Author Archives: Tanya Savko

About Tanya Savko

My name is Tanya Savko. I am a writer, teacher, and mother of two sons. The "writer" and "mother" elements have been part of my life for quite some time, but the "teacher" title is new this year. My older son, Nigel, was diagnosed with autism at age three, in 1997. Between the ages of three and six he received intensive ABA-based therapy, which I believe was essential to how well he is able to function today. Unfortunately, negative peer interaction in middle school has made it necessary for me to take the leap to homeschooling him. We began this journey in February, 2008. The Teen Autism blog is a way to explore and understand whatever happens next. My younger son, Aidan, is eleven. He is an avid gamer and wants to design video games when he grows up. He is imaginative, sensitive, and compassionate. His Kindergarten teacher remarked how Aidan would always be the first to comfort his classmates if they were hurt or upset. He has mentioned to me several times that he feels like he is the older brother, always looking out for Nigel. I am truly blessed with both of them. I decided at the age of four that I wanted to write books. I have written ever since (although I didn't limit myself to books). My poetry and articles about autism have been featured in several publications, and my novel about raising a child with autism is scheduled to be published later this year. I decided to start the Teen Autism blog as a way to connect with other parents of autistic teens, to gain insight from those who have been through the teen years, as well as to offer encouragement to those just entering them. I welcome your comments, suggestions, and questions. It's good to know we're not alone on this journey.

When Disappointment Looms

The year that I was six, I was sick on my birthday, it rained when we went to Disneyland, and I didn’t get the Baby Alive doll for Christmas. That was disappointing. The year that I was twenty-six, I didn’t get a big job I applied for, my son was diagnosed with autism, and my then-husband announced that he wanted to be separated. All rather disappointing (at least at the time).

We all have our own ways of dealing with disappointment. Some indulge in retail therapy, some take a hot bath, some tell themselves that something wasn’t meant to be. Some get angry and frustrated, or sad. Some take it out on themselves. Disappointment is another emotion that autistic teens are faced with learning how to manage. Of course, all people must, but for someone who has trouble identifying and dealing with difficult emotions, it’s that much harder.

Nigel’s NT friend Riley was supposed to spend the night last night as a positive reinforcement for Nigel cleaning his room. He earned it, and he was really looking forward to it. Then Riley called to say that he hadn’t fully recovered from an illness yet and couldn’t make it. Nigel seemed okay at first and retained his composure on the phone, which impressed me, but afterward I could tell that he was definitely upset. He yanked his hair in his fists and shut himself in his room, where he proceeded to knock a bunch of stuff on the floor he had worked so hard to clean. “I cleaned my room for nothing,” he sneered.

After a few minutes, I went in and sat with him on his bed. I acknowledged his disappointment. Then I gently reminded him of the exercise he had recently done in his social skills workbook called When Plans Change. In it, he learned to create a visual image of changing the plan in his head by removing the old plan, represented by a Post-It note with “Old Plan” written on it and stuck to his forehead, and applying a new plan (a Post-It note with “New Plan” written on it). The new plan consisted of dinner out at his favorite Mexican restaurant, going out to get ice cream, and renting a movie of his choice. And the assurance that Riley would spend the night on a future weekend.

“New Plan” seemed to be an acceptable consolation prize, even though I could tell he was still having a tough time, still wishing his friend could be here. Last night he kept coming out of his room spouting random movie echolalia, which he usually does when stressed. Later, he started coming out of his room talking about bully revenge plans. I think he was displacing his disappointment about his friend not coming over onto a scapegoat of sorts, which seemed to help him. I was glad he found something that worked. Whatever way it rains on our proverbial parades, we all learn to deal with disappointment, whether it’s by doing something to make ourselves feel better or by visualizing Post-It notes on our foreheads. And sometimes a little note helps more than we realize. It might even help us get what we want for Christmas.

Dealing with Anger

Autism and anger – two A-words that don’t go together well. The combination ain’t pretty.

Last night, Nigel was angry. I had given him an ultimatum: You must clean your room or you can’t have your friend spend the night this weekend as planned. This last resort came after a series of interventions on my part to make the room cleaning as easy as possible. I wrote instructions, broken down into steps, for him to refer to while cleaning. I offered the positive reinforcement of having his friend spend the night this weekend. He called the friend on Monday to invite him to spend Friday night, and as of Wednesday night, he had not lifted a finger to pick up his room. Urging him to get started was met with indifference. I mentioned that he would not receive his allowance until the room was clean. Not motivating enough. I removed the DVD player from his room. No worries. So, faced with letting it slide or hitting him where it hurts, I gave him the ultimatum. And I think the real reason he became angry is because he knows that I’ll follow through with it.

