<p>thumper, our son reluctantly takes our calls once a week. He often forgets to charge his phone or to turn it back on. (He turns it off at night.) Once we couldn’t get him for a couple of days and it turned out he’d been flown to the opposite coast for a job interview and we’d had no idea! So far email or IM’s usually get him eventually. But we have had to say that he should at least answer emails - “I’m fine too busy to talk.”</p>
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<p>I don’t think it’s overprotective at all! And if it is, you have plenty of company, self included.</p>
<p>Like thumper1 I too am glad Lima’s son is ok but many of the comments posted I find of concern. Am now at the opposite end of most parents on CC - S graduated 2 1/2 years ago and D is set to graduate in May. From the beginning we did not insist on daily, weekly or anything in between calls (Both kids went to schools over 1600 miles away) nor did we have or even think of getting #s from roommates. Email was the most frequent mode of correspondence and, especially from D, there was a lot of that. S - hardly ever. All the time they were growing up we mostly let them run at liberty, not just on a long leash (I trained working sheepdogs and found very early on that if you tried to keep a leash on all the time all you did was get everyone - person/sheep/dog - tangled up) BUT before any of this, we taught them rules, rules of behavior, rules of responsibility, etc. Kind of like progressing from on leash to off leash. I think back to my own numerous travel experiences before cell phones and internet. Whenever I traveled to Europe I refused to have a cut and dried plan of where I was going to be and when. S is soon to take off for a 2 month+ trip to Asia. I am hoping to hear about his travels while he is there as opposed to afterward but I am not expecting emails every few days. Our kids are very close to us and have frequently mentioned they appreciated growing up without the parental stranglehold. Still, I am happy to hear the OP’s son is OK.</p>
<p>csleslie I agree with you in theory and try to keep my stress about contact with my son to myself. My husband does not believe regular contact is necessary as we have a good relationship. I sometimes get panicky about his safety for the reasons I posted but I do keep that panic underwraps and do understand it is my issue.
In this case though the OP’s son has Aspie…which in my mind changes the rule book a bit.
Since I have never dealt with that situation I trust the OP to know what is appropriate as far as contact and when she should be concerned.</p>
<p>I had the same thoughts csleslie. I am coming from it from a completely different place: I am the college student and my oldest is in middle school. However, he has Asperger Syndrome and when I first read the OP, I put myself into the situation and thought about the fact that it is at or near finals week and communication is about the least important thing for an Aspie. Also, if he is a senior he is over 21, right? That seems old enough to be able to have some space.
OP, all that said, I am really glad he is okay. I know the terror these aspies can put us through. Mine is 12 and has started taking walks. he might be gone a couple of hours, but he would be i the neighborhood. After a few panicky situations, I thought I had gotten it into his head to take a phone. Well, one day he leaves without it and is gone for a few hours! We drove around the neighborhood looking for him, but he returned with an armload of books! He had walked downtown to the library. Which means crossing several major streets at the crosswalks. We don’t live in a small town either, it is a city of 43,000. My husband told him “I am too impressed to be mad at you. TAKE A PHONE next time” And so all was well. Until a couple of weeks ago when he walked out in the morning without telling me he was leaving. He was gone 6 hours! I called me husband out of work, we called the police, and we went out searching. Found him in the comic book store. $1.29 in his pocket and no phone on him. But he was fine, and grounded! But with the life skills he is learning, I know he is going to be fine when he gets to college.</p>
<p>My comment was not so much for a parent like the OP but rather the other parents on CC (and many others I see locally) who have a hard time letting go. BTW, I found John Elder Robison’s book Look Me in the Eye very informative about Asperger kids.</p>
<p>Sons! ^%$&^(&^%&^**</p>
<p>Our college senior will ignore messages- last year I actually called his apt roommate to ask if he was okay- knew the friend from HS days and by then didn’t care if son was embarassed since he had ignored repeated requests via email and voice mail for days. I like to have a weekly check to know son is alive and well at this stage of his life. I found the friend’s cell phone number by looking up his name on the university people search function on the home page of its website- students put in phone #, email address (most often name at u—.edu) and other contact info they are willing to make public. I made a copy of the info letter sent with his dorm roommate names and had copies of his lease info with roommate’s names and the contact cell phone # for the landlord each summer- he would never have made sure I had this info so I did. By now we know his habits- when he is likely running (evenings and weekend trips), in class…</p>