Recognizing the Signs of Autism in Teen Boys: A Guide for Parents
Feeling overwhelmed and unsure how to support your teenage son with autism? You're not alone. This podcast episode dives into the unique challenges parents face during this crucial developmental stage. Licensed clinical social worker Tiffany Herlin interviews Christopher Brown, a licensed marriage and family therapist specializing in working with teenagers with autism. Together, they unpack Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and neurodiversity in teenage boys, offering insights and strategies to help your son thrive.
If you’re a parent grappling with how to support your highly sensitive child, we can help. Discovery Ranch provides personalized mental health treatment aimed at empowering teenagers to lead meaningful, independent lives. Our therapeutic program helps in creating life-changing experiences and building strong relationships. Start healing today. To learn more about our services, call us at 855-662-9318.
Introduction
Tiffany: Welcome to our podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about navigating the world of parenting a teenage boy with autism spectrum disorder, which can be completely overwhelming. As a parent, it's natural to feel worried, stressed, and uncertain about how best to support your son with autism. Understanding the unique challenges that come with neurodiversity is critical in providing the right kind of support and care for your child.
I'm Tiffany Herlin, a licensed clinical social worker. Today I'm going to be interviewing Christopher Brown, a licensed marriage family therapist from a residential treatment program for teenage boys called Discovery Ranch. We'll talk a little more about that, but please remember that this podcast is not a replacement for therapy. Please always seek a mental health professional for your situation.
Okay, let's get started. Thanks for coming.
Chris: You're so welcome.
Tiffany: I got to watch you do some training and presentations and I just think you have so much to offer our parents tuning in so I'm excited to pick your brain and your experiences. Before we do that, this episode specifically is going to be unpacking Autism Spectrum Disorder and Neurodiversity in Teenage Boys, which is a lot. I mean, we could probably do a couple of episodes on this, right?
Chris: I'm good at talking, so yes.
Tiffany: Okay good, perfect. Our listeners are in for a treat then. It's going to provide an overview of Autism Spectrum Disorder and Neurodiversity in Teenage Boys, focusing on specifically the unique challenges parents face during the developmental stage.
So, Chris, Tell us a little bit about yourself and your role at Discovery Ranch.
Chris: So a little bit about myself. I originally come from California. I was born and raised in Torrance, California, a little bit south of Los Angeles. I got my bachelor's and associate's degrees at Utah Valley University and then I went to Pepperdine University in Malibu and finished up with my master's in marriage and family therapy.
So I had a lot of friends here when I was in Utah and so I really wanted to come back to the state of Utah and I have a lot of family here as well.
Programs and Support at Discovery Ranch
Chris: So, I moved back here and I love the RTC setting.
Tiffany: An RTC for our listeners, is a residential treatment center. So I'm going to jump in when we use those acronyms that maybe someone doesn't understand.
Chris: I appreciate that. So I'm over at Discovery Ranch and I am specifically over our autistic program. We have a nice little bunkhouse, which is a 12-bed program over there situated on the ranch. And we pretty much do everything that the ranch does. We work with the horses. We work with recreational therapy. We do all the things that the other boys do.
Still, our program is specifically designed to support and help that neurodiverse young man navigate the world, especially the struggle times, these teenage times, when their hormones are raging, when they are emotionally dysregulated, when their social awareness skills are lacking, and their life skills are struggling as well.
So that is our program over there.
Tiffany: And you also run the neurofeedback part, which we'll talk about later on.
Chris: So I'm the supervisor of our neurofeedback program. We have about 20 boys working through neurofeedback and we are seeing some incredible results with that.
Tiffany: It's a great technique for our listeners. Stay tuned. It will be a couple of episodes from now, but we're going to talk more about that.
So these boys hold a special place in my own heart. I've worked under the umbrella of the same company as you for our listeners but I worked at Oxbow Academy, which deals with boys with sexual issues and I got to watch them create their own house for kids who were on the spectrum.
I specifically went and worked over there so I love these boys, I don’t think many people understand them. They can be hard and complicated, but they are some of my favorites to work with. They taught me so much when I was over there. I wouldn't say I'm a specialist, but if you try to fit them into a mold where we want them to function in a certain way for someone who's not neurodiverse, they can't, and they don't do very well.
Understanding and Supporting Neurodiverse Boys
Tiffany: So they do need someone to understand how to help them navigate that. The people around them need to know how to support them and help them get what they need.