Nigel has two ways of expressing anger – he destroys things in his room or becomes a mad dog. The fact that he chose not to destroy anything in his room last night told me that he didn’t want to make the situation worse because, deep down, he knew that at some point he would have to actually clean his room. So, on some level, he still had control of himself. He just wanted to act like he didn’t.

The first time Mad Dog entered our home, I was quite scared. Nigel, heading into adolescence, was having a lot of trouble filtering the sensations caused by his new hormones. I didn’t know what to expect from him. He was hissing, growling, biting, and making death threats. I don’t even remember how I got him to calm down – I think I just waited it out, holding my breath. Mad Dog has reared his head a few other times in the last couple of years. The death threats have subsided, but the rest of it is no picnic.

After I told Nigel that he would have to cancel his sleepover unless he cleaned his room, Mad Dog came bounding out. He leaped around the living room, growling and hissing, jumping on the back of the couch where my boyfriend Rick and I were trying to watch a movie. I was not pleased. I tried herding him back to his room, at which point he threw himself on the floor and began biting my legs. My patience wearing thin, I left him there in the hallway and went to the bathroom to regroup.

I came out a moment later to the sound of laughter. Apparently, Mad Dog had gone back out to the living room to jump on the back of the couch, and Rick deftly infused some humor into the situation. He grabbed Nigel and gave him a wedgie. That startled Mad Dog right out of him! Nigel went back to his room for a few minutes, and then he came out with a plan. He knew that shoving everything into the closet wouldn’t fly, so he offered to bundle it in an old sheet and drag it into the storage room. I came up with a plan of my own. I told him that first he should put away all the clothing that was on the floor, and then we’d consider using his sheet method. He said okay. After he’d put away all the clothing, I went in and surveyed his room and said, “Why don’t you just put all the stuffed animals back on your bed?” By the time he had done that, the piles on the floor looked much more manageable. I suggested he pick up all the DVDs. “Just the DVDs,” I said. Then, since it was bedtime, I suggested that he could do his sheet plan tomorrow, after he had picked up the books. He said okay.

And so we managed to learn a few important things here at Teen Autism:

1. Humor is a significant tool for diffusing anger.

2. Allowing Nigel to come up with his own plan is an effective motivator.

3. Compromise might actually be possible.

4. Bargaining is very productive.

5. Mad Dog is vulnerable to surprise wedgie attacks.

Picture Day

Often it’s the little things that really make your day. With homeschool pictures, you get to choose the day, you get to take as many shots as you want until you get a good one, and you don’t have to write a check. You also get to make sure that your child is wearing something decent, not the ratty old T-shirt he wore last year without your knowledge that it was picture day at school. This year, I feel vindicated. Here is the homeschooled one, in all his self-buttoned glory.

Using Like or As

For homeschool, we’ve been working on a poetry unit, and Nigel is learning various literary terms. I wasn’t sure how much of it his autistic mind would be able to identify. Things are what they are; he’s a “tell-it-like-it-is” type of person. How could he understand the subtlety and ambiguity of metaphor? I decided that simile would be an easier place to start, with its concrete formula for identification: a comparison of two things using “like” or “as.” His early attempts, tall as a tree and sticky like glue, lacked flair, but we kept at it.

After a long day of homeschool, social skills class at the middle school, and chores, Nigel (who was probably up late last night) claimed he needed a rest before dinner. When I went to call him to the table, I found him splayed on his bed, a hint of a smile across his lips.

“I feel stretched,” he said. “Like butter over too much bread.”

I think he’s got the idea.

The Other Side of the Dating Coin

Life as a single parent is challenging enough. Throw autism into the picture and every limitation is magnified. Try to date and you may decide to just NOT for a while. When your kids are younger, you have to deal with finding someone to watch them so you can GO on a date, and then when your date arrives to pick you up, your echolalic five-year-old son greets him at the door with a shout of “Balto!” because he had just watched that movie. Then when you can’t find someone to watch the kids and your date gallantly albeit naively suggests taking them to the Chinese restaurant with you, you try to sound spontaneous by saying “Sure!” inwardly cringing because you know it’s a bad idea. And then within five minutes of being seated at the restaurant, your five-year-old goes into a sensory overload meltdown as you feared he would and is writhing on the floor screaming and so you leave, and a week later the date tells you he can’t deal with the “extended family.” And since this is not the first time a love interest has ended a fledgling romance in this manner, you think to hell with it, why should I bother?

