<p>I totally agree with Cardinal Fang. This is a great example of a kid falling apart, Aspie or not, into a dysfunctional state…and it’s happening while at home. Imagine sending a kiddo off to a sleepaway college who falls apart when things are not going smoothly and having that kiddo be far away, living on their own, and perhaps in a more pressureful college environment. This is a kid where I would think very carefully about WHERE the kiddo goes to college. If he’s having trouble understanding that performance is related to college choice and not intelligence related to college choice which is a fairly basic concept then perhaps a therapist might help him sort things out and help him to understand what the choices might be next year. It might help you, too, to put an appropriate perspective on the situation.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, another aspect which doesn’t help is that many of us younger dudes(40 and below) don’t usually discuss among ourselves our feelings regarding relationships to the extent and depth that I find among female friends. </p>
<p>I’m especially bad about this as I was socialized in a childhood environment where boys/men talking about one’s feelings…especially ones related to relationships was frowned upon and as an ENTJ, I tend to be leery about dealing with friends’ emotional situations as I tend to be much more comfortable dealing with analysis through logic and rationality…feelings not so much. </p>
<p>It’s a reason why whenever male friends have serious breakup issues or other difficult emotional issues, I refer them to an older friend who as an ESFJ has a knack for counseling others on these matters while helping him temporarily deal with bureaucratic type tasks of daily life like grocery shopping, ensuring bills/taxes/rent are not forgotten, running errands in his stead, etc. </p>
<p>Hopefully, the OP’s son has a male friend or a mentor he could turn to as an additional resource alongside his parents…especially considering these type of issues could be difficulty for him to discuss with parents. The commenter mentioning a male therapist who could also act as a model made a great suggestion.</p>
<p>Second higgins2013’s advice.</p>
<p>Maybe as parents sometimes as pie parents are so happy offspring has a gf that it makes the relationship so much more important…thus the child makes it more important…</p>
<p>I am not denying the diagnosis, I just wonder how generations of humans functioned, and they did, without getting all drugged up. Drugging over a breakup? When will the person ever learn to deal with lifes ups and downs?</p>
<p>MQD-- Good luck. I am sure your son will recover from this break-up with time. It can be very painful for young people. I agree with meeting with his teachers and sharing what is going on. Perhaps they will give him the benefit of the doubt when it comes to grading. Regarding his college applications, I think it would be a good and comforting idea to find a safety school nearby under any circumstances. I would also continue having him apply to his original list of schools, especially if he wants to. A lot can happen and change in the next few months, and by April when he needs to choose a school. Also, I am really not that knowledgable, but I would think it would be best for him to continue at his current school, especially because it is supportive. The school routine may actually help. Take care!</p>
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<p>In the case of Aspies? Suicide. Homelessness. Institutionalization. Jail.</p>
<p>I dont believe that. I believe more got thru life, druggies, sure, we all do, but I get the feeling that there is a over compensation going on with a generation of pare ts who over diagnosis, over drug, over coddle </p>
<p>His girl friend dumped him. If mom wants to have a really smart kid to live at home forever, pull him from school, drug him up, etc…</p>
<p>Reality bites it does, but either that or never ever have any relationships out of fear, and having mom fix it</p>
<p>Seahorserock- I know how one person did before awareness and treatment. My friend as mentioned above. He’s middle aged, lonely, and lives on disability, but he is smart enough to have been a taxpayer. He was misdiagnosed as a child (because Aspergers and High Functioning Autism were not recognized then). Despite being labeled as “■■■■■■■■” and put in special ed classes, he eventually graduated college without any accommodations but could not pass the licensing test because he needed extended time and they did not do that back then. He’s intelligent, witty, and could have been more mainstreamed and productive in his life if he was born a generation later. He was finally correctly diagnosed in the 80’s. He’s intelligent enough to know that he is missing out in life and desperately wants it. Can you imagine how overwhelmed he must feel now when a woman actually seems to like him? </p>