Chris: Exactly. I think one of the things that I'm proud of in our program, especially at the bunk house and at Discovery Ranch, is that we are working with the staff, with the academic team, with everyone to really kind of understand them and to be able to support them.
A lot of things that they do at the other two houses with the neurodiverse boys, it's amazing how just by shifting a little bit of stuff, All of a sudden they start to flourish. They start just to move forward. It's beautiful.
Tiffany: They become leaders when they wouldn't normally have in a neurotypical setting. Honestly, even if we can get more people to listen to this podcast and understand a neurodiverse boy or girl, the better we can provide a future for them to excel in the world.
People need to be more educated on this topic so let's dive into that. Can you explain the concept of neurodiversity and how it relates to autism spectrum disorder?
Chris: So usually those two terms go hand in hand. So neurodiversity and ASD. Some of my boys like to be called autistic and some of them like to be called neurodiverse. So it's just kind of a blending of the two the one diagnosis.
I have a lot of boys that don't like being called autistic or neurodiverse. They just like being called their name, so it's kind of this whole spectrum and a blending of the two. Neurodiversity and autism are just one word.
Tiffany: It's a spectrum. Help our listeners understand what we mean by that because we used to say they were autistic or they had Asperger's and those are no longer the terms we use, right?
We realize that it's not this black-or-white diagnosis. If you've met one kid who's autistic or spectrum disorder or neurodiverse, you've only met one kid who's autistic spectrum disorder, right? They're all different and they're all going to have different strengths and limitations.
Chris: We can go through a DSM five diagnosis criteria and stuff like that, but I like to map it out to my parents and these students that we're pretty much focusing on four to five main things when we're looking at their strengths and their deficits.
So usually the first thing that we're working on with the young men is their emotional regulation piece.
Teaching Emotional Regulation and Life Skills
Chris: A lot of our students come in very dysregulated. They struggle, they have thrown tantrums, they've hit people, they've thrown things around. They're coming in learning how to emotionally regulate, how to down-regulate, how to be more flexible in certain situations, and how to transition better.
The first thing that we're working on is those skills on being able to stay cognitive. I talk a lot to the students about their neurology and how their limbic system is their superpower. When they get frustrated or stressed out, they tend to go limbic as opposed to cognitive.
You and I really want to go cognitive when we're stressed out.
Tiffany: Explain to our listeners. What do you mean by limbic?
Chris: So limbic is our fight or flight, freeze or forget modality. We tend to use that when the semi-truck is coming at us. We tend to use that when the bear or the mountain lion is charging us, our limbic system takes over.
It keeps us safe. It protects us. If we had to think our way through those situations, we would not survive. It is a reaction. We move faster when we're limbic. So with these boys, a lot of their limbic system is overdeveloped. It is super-powered, like I said. When they get frustrated or stressed, they tend to go limbic and we have a fight, we have a flight, we have an AWOL, we have a run, or they freeze up.
They just want to curl up in a ball. They want to go to bed. They want to do stuff or they'll forget the situation. So that's kind of the first thing that we work on with the kids.
Another pillar is the emotional regulation piece, but also the social awareness piece. Being socially aware of who you are, your space in the world, and being able to make friends and break relationships. If you break a relationship, how to repair that relationship, but also know that relationships are dynamic.
A lot is going on with a relationship and to be able to read the room and read that other person and know who you are in that space. A lot of these kids are very stuck on certain things. They get stuck on Pokemon, or they get stuck on Magic: The Gathering or D&D, and that's all they can talk about.
They can't talk about anything else and there's no wonder why they're lagging so much with their peers out in the real world because they can't connect to those peers. They just want to talk about what they want to talk about and they tend to dominate the conversation. So we really kind of teach them about that social awareness piece and to read body language, because I know that we're going to talk about nonverbal learning disorder as well in the future. But that is also another big thing. A lot of my boys will come to me and say, "Hey, Chris, I don't understand why you're teaching this to me, but I understand that it's going to help me in the future."
So that social piece might not register with our boys of why it's so important, but in the real world, when we're dealing with all the people in the real world, to have those social graces and be able to communicate with people, it's going to be so important. Looking people in the eye, being able to shake people's hands, all that kind of stuff is important.
Tiffany: Which, as an adult as you know, that's a hard thing for even adults to navigate.
You take a child who has not fully developed their brain yet and is neurodiverse and very concrete and black and white who struggles to read those social cues. That's such an essential skill that they have to learn and that doesn't come naturally to them.