And then your kids get older, and by some miracle and a good response to therapy, they begin talking more and have learned to filter some of their sensory issues and can actually sit in a restaurant for a bit, so you think maybe you’ll give it another shot. And you get someone to watch the kids, and when the date comes over to pick you up, your now-verbal eleven-year-old son decides to suggest to the date that he should marry you. But the date decides to stick around for a few months anyway (after lecturing you about the inappropriateness of your son’s suggestion, just in case you hadn’t sensed it, even though he himself does not have any autistic children, nor any children whatsoever). And on one outing with your kids that you were apprehensive about doing (but did anyway to seem spontaneous), your autistic eleven-year-old gets lost and you spend half an hour looking for him, and then your SPD nine-year-old vomits all over the back seat of the fledgling boyfriend’s new car that everybody was excited to ride in, and then he tells you that he’s really not sure he can “take on” the “responsibility” of your children. And you think, Really? This again? Still?

And now your kids are adolescents and can actually stay home by themselves for a limited time so getting someone to watch them is no longer an issue. And you take an objective look at the situation and realize that getting someone to watch the kids was actually the smallest issue of all. It was getting someone to understand the kids, to accept them, that was the issue. It was getting someone who not only acknowledged the “package deal” nature of your situation, but who actually wanted to take it on. Those have always been the real issues, you realize, not getting someone to watch the kids or seeming spontaneous enough. And so you go on a lot of lunch dates until you meet someone who you think can understand your life and accept your kids and not be bothered by one son who warns against being seated too close together and still gets lost and the other son who only eats four things and occasionally still vomits in the car.

And you realize that as much as you worry about your autistic teen finding someone kind enough and understanding enough to date him and appreciate him and possibly have a relationship with him, you realize that deep down, you’ve also been just as concerned about finding someone like that for yourself. And when you do find someone willing to fill that role, after over a decade of looking, you realize that only now are you able to truly appreciate that person. Only now do you know what you needed all this time.

Homeschooling Hurdles

Search engines amaze me. We can type in anything and in mere seconds, dozens, even hundreds and thousands, of listings pop up in some configuration of what we typed. We could spend days reading all of them. And so, when someone finds this web site by typing “teen homeschooled and doesn’t want to learn” into a search engine (as my blog tracking software indicated a few days ago), it amazes me.

The reason it amazes me is because, even though I have not yet written about it, that is what I have been experiencing recently with Nigel. It’s not that he doesn’t want to learn anything, it’s just that he only wants to learn what he wants to learn. He loves science, especially earth science and weather, but he is also interested in biology, chemistry, and even introductory physics. His favorite subject, of course, is history. His concept of the ideal learning approach is to sit on the couch and read National Geographics all day or, better yet, watch a DVD about whatever historical topic he’s studying. “That’s how I learn things,” he says. He feels that there’s no need for him to write an essay about it because it’s all in his head. And on some level, I’m sure it is all there. But I’ve got to prepare him for high school. I’ve got to teach him to write an organized essay, site sources, etc. For the time being, I’ll say that he’s resistant and leave it at that.

He is also highly resistant to learning math. Nigel, in an un-stereotypically autistic way, hates math. Numbers are good for historical dates, calendars, times of movie listings, how much a Lego set costs, phone numbers and addresses, but other than that he has no use for them. Why learn multiplication tables when we have calculators? “Long division is for losers,” he loves to say. “I’m going to destroy it.”

He says he’s going to “destroy education,” too. And Charlemagne, since Nigel thinks that’s who “invented” it. He’s going to go back in time and assassinate Charlemagne because he apparently had something to do with promoting education. This plan came about when I pointed out today that he is required by law to be educated. “You can be educated at Blank Middle School or here at home. Which do you prefer?” “Neither. I’ll destroy education,” he says, and purposefully presses down too hard on his pencil so the lead breaks.

It isn’t supposed to go this way, I tell myself. He should appreciate that I’m homeschooling him so he doesn’t have to go to the school he hates. Doesn’t he realize all the sacrifices I’ve made as a single parent to be able to homeschool him? Of course not, and I can’t expect him to. He’s a kid, an autistic kid at that. But there’s only so much I can take. Only so much talk of “destroying” things, non-tangible things that can’t be destroyed anyway. “That doesn’t make sense,” I tell him when I am at my wit’s end, unable to try to reason with him any longer.

And so, to the person who Googled “teen homeschooled and doesn’t want to learn,” I say the following:

You’re in good company. Despair not. Take it one day at a time. I don’t know if your teen is autistic or not, but mine is and that’s how I manage things. That’s the only way I’ve ever been able to manage it – one day at a time. That’s the only advice I’m able to offer. Some days they’ll listen and some days they won’t. Some days they get it, and some days they throw their math books across the room. And yeah, some days we want to throw the math book across the room too. Some days we want to yell, “This isn’t fun for me, either!” But we just keep at it. Yes, it is hard. What I call the “hurdle days” are especially hard. But it’s also worth it. Even though I’m making this up as I go along, I know that it’s worth it.

