The Loving Push: How parents and professionals can help spectrum kids become successful adults, by Temple Grandin and Debra Moore, is a guidebook to nudging autistic people into trying new things, on the premise that we mostly don't do it ourselves, but we need to if we're going to find jobs we like, meet people to make friends, and develop interests besides the most accessible ones.
I do think this is mostly sound advice. I read somewhere that there are basically two personality types when it comes to the Unknown: those that view it as an adventure (and thus exciting), and those that view it with fear. As I understand it, people mostly fit into one category or the other, but can shift between them. Autistic people, as far as I've seen, mostly fit into the fearful category.
This is, I think, because the Unknown tends to bite us more often than it does others. If we go into an unknown social situation, there's a good chance we won't know the right things to say or do. This makes interaction a social minefield. In addition, we don't necessarily recognize the difference between a known and unknown social situation... and even in known situations, people are so complex and unpredictable that we may still end up "exploding" a social mine... which causes sadness, hurt, and finally, anxiety when it comes to social situations.
In addition to the social component, many autistic people have sensory issues. I have mild light and touch sensitivites, moderate smell sensitivity, and moderate-to-bad sound sensitivity. In a new situation, there may be new and/or upsetting noises (like construction or emergency vehicles, or industrial blenders with a fork accidentally stuck in them), or flashing lights, or someone may have coated themselves in perfume... You never really know, and when it's so easy for painful things to happen to you, it makes you really not want to bother with any of it.
So the advice and suggestions herein is for parents and professionals to nudge autistic people past those misgivings, in a supportive, loving way. You can't simply demand the autistic person put all their concerns aside and boot us out the door. That's neither loving nor kind nor helpful. You have to strike a balance between that insistence and understanding and supporting us and why we do what we do. That's what this book is there to help with.
Along with its advice, the book uses examples drawn from real autistic people and their families, who are introduced early on in the book. I wasn't personally blown away by any of the stories, but I think they're important because US society has a very specific definition of "success." It goes: "dating, engaged, married, house, lots of money, children, grandchildren." If you don't manage all those steps, you are, apparently, a failure.
Well that's stupid. And it's really stupid that autistic people are subjected to that same absurd definition, when even a lot of neurotypical people have satisfying lives without several of those components. Autistic people are even more specialized, and in a lot of cases, the traditional path to "success" would simply make us miserable. Being miserable is not success, it's failure.
So these stories, which contain various kinds of successes, are much more appropriate kinds of success to shoot for with an autistic adult. Things like getting a job in a field you love, or living independently, or contributing to society via volunteer work you enjoy, are much wiser goals than society's cookie-cutter song and dance.
On a less happy note, this book also contains a "how to deal with video game addiction" section. While I understand this is an important subject for some parents, I almost invariably feel attacked when I read things like this. I don't feel my gaming is excessive most of the time: I balance my work (this blog), a volunteer job (at church), social obligations, 5 day a week exercise, and extra obligations (currently, putting my new house together) with my gaming on World of Warcraft. Y'know, one of two games specifically called out in the chapter as bad.
Reading complaints and advice about how to deal with video game addiction, to me, is like a hiking enthusiast, every time they pick up a book about exercise, reading about how ticks carry Lyme disease, wild animal bites, rabies, and shin splints, and thusly that hiking should be avoided at all costs. Every. Single. Book.
Needless to say by now, I did not enjoy that section of the book. Addictions come in all shapes and sizes, after all, and video game addiction is not the only addiction autistic people are prone to. Despite the occasional "but we only mean this if it's an addiction" phrase tossed in there, the entire section feels extremely anti-gaming and to a lesser extent, anti-technology. But like I said, I might just be oversensitive, like the hypothetical hiker reading about the dangers of hiking at every turn.
On a more personal note, I do wonder if this "loving push" thing is what I'm currently lacking in life right now. I don't think I've gone and tried a lot of new things recently. I have also not wanted to go and try a lot of new things recently, and that's in part because my life has been very complicated with house-hunting, then buying the home, then moving into it, and now setting all the stuff up inside it.
I wouldn't say I'm bored, or wasting my time with the things I currently do... But I guess I do wonder whether I sort of stopped trying new things outside the house. I don't think I'm an entirely lost cause... I'm hoping to take my bike and go to the trail by my house when it gets warmer, and that would be something new-ish. But mostly I don't go do new things. They don't appeal to me, for reasons I've covered earlier.