Chris: No, it does not come naturally that they're part of the brain where they see people are held back. It's not working as well as it should be.
With that being said, those are two pillars and the third pillar is the life skills pillar. We want them to learn about how to take care of their clothes, how to wash their clothes, and how to do hygiene.
Especially over at the bunkhouse, we encourage the hygiene portion because that is so huge. If you walk up to someone and their hygiene is lacking, then you are going to immediately react. You're immediately going to say, “I don't want to be this person's friend”, or “I don't want to be associated with this person.”
We want them to present well so we push that hygiene, that taking care of their clothing, taking care of their hair, their teeth, all that kind of stuff.
We go back to that whole piece of if you've seen one ASD boy, you've seen one ASD boy. Their life skills are so different. Even the life skills of making sure that your backpack is put with all your homework and ready to go to school and stuff like that.
That's the other pillar.
Tiffany: I had one session with a boy and we spent the whole time organizing his therapy binder. He came in with papers everywhere and out-of-hole punches, and we spent just the whole session organizing paper, putting hole punches in them, and getting them neatly in the binder because it's just like social skills, it doesn't come naturally to them. They don't think “Oh, I should stop and brush my teeth and put on deodorant.” Whereas someone who's neurotypical that may come naturally, so these boys have to be taught.
Chris: It is out of their awareness. They're not thinking about it. I've had whole sessions where we've just talked about hygiene, and where to scrub, where to put deodorant.
The fourth pillar and the very last pillar that we kind of focus on is learning to like self. A lot of these boys and it kind of makes me emotional because a lot of these boys hate themselves. I've gotten texts, even leaving Discovery Ranch, I've gotten texts from boys saying, "Chris, I hate my autism. I despise it. I want it to go away" and stuff like that. I teach them that it can be a strength and that there are a lot of great things about your brain and about all the amazing things that you can do that I can't do.
I've got kids that can code and I would never be able to code or they can figure out computers quickly. They figure out how to get past our firewalls all the time and they figure out how to code certain things into the computer so that the teachers can't see what they're doing. We talk about their neurology and how to like themselves and to see their strengths and the things that they're working on are positive.
Tiffany: I love that because this isn't going away, this is part of them. This is something they have to embrace and learn to deal with. Even someone who has ADHD falls under the umbrella of being neurodiverse.
I had a mother who was super ADHD and she struggled with this at times learning to love herself, but eventually, she came to see it as a superpower.
Some of our most genius people in history have ASD and ADHD and I have a kid who just got diagnosed with ADHD. I've tried to explain to her that this has limitations, but once you figure it out and embrace it, it's going to give you superpowers that other people can't do. It's going to bless your life if you can channel it in that direction.
Chris: I agree, it's wonderful. I think that one is the most difficult one.
The other ones are pretty concrete because they can pretty much say, “If I do these skills, I will stay within my bandwidth of functionality” which is that cognitive realm and stay pretty cognitive.
But learning to like myself is the big one.
Tiffany: It's so abstract and it's something that grown adults are still struggling with at times who aren't on the spectrum.
Social Challenges, Mental Age, and Expectations
Chris: These kids have been bullied, they've been maligned, and they've been pushed to the side. They know that they're different and they don't understand.
I went to a conference once and the presenter helped me to understand chronological age versus mental age.
So usually when they hit their teenage years, they start to lag mentally. These are because of the bullying, because of the stress, because of the anxiety and stuff like that. They start to lag behind their peers and their peers start to just advance in front of them.
So there are three levels when it comes to ASD. Level ones need support, level two needs substantial support, and levels three need very substantial support, I think that is how they function. At Discovery Ranch, in the bunkhouse, we have level ones and level twos that we're working with.
The presenter said that when you're looking at an ASD student that's coming into your facility, look at them chronologically. They can be 18 years old, but if they're a level one, they're probably two-thirds of that age, so we're looking at a 12-year-old mentally.
If it's a level two, we're looking at a one-third, so probably six to seven years old mentally, as opposed to the chronological age, if they're 18. We frame it at the ranch by saying “Hey, these kids chronologically might be 18, 16, 15, but mentally, they're very young and we have to help them move that mental age up to the chronological age.”
That's through the work that we do with the horses, the work that we do with the rec therapy, the work that we do in the clinical office. We're helping them reach that chronological age.
