Asperger's Kids: Difficulty Labeling Emotions

Question

Tips on teaching black-and-white kids labels for different emotions would be invaluable. With our nine-year-old, everyone is either happy, sad, frustrated or mad. His difficulty labeling emotions compounds problems because by not being able to adequately express what he’s feeling and be understood. This frustration usually ends with a day full of sitting on the couch with his head down, not talking to anyone because he’s so upset. How can I help him better express himself?

Answer

It can be very difficult for some children with Asperger’s Syndrome to understand their own emotions. They have a very hard time reading the emotions of others as well. This can be a very frustrating place for a child to be and helping him to learn how to identify these emotions can be very beneficial for your child.

Understand that it will be difficult for your child to learn how to identify emotions. He’ll first need to have a frame of reference. In her book, “What’s That Look on Your Face? All About Faces and Feelings,” Catherine S. Snodgrass has created a set of pictures of exaggerated facial expressions. These pictures are accompanied by poems that further reinforce the emotion shown in the face to help reinforce the connection in the child’s mind. This is a great way to begin to teach your child how to read and identify emotions.

You can also create activities for you and your child to participate in, depending on the age of your child and his desire to participate. You can photograph yourself and your child making faces that portray different emotions. You can have pictures of happy faces, sad faces, frustrated faces, and mad faces – all sorts of faces. Take a picture of you and take a picture of your child making the same face. You can take those photographs and turn them into flash cards so your child can practice identifying emotions.

Once he has a language and a frame of reference, then you can begin to help your child learn to identify how he is feeling. This can be a time consuming process, but a very important process. When you see your son is happy, have him stop what he’s doing and talk about what it feels like to be happy. He will begin to equate the feeling he’s having with the word. You can do this with many emotions, such as anger and frustration. Once your son begins to connect words with the emotions he is having, he’ll be able to correctly identify the emotions. This will help greatly when you are trying to help him modify some of his behaviors that may surround some of his emotions, especially around anger and frustration issues.

Be patient with your son and try to understand how frustrating and confusing this can be for him. If he begins to understand that you are trying to help him understand this confusing issue, he will be better able to open up to you.

Aspergers: Coping with the pressures of middle school...

Question:

I'm worried about how my 12-year-old son with Aspergers is going to cope with the pressures of middle school. That is a difficult age for any child and most people don't accept him as he is. My husband thinks we should focus on making him more acceptable to the majority, but I don't think he should have to change who he is. I haven't heard from anyone who has been through those middle & high school years and I am terrified!!

Answer:

This is a common fear that parents of spectrum kids have. Middle school, as we all know, is cruel to everyone, and especially to those who are different. How do you let your kids be who they are while still protecting them so they don't emerge traumatized?

I feel what is most important is not to let your kids feel ashamed of who they are. If they've got a spark to them, they've got things they're interested in, don't kill it by making them conform. Most people lose that spark naturally when they get older; there's no reason to do it prematurely. Don't take away one of best things your Aspergers child has going for himself: his passion for living life, even if it's living life on his own terms. If he wants to fit in, he'll ask you how to fit. It'll come, but let it be when he's ready for it rather than force him into a cookie cutter existence.

Some Aspergers kids go through middle school so excited about their passions that they barely notice they're the odd ones out, or if they notice, they don't care (probably not a lot, but some). Others are unfortunately bullied quite a bit.

There are a few things you can do to try to either prevent this from happening or minimize the effects if it does. First, use his talents and passions to find him a niche in the school where he can succeed. The drama club is a natural place. Many quirky kids find refuge in drama clubs; and if he can succeed in school plays, then he has one place where he belongs and can be accorded respect. If there's a particular subject he's interested in, see if he can start a club and find other kids interested in the same thing. Or find if you can a group outside of school interested in that kind of thing. Buffer him so if he does encounter some rejection he will already belong to and have found success in enough other activities that it won't really matter so much. Perhaps you could encourage him to take interest in a particular teacher, especially in a subject he enjoys, so he could have an ally at the school. Teachers were always invaluable support people to me when I was in school.

If he does encounter problems, try to find ways around some of the biggest trouble spots. For example, he could eat lunch in a classroom instead of the lunchroom if the lunchroom is problematic. If bullying does occur, hopefully you can work with him and the school to minimize the amount of places that it occurs. Keep reminding him of how great he is, and let him cry to you if he needs to. But the most important thing you can do, it seems, is continue to let him be who he is because it's not worth losing yourself for a bunch of junior high kids, and give his outlets where he can succeed so he's not as bothered by the junior high kids. Also, if he's into it and they're available, a support group for Aspergers teens may be valuable.