It's something to think about, anyway...
I do think this is mostly sound advice. I read somewhere that there are basically two personality types when it comes to the Unknown: those that view it as an adventure (and thus exciting), and those that view it with fear. As I understand it, people mostly fit into one category or the other, but can shift between them. Autistic people, as far as I've seen, mostly fit into the fearful category.
This is, I think, because the Unknown tends to bite us more often than it does others. If we go into an unknown social situation, there's a good chance we won't know the right things to say or do. This makes interaction a social minefield. In addition, we don't necessarily recognize the difference between a known and unknown social situation... and even in known situations, people are so complex and unpredictable that we may still end up "exploding" a social mine... which causes sadness, hurt, and finally, anxiety when it comes to social situations.
In addition to the social component, many autistic people have sensory issues. I have mild light and touch sensitivites, moderate smell sensitivity, and moderate-to-bad sound sensitivity. In a new situation, there may be new and/or upsetting noises (like construction or emergency vehicles, or industrial blenders with a fork accidentally stuck in them), or flashing lights, or someone may have coated themselves in perfume... You never really know, and when it's so easy for painful things to happen to you, it makes you really not want to bother with any of it.
So the advice and suggestions herein is for parents and professionals to nudge autistic people past those misgivings, in a supportive, loving way. You can't simply demand the autistic person put all their concerns aside and boot us out the door. That's neither loving nor kind nor helpful. You have to strike a balance between that insistence and understanding and supporting us and why we do what we do. That's what this book is there to help with.
Along with its advice, the book uses examples drawn from real autistic people and their families, who are introduced early on in the book. I wasn't personally blown away by any of the stories, but I think they're important because US society has a very specific definition of "success." It goes: "dating, engaged, married, house, lots of money, children, grandchildren." If you don't manage all those steps, you are, apparently, a failure.
Well that's stupid. And it's really stupid that autistic people are subjected to that same absurd definition, when even a lot of neurotypical people have satisfying lives without several of those components. Autistic people are even more specialized, and in a lot of cases, the traditional path to "success" would simply make us miserable. Being miserable is not success, it's failure.
So these stories, which contain various kinds of successes, are much more appropriate kinds of success to shoot for with an autistic adult. Things like getting a job in a field you love, or living independently, or contributing to society via volunteer work you enjoy, are much wiser goals than society's cookie-cutter song and dance.
On a less happy note, this book also contains a "how to deal with video game addiction" section. While I understand this is an important subject for some parents, I almost invariably feel attacked when I read things like this. I don't feel my gaming is excessive most of the time: I balance my work (this blog), a volunteer job (at church), social obligations, 5 day a week exercise, and extra obligations (currently, putting my new house together) with my gaming on World of Warcraft. Y'know, one of two games specifically called out in the chapter as bad.
Reading complaints and advice about how to deal with video game addiction, to me, is like a hiking enthusiast, every time they pick up a book about exercise, reading about how ticks carry Lyme disease, wild animal bites, rabies, and shin splints, and thusly that hiking should be avoided at all costs. Every. Single. Book.
Needless to say by now, I did not enjoy that section of the book. Addictions come in all shapes and sizes, after all, and video game addiction is not the only addiction autistic people are prone to. Despite the occasional "but we only mean this if it's an addiction" phrase tossed in there, the entire section feels extremely anti-gaming and to a lesser extent, anti-technology. But like I said, I might just be oversensitive, like the hypothetical hiker reading about the dangers of hiking at every turn.
On a more personal note, I do wonder if this "loving push" thing is what I'm currently lacking in life right now. I don't think I've gone and tried a lot of new things recently. I have also not wanted to go and try a lot of new things recently, and that's in part because my life has been very complicated with house-hunting, then buying the home, then moving into it, and now setting all the stuff up inside it.
I wouldn't say I'm bored, or wasting my time with the things I currently do... But I guess I do wonder whether I sort of stopped trying new things outside the house. I don't think I'm an entirely lost cause... I'm hoping to take my bike and go to the trail by my house when it gets warmer, and that would be something new-ish. But mostly I don't go do new things. They don't appeal to me, for reasons I've covered earlier.
It's something to think about, anyway...
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