Tiffany: I think that's helpful for so many parents, to help educate them that yes, your son is 14 but mentally he's a different age. You may look at him and say, “Why doesn't he get it? Why isn't he functioning at this age?” and be frustrated that your son isn't reaching these milestones.
When you can help them reframe that and understand that, it changes the game for them and their frustration.
Chris: Our mentality over at the bunkhouse, and this goes along with the mental chronological age, is that the kids are doing the best they can at the moment. When they are stressed, when they are frustrated, they are doing their best.
Even if they're punching, kicking, fighting, all that kind of stuff, they're doing the best they can and we are going to encourage them to do better and better and better and better. That's helping them move that mental age up to the chronological age.
Tiffany: If we could get more people to view everyone like that, that we're all doing the best we can and we can do better, I think people would be a lot more empathetic and patient, especially with our neurodiverse kids.
Autism Spectrum Disorder vs. Nonverbal Learning Disorder
Tiffany: Let's shift gears just a little bit to help our listeners understand what the difference is between autism spectrum disorder, which we may refer to as ASD, and nonverbal learning disorder, which we'll refer to as NLD.
Can you explain the difference between those two? I think people get confused.
Chris: The whole criteria of when you've seen one ASD boy, you've seen one ASD boy. We'll have an NLD diagnosis or a nonverbal learning diagnosis and nonverbal learning disorder doesn't mean that the student is nonverbal.
In reality, the student might be very verbal. They might talk your ear off. They might ask you tons of questions that they've asked you every single day for months or however long they're with you. NLD pretty much means that they're not picking up on the body language that you're putting off.
When I frown or when I smile or when my eyes get bigger or when I move my tone, anything like that, they're not picking up on that. I know there's a lot of research out there. I usually use the 20-80 rule. 20 percent of all the communication that I give to another person is verbal and 80 percent is my body language.
And so for a student that's not picking up on 80 percent of my body language, or that is completely confused by my body language, it is distressing to them. What happens is they become verbal overcompensators. They talk and talk and talk because they're not picking up on my body language. They are going to talk my ear off trying to get information from me so that they can understand me.
I've had plenty of students, especially level 2 students, that will not be quiet. The staff will get a little frustrated and say, "How do we help the student?" And I just say, "Make the obvious." Just say, "Hey I can see you're looking for something. Are you worried about our relationship? Are you worried about this or that?"
And then if they say, "Yes I'm trying to figure out my relationship with you", explain it to them, let them know that, "Hey, my relationship with you is solid. It's good. You're my friend. We're working well together". Something like that helps calm them down because they're fishing for information since they're not picking up on that body language.
Tiffany: I think that's the best way in all my career that I've heard someone explain it. Honestly, as a clinician, I've not been as clear on the difference between that I'll have to admit. Hearing you explain that way just makes so much more sense.
Chris: With the brain that they currently have and kind of all the different little nuances and things that they're working on, they're trying their best to understand us. Those questions are great because they allow us to clarify things.
I had a student who wanted to show me a music video, and we spent 10 minutes watching this video. I spent the entire time watching it, engaged in it, not yawning, not doing anything. I said “Wow, I enjoyed that” and I looked at him and he said, "Chris, you, you didn't like it." I said, "No, what, what gave you the idea that I didn't like it?" and he said, "Well, normally people don't like that type of video." I said, "Well, my body language. What did I show you that showed that I liked it?" He was able to say, "Well, you stayed focused the entire time, your eyes were on it." "So what does that tell you?" he goes, "Oh, maybe you did like it.” They could pick out your language easily, but it doesn't register.
Tiffany: Not to get us off track, but just to even point out that you throw in texting and social media that takes all that out. For them to even try to process they're going to misread things and maybe say things on social media or post things that are offensive or cause issues.
It is a little bit of a dangerous world for them to navigate and they need extra help. I neurotypical teenage kid struggles in that world, right?
Chris: I would love to research ASD students and people wearing masks because again, they're struggling to see body language and to have a mask on in front of them where they can't even see your face or your mouth or how you're emoting or anything like that. I would love to see if that really kind of slowed their progress down as well because that would be interesting.
Diagnosis and Gender Differences
Tiffany: So our listeners need to know that boys are nearly five times more likely than girls to be diagnosed with ASD. That's what we are finding, this significant gender disparity in diagnosis rate is a well-established finding in autism research.
Anxiety is commonplace among teenagers with ASD. We have about 39 percent of youth with ASD with a diagnosed anxiety disorder, making it a significant concern for this population.
