The Parenting Aspergers Resource Guide

If you’re the parent or relative of a child with Aspergers, you know it can make life an agonizing struggle.

The obsessive routines. The preoccupation with one subject of interest (to the exclusion of most everything else). The problems they face understanding different social situations. The oversensitivity to sounds, tastes, smells and sights. Their feelings of being overwhelmed by even the smallest of changes

Then there are the pressures YOU face: the inability to communicate with your child, the awkwardness you feel in social situations, the pressure it puts on your relationships with your partner and other children, and the desperate desire to try anything – in amongst a sea of physical and emotional exhaustion – to ensure your child is able to enjoy the best that life can offer – even if it’s on their terms.

It can be VERY frustrating having a child with Aspergers. The hardest part is you feel like you’ll never actually get to know your child and how they see the world in the same way other parents do. But how can you do that?

As a quick test, please ask yourself the following questions (and answer them honestly)

1. Do you ever feel tired, frustrated or overwhelmed as the parent of a child with Aspergers?
2. Do you feel as if you’re on a constant 24-hours-a-day knife’s edge, waiting for the next ‘crisis’ to explode?
3. Have you ever been so angry at your child that, even for a split second you
actually HATED them?
4. Has your child ever done anything so strange or dangerous that you’ve been FRIGHTENED of what they may be capable of?

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, and you’re looking for answers to your Aspergers questions, then this could be the most important letter you ever read

Here’s Why I’m Writing To You

My name is Dave Angel I’m a social worker working with families just like yours, and earned a Masters Degree in Applied Social Studies. In spite of all this, Aspergers was not something that I knew much about

Until One Day Several Years Ago When
I Visited A Family With An Unusual Child

You never forget the first time you meet a child with Aspergers.

You see, I had a call from work to make a daytime visit to a family I’d never met before. The reason for going was to assess a young person who was struggling with school. He was feeling very low, was in a near-permanent depressed mood, and was also highly aggressive towards his older brother.

But that was only half the story, as I also remember the state of mind of the parents of this boy.

The mother of this child was so upset and frustrated that she didn’t know where to turn, and was so overwhelmed by it all that she was in tears and at the end of her tether.

The mother and father of this boy had split up, a common occurrence for parents of children with Aspergers, with a staggering 75% of such parents eventually splitting up, due in large part to the stresses and strains of coping with a child with Aspergers. The inability to communicate on the one hand, and the malicious gossiping of other parents in the schoolyard (who see your child as “strange” or “different”, oftentimes entirely without justification), all contribute to tear at the fabric of even the strongest relationships.

What’s more, each of them lived in different homes. This resulted in their son having two houses to get used to (when he spent time with each parent), which meant different routines, a lack of stability, and increased anxiety for all concerned.

So after my assessment, I felt extremely frustrated as I wasn’t able to offer any practical help.

I wanted to do what I could to assist this family, but I couldn’t, and that gnawed at me.

Meeting this family (and seeing their suffering and pain) sparked my desire to find out more, and I made it my mission to find out as much as I could about Aspergers.

The Parenting Aspergers