Telling It Like It Is

The scene: A warm, early fall evening. A party is being held at a residential home. Guests are arriving, hugging, greeting each other warmly. They appear to be extended family and close friends. Over a dozen of them mill around the entry way as the last one arrives, an older woman with short curly brown hair. She appears to be about ninety years old, shrunken a bit by mild osteoporosis. She is carrying bags with food and gifts, and a woman in her thirties greets her with a hug, says, “Hi, Grandma,” and takes the bags from her. As they walk into the kitchen with the other guests, a gangly teenage boy enters the room.

Teenage boy says in loud voice: She looks more and more like a Hobbit.

Those near the boy quietly laugh while the older woman is distracted greeted by someone new. The woman in her thirties stifles a guffaw and briefly wonders how the rest of the evening will go.

Adventures in Cooking

At some point in the last couple of years, Nigel, like another skillful boy his age, learned to make toast. He has this routine of pre-slicing the butter so that it has softened by the time the toast pops up, placing the thin pats on the toast, waiting 30 seconds and then spreading them. Then he actually wraps up the bread and butter and puts them away. It’s one of the things he does perfectly. And until last week, it was the only thing he could cook. Not anymore!

Last week I came home from work (I usually work from home so that I can homeschool him, but I go into the office on Fridays), and I could tell by the smell that something had been cooked. And not just toast. I put my stuff down and called out, “Nigel?” “Hi, Mom,” he answered from the living room. “How was your day?” I calmly asked. “Fine.” Did I really think I would get more than that? “Did you do your schoolwork?” “Yes,” he said, keeping his eyes on the TV.

“What did you cook?” I asked.

“I made grilled cheese.”

I surveyed the kitchen and noticed that my 12-inch risotto pan was out on the stove with a spatula inside of it (and the remnants of browned butter). The cheese, bread, and butter had all been put away. “Wow,” I said supportively. “How did it turn out?”

“Fine.”

“How did you know how to cook it?”

“From watching you.”

Thus my son proves that, once in a while, he does pay attention. And, more importantly, that he can cook on a gas stove without blowing up the house! Without burning anything! I am so proud. Emeril, watch out.

Party Time

Parties are a bit of a conundrum for the extroverted autistic individual. Of course, I am not extroverted and I am not autistic, so this analysis is based on my (slightly biased) observations as the mother of such. Being extroverted, Nigel craves the fun social interaction of a party, especially when the party-goers include family and friends who know him and love him. But being autistic, he often needs relief from the very social interaction he so craves. And as a verbal autistic, he often finds that the topics he chooses to discuss can cause confusion or amusement (at his expense). Sometimes he unwittingly says something downright inappropriate or resorts to movie echolalia. It’s tough needing to work so hard at something that’s supposed to be fun.

I watch him at a party at our house. Nigel’s working the room, showing each person one by one his self-designed Lego mini-figure of JFK, discussing his theories on the assassination, and even thinking to ask those over the age of 45 if they remembered the day that it happened. He is trying to make connections with people the only way he knows how – talking about his interests and asking for others’ opinions. He would do this all night if he could. But after a while, the din of a party will get to him, and he removes himself for a moment to take a break. If he doesn’t, he will become over-stimulated and could have a meltdown. It’s happened before. He knows this about himself, but sometimes I need to remind him. This time, he does it on his own. And then he’s right back out in the thick of things. Back for more.

I, meanwhile, hang back as much as possible at a party. This is especially difficult to do when it is being held at my house. So, I have devised a method of getting as much ready as possible before the guests arrive, making sure all the refreshments are accessible, and then I sit at the far end of my kitchen counter, visible if anyone needs me for anything and near enough to throw out a comment or two should the spirit move me, but removed a bit from the action. Unlike my son, who is making the rounds with his homemade spear from 10,000 BC and a Peruvian Chullo hat on his head that my father brought back for him as a souvenir from a recent trip. Later, guests will be wowed by his Terminator sunglasses, floating pumice rock, and knowledge of space exploration history. He is in his element, and I am impressed and proud.

And then Nigel gets a little carried away, a little cocky, perhaps. Maybe he’s thinking, “I’m working this party good. Who says I need a social skills class? I’ve got it under control.” He notices Mom sitting a little close to her boyfriend (who was just introduced to all the relatives tonight). Close enough to tease her about it. And then something flies out of his mouth in his loud voice. Something that brings the party to a grinding halt.

Nigel: Mom, you’re sitting too close to his crotch.

Me: Nigel!

Nigel: That’s okay, because I want to have a baby brother. I want you to have another baby.

Me (about ready to pass out, not sure if I have the strength or wit to manage damage control): Shh! Quiet!

Note to self: Time for a little talk about FILTERS!

Teen Autism

Life in the Different Lane