Do you feel that's in correlation with what you see?
Chris: Yes, I think we're starting to find more ASD girls.
Tiffany: They're doing better at diagnosing the girls.
Chris: Exactly. I think they don't know the research shows that different factors contribute to a boy or a girl that's diagnosed with ASD. One of the things that I have seen, and I think they're still researching, was that some of the ASD qualities or some of the ASD genetics come through the Y chromosome.
The Y chromosome is transmitted to a boy who is an XY. That comes through that Y chromosome, but that's partially what we're seeing. Other things are environmental factors. Other things are in-utero problems and stuff like that. We're also
seeing that boys tend to externalize their issues a little bit more than girls.
Tiffany: It's more behavioral, it’s more pronounced.
Chris: Exactly. So if a boy is pronouncing and externalizing it more, then you're going to focus on that boy that's externalizing it. Girls tend to internalize it, which means that they kind of go inside. They might be shy or they might be a little bit more into fantasy or play and stuff like that, which looks okay, but also there might be an ASD diagnosis along with that.
Tiffany: We're finding this too, even with ADHD, that girls are masking better and that some women are going into their thirties being undiagnosed with ASD or ADHD. They've just kind of survived, white-knuckled their whole life and now it's manifesting as they get older.
Chris: Yes, and that's what we're kind of seeing with the boys. I think like you said, we are getting better at diagnosing these kids, so we are seeing a little bit more girls start to get into the pool and be diagnosed correctly
Tiffany: And get the help that they finally need.
I have a family member who didn't get diagnosed until she was in her forties, and once she finally got this diagnosis, it was like, everything made sense. She could finally get the help she needed and the right medication. People were kinder, more empathetic, and more understanding of her difficulties. That's when she started to thrive.
So I think the last research piece that I'm curious about is your thoughts on how executive functioning difficulties often become more pronounced during the teenage years. The gap in executive functioning skills between teens with autism and their neurotypical peers tends to widen during adolescence.
Executive Functioning Challenges in Adolescence
Chris: So one thing that we're kind of seeing right now is with puberty, with the hormones, especially during those tumultuous teenage years, there is a struggle. Their brain is holding back because of the anxiety. So all these kids are working on a stress-relax principle.
When there's too much stress, they go limbic and they have a fight or flight reaction that holds them back. They're not able to develop those executive functioning skills, those tasks, making those goals, being able to see into the future and have time management skills, being able to work in the here and now, and stuff like that. That is a struggle for them because they're always looking for relaxation. They want to play video games. They want to read books. They want to do anything to feel relaxed and their brain is not allowing them to, so they're always anxious.
Tiffany: To parents who are struggling with this, you're not alone. If your kid who's on the spectrum has these outbursts, is anxious, not knowing how to do simple little tasks, you're not alone.
Chris: That's the biggest thing that we're working on with our boys is because they have that finite ability to stay cognitive and I call it the bandwidth of functionality. They're able to stay cognitive within this bandwidth of functionality.
If they get too stressed out, we want them to learn that stress is a good thing. We want to feel stressed. We want to be able to get up in the morning. We want to be able to shower. We want to be able to accomplish things in the day. So stress is not a bad thing, but the kids have learned that any type of stress is a bad thing and they have to stay away from it as much as possible.
Tiffany: It's either good or bad. It's like, no, no, there's an in-between.
Chris: Yeah, because for them, stress means they go limbic. They have a fight or flight response and they hurt people. They push people away because they're very aware in the aftermath, after a limbic episode that they've hurt people, that they've pushed people around, that they've caused damage to friendships and stuff like that.
So they want to stay away from that and when they do go limbic, it causes a lot of problems. They fight to stay relaxed and so they go in the opposite direction.
Behavioral Patterns and Processing Emotions
Tiffany: This is usually a path of least resistance and usually not helpful for them. It actually can be avoiding things therefore increasing their anxiety but not realizing it, so this is a vicious cycle.
Chris: It is, it's horrible. So they put off doing homework. They put off making friends. They put off talking to their parents, they put off this and that and it just causes more anxiety and more anxiety and then all of a sudden, they have this limbic response. It's funny because I tell the staff that I don't want to see limbic responses. After all, we don't learn a lot because the limbic system doesn't create memories.
It doesn't pull memories. So you can't learn from a limbic response. It's just a reaction. It's just that the boys enjoy being limbic. Tiffany: There's a hit and an adrenaline rush to it, right?
