to said party.

 

[mommy_k]

Meh. I’d want to know if my daughter was out kicking autistic kids in front of church. And which of her friends was encouraging her to do it.

I am confident that any of my kids at any age would never kick any other one. I’m pretty sure your kids won’t either.

The op son is mildly autistic, and kicking any child is wrong. Although having mild autism is difficult…by reminding a child of this is limiting as well as stepping in too much…By sharing too much info with others will cause segregation not inclusion by this age grpup as well. Most will understand, however many will unfairly label especially if immature.

If these girls are mean enough, or socially clueless, when thier mom a dresses this…guess what happens? An incident that was pretty minor gets the op’s son the backlash.andperhaps unfairly labelled through friends of theirs.

So results of calling and stepping in needs to be weighed…not only with this but other things imho. And this is for any teen.

And I am not saying the op does this…I am responding to posts that say to let the other parents know.

 

[Allegra]

I am confident that any of my kids at any age would never kick any other one. I’m pretty sure your kids won’t either.

The op son is mildly autistic, and kicking any child is wrong. Although having mild autism is difficult…by reminding a child of this is limiting as well as stepping in too much…By sharing too much info with others will cause segregation not inclusion by this age grpup as well. Most will understand, however many will unfairly label especially if immature.

If these girls are mean enough, or socially clueless, when thier mom a dresses this…guess what happens? An incident that was pretty minor gets the op’s son the backlash.andperhaps unfairly labelled through friends of theirs.

So results of calling and stepping in needs to be weighed…not only with this but other things imho. And this is for any teen.

And I am not saying the op does this…I am responding to posts that say to let the other parents know.

I certainly hope that my child would never kick someone, even if they did say something that was taken as an insult. However, I’m not dumb enough to assume that my kids would never do something they knew was wrong when the adults weren’t around and they were in a group of other kids. I taught middle school and I know how mob mentality works. If my kids was involved in something like this, even standing on the sidelines laughing about it, I would want to know. However, I think you are right that complaining to the other kids’ parents does create a risk of backlash.

 

[pianistclare]

He has Aspergers and socializing is difficult for people with aspergers.

I know that. That’s the whole point.
I’ not excusing the girls’ behavior, but I thinking they want to date him from a simple “hi” at the end of Mass is something that shoudl be worked on. I’m sure it is.
But the added pressure of thinking he’s going to be a priest, when he is far too young to “discern” is going to set him up for all kinds of problems. Priests have friends. They say hi to women all the time. It doesn’t mean they’ve blown their vocation.
There may be far too much on his mind at this very young age which colors his basic social interactions.


He sounds like a very nice boy.
Respectful, and into his faith.
No girl is going to ruin that if its for real.

 

[mommy_k]

I However, I’m not dumb enough to assume that my kids would never do something they knew was wrong when the adults weren’t around and they were in a group of other kids. I taught middle school and I know how mob mentality works. If my kids was involved in something like this, even standing on the sidelines laughing about it, I would want to know. However, I think you are right that complaining to the other kids’ parents does create a risk of backlash.

In all charity…perhaps you can work on peer pressure and the effects when your kids get older, so you can be confident about it too.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

He said he didn’t want to date but just be friends. The only way I could see why this happened, and this is unlikely, is if they found out my son liked a girl all the way back to kindergarten. They bump into each other around town, but she knows he discerning a vocation. I am friends with her mom since home-school association. But, he said to me that if he did anything with her, it would not be romantic.

Now, one of said girls recently had a boy/girl birthday party. Let me say if he were still in our parish’s Catholic school, he would not be allowed to go to said party.

Yeah I misunderstood some of the details.
I don’t really have much to add except to say that in reading your posts on this thread, my opinion of your son is sky high. He sounds amazing. " bear wrongs pariently". Wow.
You may really have something special there…

 

[EasterJoy]

We know these girls. They are in a big-time rebellion stage. One is actually an altar server with him.

His therapist will know the things to say to him. That’s why she has a Ph.D. in psychology, as opposed to us–degrees and advanced degrees in STEM majors.