<p>If his parents knew then what they know now, they would have done everything they could to assist him in being all he could be. He’s got the dating experience of a teenager because he never had it. It may look like OP’s mom is protecting him, but she is really giving him the extra support he needs to succeed at this point in life. OP may be a senior, but his coping skills could be those of a much younger person. He will mature at his own rate. Enlisting the help of professional will guard against over coddling, but you give your kid whatever he or she needs at the time.</p>
<p>The new anti anxiety medications have made a difference too, when needed. Nobody would want to turn the clock back to another era.</p>
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<p>Which is exactly why picking the correct college needs to be predicated on the ability of the senior to function at a particular college. If parents do not feel their child is ready to deal with being far from home at a sleep away college they should listen to their gut…as Missypie has pointed out numerous times. Being “smart” or having good grades with these kids is not enough on it’s own to “pick a college.”</p>
<p>I think Aspie parents understand the OP’s situation best, and I am not an Aspie parent. But the OP’s idea (of taking the son out of school for a year, not because he absolutely needs it for his health, but essentially to protect his transcript from the sequelae of this event) is an example of a larger phenomenon – the effort to pursue and protect our kids’ odds of getting into the “best” possible college, at all costs. This desire is understandable, and certainly widespread in affluent towns, mostly with neurotypical kids. But when extreme measures are taken in pursuit of the goal, they can backfire. Taking a year off (what would essentially be a year out on disability, for a working person) is an extreme measure.</p>
<p>I have seen kids go off and matriculate at nice schools on the strength of a transcript that looked good, but was truly the product of a lot of behind-the-scenes effort by the parents. The transcript did not accurately reflect what the kid could independently do. These well-intended efforts are generally accompanied by the belief that the kid should go off to live in a dorm the fall after 12th grade, and that county college is to be avoided at all costs. When it works, the kid goes off to a dorm, where he is unprepared to succeed at the level of independent effort that is required in that setting. My anecdotal sense of it is that these are the very kids who end up in over their heads, and faring poorly, away at college.</p>
<p>I try to stay focused on what I think is the real goal – not the college sticker on the car in the spring of 12th grade, but seeing the kid at age 25, educationally qualified to work in a field that he likes and can do well with, soft skills also in place, unencumbered by too much debt, living independently as a productive young adult. For some kids, the pathway to that goal takes them through a residential four-year school, starting immediately after 12th grade. For other kids, a premature dormitory experience is a big setback on their path.</p>
<p>If the OP’s son is unable to endure the adversity of a 12th grade breakup while staying reasonably on track academically – and I mean this kindly – and if the damage to his transcript scotches his chances of going off to a dorm the following fall, and he ends up at community college, maybe that sequence of events is leading him to where he really needs to be at that level of his development. At home, with support. Maybe he’s not yet ready to endure the adversities of young adult live that can easily arise, while staying on track with his academic program, at the level of independence that is required in a dorm.</p>
<p>My mother always said “water seeks its own level”. I think the system of some colleges opening doors and others closing them, largely on the basis of GPAs and SATS, works well enough, and most kids end up where they are qualified to be. With an Aspie, it seems that the danger is weakness and relative immaturity in the soft skills, so they might need more support and structure than their GPA and SAT would suggest. If extreme measures are taken to protect the GPA, that effort would take the kid further out onto thin ice – by bolstering the appearance of his being ready to handle a level of independence and accountability that he’s really not ready to handle.</p>
<p>fieldsports, you make some good points, but for a lot of people, protecting the HS transcript is more about qualifying for merit aid that might make certain schools affordable, than gaining admittance to a highly selective school. </p>