Chris: I also call it “going Hulk.” I mean, if we look at Bruce Banner and how, when he goes into the Hulk mode, he becomes this raging machine. He gets all this energy out and then you see him after when he's back into his normal human form, he's relaxed, he's calm, he's like, "Oh, I'm tired" and stuff like that.
The boys like it. They start to feel this anxiety and they realize, "I can't stop it. I'm going in that direction. I might as well just let it out and go that way."
I had an experience at another facility, another ASD program, and I had this kid in my office and he was going crazy. I was texting the staff. I was like, “Get over here now. He's going to hurt me.” He was throwing things at me, breaking things, and calling me horrible names.
The staff finally was able to get him out, and then the next day he comes to my office, and says, "Chris, I need this, this, this, and this." I said, and we'll pretend his name is Josh, "Josh, we need to talk about our relationship because what happened yesterday wasn't acceptable and we need to work on that because it just went down the wrong path."
He told me something that I'll never forget, he said, "Chris, I feel better so you should feel better too." And I said, "I appreciate that answer but that's not how it works with me. I had to sit there and control my emotions, not protect myself. I had to fight to not go limbic to stay very cognitive and to work with you while you are struggling and I'm still sitting in this. I'm still emotional about this. You might feel better because you kind of hulked out and you kind of went a little bit energetic, but I'm still sitting in this.”
And that's the mentality at times to go limbic.
Tiffany: I love that, because I've had similar experiences where they're like, "I've moved on. Why are you still upset about this?" And I'm like, “No, no, we need to process this because I'm not okay now. You might feel better, but I don't.”
Chris: I'm a human being, I'm still sitting in those emotions.
Tiffany: It's kind of the egocentric view of “because I feel this way, everyone else must feel this way.”
Helping them move past that and realize that not everyone feels and thinks the same way as them. There are so many dynamics and variety and different people's reactions, which are complex. That's going to help them progress in the world, and they can get past this “me vision”, which is hard.
It's hard for someone who's neurotypical to do.
I'm gonna keep repeating that. This is tough for someone who has a neurotypical brain. Imagine if it's tough for you, how much harder it is for our boys who are neurodiverse.
We've talked about some of these, but what are some other common characteristics of ASD and teenage boys that you see?
Chris: Very intelligent. I see a lot of neurodiverse teens who can really understand books, understand mathematics, understand computers and technology, and stuff like that. They're able to have a mastery of the English language and they can talk your ear off.
They can debate with you. I've had staff say, “I'm going to go in there and debate with this kid and I'll come out on top.” And I'm like, “No, you won't.” It's that young man who is going to be able to talk your ear off. They have a unique grasp of the English language.
Connecting with Peers and Building Camaraderie
Chris: They can be very kind and very social. They tend to look out for the younger person because they've been bullied and maligned and kind of pushed to the side a lot.
Tiffany: Can I just say something about that?
At Oxbow, when they did put the kids who are all ASD together, the camaraderie and the kids who stepped up as leaders were phenomenal to watch because they didn't have that chance.
When a new boy came in who struggled, rather than some of our neurotypical boys who would bully and shut them down and get upset and frustrated easily, these boys helped and embraced them and guided them through the program, and it was just so cool to see. They're like, “Oh I've been there. I know it's hard.”
Chris: It’s interesting because when a boy comes to the bunkhouse and he's dysregulated, he's struggling, he's coming from school or something like that from an outside program. He comes into the bunkhouse and all of a sudden he just realizes that these are his people, meaning that these kids are also on the spectrum.
They understand him. They're willing to forgive him and move on. We work on that connect, break, repair model with the boys in the bunkhouse. So you're going to connect with your peers, and then you're gonna have a break. Then there's going to be a time when I'm going to have to be involved and we're going to call the other kid in and we're going to talk about it and repair that relationship.
Then we're going to connect again. So connect, break, repair, connect, break, repair. It's a great method and the kids really like we'll have a kid come in from another house that's ASD and he'll come into the bunkhouse and he'll just thrive and he'll flourish in there and the therapist will be like, "What's going on?"
I go, "These are his people. This is who he is." He's connecting with those kids that understand him and they talk all the nerd talk. They talk about all the D&D and the Magic The Gathering and all the other stuff. But they have this unique language that they just chat about and that's them.
Tiffany: I love it.