I have trained altar servers in my time. We would want to know about any server-on-server assaults, even if we didn’t intervene. As for the “big time rebellion” stage, I have known of kids acting out in the altar serving realm because they wanted to retire from it but felt outside pressure of some sort to keep doing it. They can act up as if to get thrown out of serving and sometimes they act as if they resent the servers who really enjoy it and excel at it. It is almost as if their behavior says, “You want to try to make me into him? Oh yeah? Well, I’ll show you.”

On the topic of separating servers: we had two male servers who’d been in some serious conflicts at school, and we never scheduled them to serve at the same Mass again. You might ask the person who schedules the servers if it is possible to arrange to not put the two on together, without having to go into details about what the issues are.

 

[EasterJoy]

I certainly hope that my child would never kick someone, even if they did say something that was taken as an insult. However, I’m not dumb enough to assume that my kids would never do something they knew was wrong when the adults weren’t around and they were in a group of other kids. I taught middle school and I know how mob mentality works. If my kids was involved in something like this, even standing on the sidelines laughing about it, I would want to know. However, I think you are right that complaining to the other kids’ parents does create a risk of backlash.

It does help to know the parents and the history of how complaints about this girl or girls have been handled in the past. It isn’t that unusual for girls to get away with the kind of thing that would get a boy in more serious trouble if he did it, just as it isn’t unusual for girls to be held to a higher standard. It depends on the pond you’re swimming in.

Again, though: As an altar server scheduler, I wanted to know which combinations were asking for trouble, whether because the servers couldn’t work well together or because they were such good friends that they couldn’t keep a reverent demeanor when they were together. You don’t want to tempt someone beyond their capacity to handle it.

 

[Xantippe]

The one piece of advice I would give that I know I haven’t given yet is–be very careful and keep him away from Red Pill guys/sites/etc.

Autistic young men are extremely vulnerable to the manosphere because they aren’t socially savvy, often don’t have a lot of in-real-life friends to give feedback, feel alienated from real life peers, are literal minded, black-and-white thinkers, and love complicated-systems-that-explain-everything. Mastering the manosphere lingo and worldview can be as attractive as mastering Pokemon, and bears exactly as much relation to the real world…It also offers a sense of belonging.

More conventional etiquette advice might be helpful. I would keep my eyes open for advice columns that bear on issues that he is encountering and maybe share a carefully chosen one with him. Working through social problems in advice columns could be the autistic equivalent of working math problems.

If he’s going to be a priest some day, he’ll need to be socially and interpersonally savvy. I don’t think that that’s out of reach, but it will require a lot of time and work.

Best wishes!

Edited to add: At some point, you may need to talk about manosphere ideas, but it’s probably something you can save for later unless he somehow runs into it.

 

[Allegra]

In all charity…perhaps you can work on peer pressure and the effects when your kids get older, so you can be confident about it too.

We will be working on peer pressure and all that. It’s pretty crucial in this day and age. But also in all charity, I’ve seen many, many confident parents over the years. I’ve had them screaming in my face that their child would never take part in bullying and would never, ever lie to them, only to have them sulking away when they’ve seen the security video. I’ve even had a few try to suggest that the security videos are “doctored” to frame the child they were so confident in. But it’s neither here not there in this case. Whether or not the applicable parents are “confident”, their girls DID kick the OP’s boy. If I was the parent, I would want to know that so that I could deal with it and prevent my daughter from escalating to something that’s going to bring down a lawsuit or assault charge.

 

[1990Domer]

The one piece of advice I would give that I know I haven’t given yet is–be very careful and keep him away from Red Pill guys/sites/etc.

Autistic young men are extremely vulnerable to the manosphere because they aren’t socially savvy, often don’t have a lot of in-real-life friends to give feedback, feel alienated from real life peers, are literal minded, black-and-white thinkers, and love complicated-systems-that-explain-everything. Mastering the manosphere lingo and worldview can be as attractive as mastering Pokemon, and bears exactly as much relation to the real world…It also offers a sense of belonging.