<p>That’s another thing that those who “know” me on this board will recall me preaching about. The kids have that beautiful HS transcript exactly once. If they go to college for even a semester and do poorly, they will apply elsewhere as a transfer based on the poor college transcript rather than the great HS transcript. Again, that can have profound financial implications. So in addition to very valid concerns about the student himself dealing with going away to college, many have to consdier the possible future financial implications if even a single semester away at school goes very poorly grade wise.</p>
<p>Missypie, you’re absolutely right. If the first college goes badly, it can make it harder to transfer out to a school that might work better.</p>
<p>I sent you a PM because I have an off-thread question for you. I hope you’ll have time to take a look at it. Thanks.</p>
<p>Who are his academic and mental health support systems? Does he have an IEP or 504 that would include school support services? It would be best to discuss academic and emotional needs/plans for your son with them. Good luck!</p>
<p>BTDT, only our Aspie was in 8th grade, and his total shutdown was due to bullying and just being a misfit at that wretched school. But he was in the process of applying to private schools and his grade drop could not have come at a worse time.</p>
<p>Your son may take longer to bounce back than a NT kid, but I wouldn’t pull him out unless you’re sure he is not absorbing anything. Be in contact with all of his teachers and ask for patience. (I don’t believe in helicoptering as general rule, but this is the time to do it!) Make sure the guidance office knows what’s going on, and that he has freedom to leave a class if he can’t handle it and go down to the nurse or guidance office. Honestly, I think being able to do this is what saved our son his last year of middle school.</p>
<p>His mental health and happiness are more important than applying to college right now. I cannot stress this enough. When he feels better, he will be fine, but for now, do whatever you have to do to get him back to his usual self. If this means pulling him out for a while if you think he’s not recovering enough to do well in school, then do it.</p>
<p>fieldsports, I read your PM…now just trying to think of a wise reponse!</p>
<p>OP, one thing about pulling your son out of school: He may or may not find any other girl he wants to date at school, but there’s no chance at home.</p>
<p>This is a good old article that describes the paradox</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.aspennj.org/pdf/information/articles/blinded-by-their-strengths.pdf[/url]”>http://www.aspennj.org/pdf/information/articles/blinded-by-their-strengths.pdf</a></p>
<p>I agree with keeping his school routine as close to normal as possible, but OP knows her son best and may need to intervene to stop a downward spiral of failure.</p>
<p>On the general subject of Aspie boys and GFs, I admit that I guided him carefully through the early gift giving holidays (birthday, Christmas, Valentine’s Day). (Neurotypical boys may need help in this regard also.) If there is a girl who is sweet to my son, I didn’t want her to break up with him because he didn’t have a clue as to why Valentine’s Day would matter to anyone. The first Christmas and birthday I told him exactly what to buy. Now he says, “Mom, I totally know what I want to get her.”</p>
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<p>Seahorsesrock, you’re operating under the assumption that the Aspie will learn from his experiences and be better at relationships next time, so we should just let nature take its course. I wonder why we don’t want pneumonia to just let nature take its course. After all, people have been having pneumonia for centuries.</p>
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<p>Seahorses – There were plenty of non- or poorly-functioning people who we now know have or probably had autism. They lived at home with their parents or in institutions, had little or no social opportunities with their peers, and were labeled “dumb,” “■■■■■■■■,” or “crazy”. They never experienced relationship breakups because they weren’t in school with teenagers who had relationships. Now that there are so many ways to help people on the spectrum, they are far more verbal, far more high-functioning, more often in regular classes, and generally out and about among people. Some are even dating – something that would have been unheard of a generation ago. That’s a wonderful improvement. However, the bad comes with the good. They are no longer as “protected” from the painful part of relationships. Even the most high-functioning person with autism still has autism – and stress can bring out the most challenges behaviors and mental states.</p>
<p>Thank you. You said it beautifully and makes me realize how hard it can be for others to appreciate.</p>
<p>As a part of this whole shut down, i realized that i was not being as open as I could be with the school. I forgot that some do not get it and the old “just get over it” attitude surfaced.</p>
<p>Be being completely open, it gave them the permission to use the tools at their disposal to help out.</p>