Shifting Perspective to Embrace Neurodiversity
Tiffany: So they have a lot of strains. We've talked about a lot of the struggles with lack of insight and social awkwardness, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. I think this is great for our parents to hear, it's easy to focus on those struggles and it's easy to focus on the behavior and where they lack, yet if we can help some of our parents understand that your kids also have these incredibly creative and adaptive skills and have a desire to succeed.
I was going over some of the notes you said from your training that I had, I just really loved all these highlights.
Are there any others you want to talk about?
Chris: What you were saying reminded me a little bit of some of the skills that I teach the parents as they come through. One of the skills that we really kind of teach the parent is to put the energy back onto the student.
The student will cause a lot of ruckus or cause a lot of problems and the parents want to fix it immediately. They want to tap it down. They want to go in and just take care of the problem without really having the student look at the problem.
I have to teach the parents that it's much more difficult to say, "Hey, I appreciate you telling me that your teacher is not giving you the correct grades. What are you going to do little Billy to solve this problem?", put it back on the students so that they can start to develop those skills of
“I'm empowered. I'm capable. I can do this.”
Tiffany: I think that one of my biggest things with one of the kids that I worked with was helping the parents. They no longer enable and rescue their kid because he had these limitations and struggles, but help them empower and put it back on him. That was a lot of our family therapy work that we did because they would undercut them and they would undermine them and because they thought that he couldn't do it and he needed extra help.
It really, he started to have this self-helplessness and depend on them. I always said, no, we're going to let him struggle and he's going to thrive and do better. They could finally step back and do that. It's when I think things really shifted and just really changed for him.
Chris: This whole victim mentality needs to end with these students because the parents do want to fix the problem. It's like walking on eggshells around them and they're going to have blowups and they're going to have struggles but the more that we stay consistent and the more that we say, “Hey, you are capable. If you have a problem, come to me and I might give you some suggestions, but I'm going to have you take the lion's share of the work to resolve this issue and I'm not going to rescue you. I'm not going to have you be a victim. I'm going to coach you and that's how it's going to have to work.”
Tiffany: Our kids are so much more capable than we at times give them credit for and allow them to struggle and then thrive because it's hard to watch your kids struggle, whether they're on the spectrum or not.
It's scary. You don't want your kid to fail so it's easier to kind of ease your anxiety and jump in and rescue them than let them struggle and then figure it out. But when you do parents, man, is it so rewarding?
Chris: It is. We have kids that do the ropes course and they'll climb the wall and they'll get up 10 feet and they're so proud of themselves and we just say, “Just a little bit more, just a little bit more.”
They get up to the top and they're like, "Bring me down, bring me down, bring me down."
And we're just like, "Just sit there for a little bit, just relax. Just relax."
"Well, can you just bring me down?"
“Just sit there and let's talk a little bit.”
And all of a sudden they're like, “No, I can do this.”
And they get up to the very top. It's amazing when they get up to the very top because it's like, “I did this by myself with some support from you guys, but I did the lion's share and I was successful.” And it's just a blueprint for how to do other things. When they say, “I can't do this, Chris.”
“Well, you did the ropes course. You got on the horse. You got up on the rock wall. You did all these amazing things on the hike.”
And then they're like, “Oh yeah, I did do all that kind of stuff. And I can do this too.”
Encouraging Independence and Self-Reliance
Tiffany: Moving to the next question, how can parents best understand their teenage son's perspective and needs?
Chris: A lot of times I'll tell the parents, to look at websites, to get in groups, to get on Facebook. So there are Facebook groups that have parents that also have sons that are on the spectrum as well. It's nice for those parents to ask questions and realize that they're not alone.
It's huge.
Tiffany: Because these parents feel like they're on an island and no one understands them.
Chris: Exactly. And to be okay with their son's perspectives and needs and to realize, “Hey, I've been worried so much about my boy.” And usually worry creates a sense of helplessness. It creates a sense of being stuck.
The more knowledge, the more information we get to help them out and the more that we implement it is so very helpful for these parents. I tell the students because all my students worry. They all worry and worry and worry and I give them a little quote that says:
"Worry is like a rocking horse. It makes a lot of movement but you don't go anywhere."
I say to them, “What's the exact opposite of worry? Action is the exact opposite of worry. Worry creates this energy, but it doesn't go anywhere.”
Action creates some type of forward movement momentum. Once we start down that action phase, where we're learning, we're growing, we're implementing the stuff, we're talking to people, we're talking to the school district, we are talking and just getting that action going, it creates, it relieves a lot of that worry
Now we're empowered and we feel better because we're moving forward with them. They're gonna have a lot of needs so let's start that whole action phase where we're doing our part to get them the support they need.
