#4 | 3 Stages of Belief - 4 It's Not Up To Me

Watch the webclass, "4-Part Roadmap to Encourage Adulting Actions."

Get the Preview of the workbook, When Autism Grows Up by Lynn C Davison, Adulting Coach, Available in Fall 2022.

Download, "The Quick Start Guide to STEAR Mapping"

Hi, it's Lynn, your adulting coach.   

This is the fourth and final video in the series about belief. Now that you've watched the other three videos, let's agree that you do believe that you will become the best coach for your autistic young adult.   

But I can just hear you think now, whether they systematized self reliance is up to them, not me. So how do I keep believing when they aren't doing what I think they should be doing?  

 I know. I really know. We're going to tackle this subject now.   

First, I'd like to share a quick story. I recently upgraded my own vacuum cleaner to a new model. After 30 plus years and lots of Gorilla Tape. It was time. I felt quite spoiled vacuuming the floors and rugs last Saturday with my new purple vacuum cleaner.   

The owner's manual for the new vacuum cleaner is pretty thick, and I usually don't even look at it. But even though the new vacuum was from the same manufacturer, I had some questions about how this version worked. I discovered everything I needed to know is in the manual how helpful.  

But here's something interesting. We have manuals like this for our young adults. We have this picture in our head of how they should operate. Our young adults operating manual is pretty extensive and full of details, mostly based on what we were told or observed growing up. Our upbringing inspired many standards. Then our schools, our employers, movies, television programs, and countless other are undocumented sources added to those thoughts.   

We never write those thoughts down or explain the details to our young adults. We just expect that they know how to operate correctly so we can be happy. But that's a problem.   

As soon as we tie our happiness to someone else's behavior, we take away our power. That's what we're doing with our manuals.   

Here are few pages from some young adult manuals I've heard and what the young adult is probably thinking.  

Parent: "If my young adult really appreciated everything we've done for them, they dinner with us and contribute to the conversation."  

Now if this were true, it would mean the young adult is thinking something like, "I would add something to the dinner conversation but I just don't appreciate all that my parents have done for me."  

Here's what they're probably thinking, "I am so tired at this time of night, I can't think of anything I want to say." 

Here's another example. The parent thinks. "They know they need to take out the trash on Sunday, but they refuse to do it unless I remind them several times."   

If this were true, our young adult's thinking would sounds something like this, "I refuse to take out the trash unless I'm reminded by my parents."  

Instead, what they're probably thinking is, "This YouTube video is so funny."   Whenever we play it out in our minds, we find that the meaning we give to our young adults action sounds a bit ridiculous.   

This concept of having a manual is something I work on daily. It has taken me time to fully embrace the idea.   

When I first introduce it to others some feel defensive. They say, "Oh, so you're saying I shouldn't have expectations for them. That I shouldn't hold them accountable for their actions."   

It seems like they're afraid that I'm taking something away from them. Once they realize that I'm giving them back their power by helping them release those manuals. They find peace.   

We really can't hold another person accountable. Nor do we really want that. We can hold them to compliance, but that implies that we're putting this requirement on them and that they haven't bought into it.   

What we really want is for our autistic young adults to hold themselves accountable.   The work of releasing our manuals is all about the unspoken standards we haven't explained ahead of time.

They weigh us down. Keep us frustrated, and make us feel powerless.   By the way, our young adults have those unspoken manuals for us, too, and they haven't shared them with us either.   

It's so much better when we put all put our manuals down, create a simple list of unsolved problems (thank you again Dr. Ross Greene,) and then proactively collaborate to solve those problems when we are not in a conflict.   

Instead of manuals, I recommend that we each create our own life GPS. It's a simple spreadsheet where we record what we've created, what we've had enough of, what we want next, and what we'll do in each of the 10 life domains.   

Then we support each other taking action, debriefing when things go wrong, and when things go right. We want to really notice what works for us when we create create a result that we want.   

Once we make this shift, we're often blown away by how our autistic young adults change. We start noticing the ladybugs, little bits of evidence that we are all taking action to create lives that work.   

Know this. I emphatically believe that we should make requests of our autistic young adults.   

But if we tie our happiness to them doing as we prescribe, and they don't, well, we just make ourselves miserable.

We think that they're not being respectful. We project catastrophic things happening and that our future is bleak.

That's what our brains do, and they think they are protecting us. But the thoughts our brains automatically generate aren't always useful.   

Sometimes relationship professionals spend time asking people to tell each other what their needs are. So the other one can meet them. While I strongly encourage communication, I think that the idea of being in a relationship where both parties are needy, doesn't sound satisfying at all.  

 Instead, why don't each of us accept responsibility? For our own needs, and then proactively and collaboratively solve together any problems that come up? Because the truth is that no one no other imperfect person could ever meet our own needs.   

When we expect accept responsibility for creating a life we love that works. We can agree on so much. They should bring the car home before midnight. They should help more around the house. They should get a job and contribute to the household and understand how the family economy works.   

When we create a plan, their life GPS, where our young adults decide what they want and what they'll do to get it, then track themselves on how well they do and notice the thoughts that come up, we start making predictable progress.   

My parents tell me that it is such a peaceful feeling when they and their young adults record what they've agreed on together. They say they'll never look back. Their connection has grown they are creating their future together.   

Here's a helpful framework defining the role of the parent of parents of adult children.   

After the meeting, where I learned that the bank I worked for for 13 years had been bought out by another bigger bank I went to the library to process the news. It's my happy place. I was excited as I had been seriously considering parenting full time. So this was exactly what I wanted.

While sitting in the parenting section I found how to teach your children values by Linda and Richard Eyre. They were brave enough to take all nine of their children live on Oprah to talk about this book. After a few years reading more of their books, I found their website, ValuesParenting.com and discovered their definition of the role of parents of adult children: to encourage, to warn, and to be consulted.   

I thought it was brilliant.   

I recently Googled this definition and found out that the British monarchy has the same role.   

And it makes sense to me. We can't legislate our young adults actions. And we don't want to. All of our adult children have agency. They choose their actions and we want to encourage them to trust themselves in their decisions. So that when we are gone, they've had plenty of practice noticing which decisions work for them and which don't.   

I'm not saying that this process is fast or easy. It requires a significant investment of time and energy and love. Over time.   

We will have to step back and watch our young adults suffer when they make mistakes that cost them that is really uncomfortable. We have to remind ourselves that struggle is fuel for growth. We do that a lot for each other in The Art of Adulting.  

Sometimes we think we know how our young adults should act but I'm pretty sure we don't. Because if they are obligated to do what we want instead of what they want, we are making a case against agency.   

Our young adults are supposed to make decisions and make mistakes. That's how they wire their brains' decision making neurons.   

If we keep doing it for them, we create learned helplessness and that won't work for them. Or us in the long run.   

When we put the focus on what we need, instead of our painful story that we make up about how they should be we find peace.   

It doesn't work for us to try to control the people around us. It just doesn't work. Instead we ask ourselves and our autistic adults who do we want to be?   

The one thing we can expect of people is that they will be them and a lot of who they are is really good. A lot of who our spouses and our kids and our parents and our bosses and our friends are things that we love and adore.   

So we can feel free to expect them to be them and to embrace and enjoy all the goodness of them.   

I promise that there's a lot there when we start looking for that instead of looking for ways that others don't measure up to who we thought they should be. Let's go create a life that we love. That works together.   

Bye for now.