More conventional etiquette advice might be helpful. I would keep my eyes open for advice columns that bear on issues that he is encountering and maybe share a carefully chosen one with him. Working through social problems in advice columns could be the autistic equivalent of working math problems.

If he’s going to be a priest some day, he’ll need to be socially and interpersonally savvy. I don’t think that that’s out of reach, but it will require a lot of time and work.

Best wishes!

Edited to add: At some point, you may need to talk about manosphere ideas, but it’s probably something you can save for later unless he somehow runs into it.

Ok, this has me confused. What are manosphere issues? Sorry…never heard that term before.

 

[Xantippe]

Ok, this has me confused. What are manosphere issues? Sorry…never heard that term before.

We have a lot of bitter, autistic-sounding single male posters on CAF. They want a woman but they hate women.

Does this sound at all familiar?

washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/05/27/inside-the-manosphere-that-inspired-santa-barbara-shooter-elliot-rodger/?utm_term=.240df8d85606

Edited to add: This is not a slam at autistic people. Some of my favorite people are autistic. However, Aspie guys are very vulnerable to falling prey to these views, because it makes everybody else the bad guy and excuses them from having to fix themselves in any way they may find uncomfortable.

 

[EasterJoy]

Ok, this has me confused. What are manosphere issues? Sorry…never heard that term before.

From my understanding, it is when fair objections to unfair treatment go all the way to being the ugly equal and opposite of male-rejecting “feminism.” There are two ends of the “gender politics” spectrum, and they go black-and-white to the point of absurdity. The problem is that they aren’t likely to crack a smile at it. They’re dead serious.

 

[1990Domer]

Just a quick update. My son realizes his lack of being socially awkward, which is why he enjoys serving at American Czestochowa Shrine. Very orthodox. No female altar servers. Their order is Saint Paul the Hermit or the Pauline ministry. It’s a more contemplative order. He has no desire to be a diocesan priest. He knows his limits, which is good. The altar boys there all serve at their home parishes. There is a type of brotherhood among them that is endearing because they go on retreats together, have monthly fun time, as the priests are very grateful for their help. He also gets to learn about his Polish heritage. I should also mention that if he felt priesthood wasn’t his calling, being a religious brother would be.

Honesty, I think it comes down to this. It just isn’t cool to be religious. And girls are pushy. If I had to guess, the girls probably thought it was a phase he went through. He first mentioned it to us in 5th grade. He is now entering high school and feels the call more than ever…at least that is what he tells me. He says when he holds the cross in the procession or the lectionary, he feel someone is holding it with him. He is willing to change fun plans in order to serve.

Thankfully, the newly named principal of his high school is a priest he serves for on a regular basis. I hope this explains things a little more.

When we visited his high school, he said his favorite room in the school was the chapel.

 

[Allegra]

The one piece of advice I would give that I know I haven’t given yet is–be very careful and keep him away from Red Pill guys/sites/etc.

Autistic young men are extremely vulnerable to the manosphere because they aren’t socially savvy, often don’t have a lot of in-real-life friends to give feedback, feel alienated from real life peers, are literal minded, black-and-white thinkers, and love complicated-systems-that-explain-everything. Mastering the manosphere lingo and worldview can be as attractive as mastering Pokemon, and bears exactly as much relation to the real world…It also offers a sense of belonging.

More conventional etiquette advice might be helpful. I would keep my eyes open for advice columns that bear on issues that he is encountering and maybe share a carefully chosen one with him. Working through social problems in advice columns could be the autistic equivalent of working math problems.

If he’s going to be a priest some day, he’ll need to be socially and interpersonally savvy. I don’t think that that’s out of reach, but it will require a lot of time and work.

Best wishes!

Edited to add: At some point, you may need to talk about manosphere ideas, but it’s probably something you can save for later unless he somehow runs into it.

I didn’t even know this was a thing! Blech!