Seeking Support and Understanding Needs
Chris: Communicate with those professionals and get other people involved.
That's very, very important.
Tiffany: How can parents shift their perspective from fixing their child to embracing their neurodiversity?
Chris: That's a big one because I have a lot of parents that will come to me and say, “Fix my kid.”
Tiffany: Yeah change him, make him, make him neurotypical.
Chris: So if I have a level two or even a level one come in and I can really kind of see the student his trajectory of where he's going to go and then I have parents say, “You know what? He's going to be the next lawyer. He's going to be the next rocket scientist.”
Tiffany: They're gonna go to this college. They're going to make this much money.
Chris: Yeah. And I have to be very kind to the parents and just say, “Okay, let's look at that.”
And then later on down the line, when they trust me a little bit more and they feel a little bit more comfortable, I'll say, “Hey, I'm impressed and most likely he's going to need a lot of support in his life. He's going to be happy. He's going to be successful, but he might not grow to be what you would like him to be. He might be a very just relaxed, good kid who does some college work and will need the support he needs.”
But being able to teach the parents that there's a reality, there's a fantasy that the parents have and then there's reality.
Tiffany: We all have it as a parent. We all have these hopes and dreams for our kids and often they're biased and we kind of project our vision onto them, rather than seeing what our kids need and embracing where they are. It's so hard.
Chris: To be able to mourn with those parents, because their fantasy is dashed because they're hoping that their son or their daughter is going to have this amazing career and this amazing other stuff.
We just have to say, “You know what, he's going to be amazing, and we're going to have to look at this area of his life and this is what we're going to focus on because this is where he's going to be successful. He's probably not going to be successful in master's levels or doctorate level places or even in associate levels or bachelor levels, but he's going to have a happy, good life.”
It is really sad when the realization comes and they're like, “Oh.”
Tiffany: There's a lot of grief. I did a podcast with a therapist at Oxbow and he shared a poem. I will have to look it up, but it's something about ending up in Holland versus Venice, Italy.
Have you heard that poem?
Chris: I haven't heard that poem.
Tiffany: Oh, I'll have to find it. It's so good and I want to share it with you. It talks about these parents getting on this train, planning for this trip to Venice, Italy, and they go on the trip only to end up in Holland and it's like, well, this isn't what I signed up for.
Then they realize the beauty that's in Holland versus Venice, Italy. Helping our parents be like, “Okay, he may not reach these goals and expectations you have but let's find that silver lining and embrace the beauty that is there.”
What resources would you recommend for parents who want to learn more about ASD and teenage boys?
Chris: Looking at just what the researchers have put out there and then also going to those Facebook pages or going to some type of group. They have ASD groups where you can actually go and meet with other parents and talk and just be able to understand your boy and stuff like that, but also be able to talk to professionals.
I think professionals will be able to kind of logically be able to lay it out. I think parents are very emotionally involved with their child and they need that alternative eye on their teen. So just having that wide range of information.
If it's too much, then being able to go to an ASD professional and just be able to sit down and say, I just need to pick your brain. These are the things I'm seeing. What can I do? How can I help him out? A lot of professionals would be able to kind of lead that person in the right direction.
Tiffany: So finding maybe the support network they need, the groups, and then finding someone who specializes.
Not all therapists specialize in this or have the breadth of knowledge that you have, so it's important to find someone who does, right?
Chris: Exactly. And be able to empathize with the parents and be able to understand and know what they can digest at the time.
Parents want certain things and you might give them too much at times. Being able to hold back at times and say, “Hey, we, let's talk about that next time.”
Upcoming Episodes and Conclusion
Tiffany: Absolutely. Well, parents, if you're listening and we sound like we're talking about your son, then you've come to the right place.
Know that you're not alone, that if your son struggles with any of the things that we've discussed, please stay tuned because in our next episodes the specific one we're going to be talking about everyday challenges that your autistic boy may be facing. So stay tuned. Thanks again, Chris, for joining us.
This episode has been so enlightening to me and our listeners, hopefully, of understanding kids who are on the spectrum better, who are neurodiverse, and that there is a place for them and we need to better understand to meet their needs so that they can thrive and we can see those strengths and those beauty and that silver lining in them.
To our parents who are listening, you're not alone.
Chris: Yeah, there is help out there.