 

[mommy_k]

We will be working on peer pressure and all that. It’s pretty crucial in this day and age. But also in all charity, I’ve seen many, many confident parents over the years. I’ve had them screaming in my face that their child would never take part in bullying and would never, ever lie to them, only to have them sulking away when they’ve seen the security video. I’ve even had a few try to suggest that the security videos are “doctored” to frame the child they were so confident in. But it’s neither here not there in this case. Whether or not the applicable parents are “confident”, their girls DID kick the OP’s boy. If I was the parent, I would want to know that so that I could deal with it and prevent my daughter from escalating to something that’s going to bring down a lawsuit or assault charge.

By confident it means I know my kids temperments and they have never been intentionally cruel to another person for acceptance of friends.i have been a parent for a long time. and still have an almost middle schooler too.

The point though, is that even though we would be able to hold our own kids accountable… not every parent will and can, as your statement confims…sadly, it opens a can of worms sometimes that is much larger then the original incident. Does that mean always to back off…no.

The motivation should be what us best for the victim child…calling and having the other child punished for this, with possible backlash…or giving the victim child tools to diffuse this in the future. Regarding any event.

Teaching teens to turn the other cheek comes into this as well as lessons on how to be assertive, not aggressive…

Imho careful thought and parenal judgement on what the bottom line will be after all is said and done is most important during these years.

 

[EasterJoy]

By confident it means I know my kids temperments and they have never been intentionally cruel to another person for acceptance of friends.i have been a parent for a long time. and still have an almost middle schooler too.

The point though, is that even though we would be able to hold our own kids accountable… not every parent will and can, as your statement confims…sadly, it opens a can of worms sometimes that is much larger then the original incident. Does that mean always to back off…no.

The motivation should be what us best for the victim child…calling and having the other child punished for this, with possible backlash…or giving the victim child tools to diffuse this in the future. Regarding any event.

Teaching teens to turn the other cheek comes into this as well as lessons on how to be assertive, not aggressive…

Imho careful thought and parenal judgement on what the bottom line will be after all is said and done is most important during these years.

The older children get, the less the handling of this kind of thing is a parental decision and the more it is the parent helping the young person decide what to do. If you want to send your children off to college ready to advocate for themselves, it helps if you’ve helped them to know their own mind, to self-calm and self-motivate, to consider the possible consequences of different courses of action, and then to choose with a readiness to take on the consequences that may come. As their decisions play out, you help them to accept the consequences, both foreseen and unforeseen, and how to go from there.

Adults aren’t made in a day and the parent-child relationship we all want to have with our children when they become adults isn’t made in a day, either. It is a gradual thing. Sometimes the children won’t like it when we discern that we have a duty to choose a course our older child does not want. I’m not saying that the parent does not ultimately have the responsibility to make decisions for the child. I am saying that sometimes we need to let go and let our children make some of the decisions that they have to live with. It will be soon enough when we are old and the tables are turned and we will want our children to respect our decisions instead of swooping in.

 

[mommy_k]

The older children get, the less the handling of this kind of thing is a parental decision and the more it is the parent helping the young person decide what to do. If you want to send your children off to college ready to advocate for themselves, it helps if you’ve helped them to know their own mind, to self-calm and self-motivate, to consider the possible consequences of different courses of action, and then to choose with a readiness to take on the consequences that may come. As their decisions play out, you help them to accept the consequences, both foreseen and unforeseen, and how to go from there.

Adults aren’t made in a day and the parent-child relationship we all want to have with our children when they become adults isn’t made in a day, either. It is a gradual thing. Sometimes the children won’t like it when we discern that we have a duty to choose a course our older child does not want. I’m not saying that the parent does not ultimately have the responsibility to make decisions for the child. I am saying that sometimes we need to let go and let our children make some of the decisions that they have to live with. It will be soon enough when we are old and the tables are turned and we will want our children to respect our decisions instead of swooping in.

Yes.absolutely…

We gradually seperate…it slowly starts now, as they are finding themselves through these experiences. Both the positive and not so positive.