#45 | Doesn't maintain his living space.

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"

RESOURCES

• PARENTS OF ADULTS WITH ASPERGERS on Facebook
• SEEING AUTISM by Barb Avila: https://www.lynncdavison.com/pl/2147533610
• STEAR Mapping Quick Start Guide by Lynn C Davison
• 4 Steps to Set a Boundary
• Role of Parents of Adult Children Wallpaper
• 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE PEOPLE by Stephen Covey
• LivesInTheBalance.org by Dr. Ross Greene
• Collaborative Proactive Problem Solving Process
• Martha Beck on Instagram
• Outkind Our Mind

Hi, it's Lynn, your adulting coach.

Today's struggle comes from a parent at the parents of autistic adults Facebook Page. And our mom is concerned that her son does not maintain his living space.

So here are her thoughts.

• Is there any way to get my son to maintain his living space? He's in a single dorm room at college.
• When at home, he is on our on our third floor with his own bathroom, so his dirty clothes, his trash, and his trash and his clutter accumulate there.
• We just can't even see the floor.
• Cat litter isn't dumped on a regular manner. And that obviously can create a smell.
• As many of you understand, she says the mess is beyond just being how college boys keep their rooms.
• She says that she's more and more they worry that he won't be able to live on his own in a healthy and safe way.

Yes, we have we get this. This is a challenge not only for our young adults to understand the payoff of a clean living space of a clean environment, but also for ourselves in our worry about the future for autistic young adults makes perfect sense.

So let's again borrow Barb Avila's process and understand what could be going here that is a result of our young adult having an autistic brain and then connect with ourselves as well as with them.

Because I was just reading on another page how there's more articles about how parents of autistic individuals of anyone with a developmental disability which is 7% of the population of the child population has a developmental disability that we can be prone to depression. So we have to look at what's going on with us as well.

And then finally, what are some of the practices that we can put in place to improve the way things are going for us and for our young adult?

UNDERSTAND

The way I'd like to approach this is to remind ourselves that here's what we're trying to do. We are trying to help our autistic young adults practice the set of mental tools that help them manage their thoughts, emotions and actions so that they can achieve goals set for them by them. This is a definition of executive functioning that I've  edited to to be the definition of adulting.

And with our kids with autistic brains, there's a lag in terms of the executive skills that they have in getting organized and keeping track of things and regularly doing the cleanup process is one of them. So it makes perfect sense that our that our mom's having son is having a struggle with this one. He's 19.

And then it also makes perfect sense that we are projecting into the future danger. That's what our brain does. It tries to alert us of what potential problems could be so that we take steps to mitigate them and you know, keep ourselves safe. That surely is the reason why we're still alive today whyour species is alive and is at the top of the food chain. 

Lynn Davison 4:19

Because our brains are always challenge us challenging us they're always scanning the environment. Looking for what could be wrong, and what we need to do to fix it.

So it makes perfect sense that our autistic adults have a brain whose executive functioning skills are lagging and we as the parent are scanning for danger, and what can we do so let's, let's figure out what we can do.

CONNECT

First, let's connect with ourselves and then figure out maybe what could be going on with them. And the tool that I recommend highly is the STEAR Map. This is where we separate out what is happening in our lives into these five categories.

• We look at the situation. That's just the facts and the facts can't harm us.
• The facts are going to inspire some thinking in us and that's what can drive us crazy as our thoughts so we need to be more aware of those.
• And then the emotions that they cause that craziness and that worry,
• And then the actions we take. Sometimes it's just spinning on the thoughts and then the result, whether we're making progress or not.
• Whether or not that thought is working for us is evident in the result, because our thinking is going to drive our emotions and our actions.

And that's why we really need to do this mindset work this thought work to recognize what could be going on with us.

So I'm going to just put what's happening in her life into a STEAR map right now. 

• In the situation is she has a 19 year old son living in the dorm. And that's the fact no drama there.
• The drama comes with our thinking he won't be able to live on his own. Okay. There we go on his own.
• And that makes us worry, we're worried you know, he won't be able to live on his own if he keeps up these behaviors.
• So that makes us worried and anxious. And so that's our action we take is that we just keep thinking of all the worries and thoughts.
• And the result is that we just spin in them and we make no progress.

And that's really important for us to notice because when we are spinning in our thoughts it's because we can't solve the problem. We cannot solve the problem for two reasons.

First of all, he's not living with us anymore. So we can't do anything about the way that he's acting.

And the second thing is is a future problem. He's never going to be able to live on its own. We can't solve for that. Because there's not enough information. And the minute we solve for that, another future problem is going to leap in its place. So that's how we get to that spin cycle.

So let's notice that that's what's going on and recognize that it's our thoughts about our children that are making us feel anxious, worried, depressed, powerless. 

Let's take our power back by bringing ourselves back to the present and saying what can be done. Now? What are my current thoughts? That's one way to do it.

Another way to do it, you know, get out of the depression get out of the anxiety and move ourselves to the present. Recognize that he's not here with us. So there's not much we can do. We are certainly not going to go over to his dorm room and clean up his room for him. I don't think he'd allow that. You know, there's some respect in boundaries of his there going on there. Yeah, I mean, we'd like to do something but we're really powerless in this situation. So we really can't do anything except, you know, let our brain spin into the future.

However, we could maybe access our future self to give us some answers. Let's say that our future self has solved this problem. And she is looking back on us and she is saying, Please stop. What do you think you should stop? Maybe you should stop worrying. Stop spinning. Alright, please stop that.

Lynn Davison 8:59
Please start solving the problems in front of you. Please start managing your own mind because this is the only one glorious life that you have. And we want you to feel more powerful creating a life that you love. That works.

And please continue loving yourself. You're your partner, you're your autistic adult, your life, your dog. In fact, maybe we should just continue loving harder, and ourselves in particular, you know, have you noticed how we really do love our pets? Unconditionally.

It really doesn't matter if they have an accident or choose something or have a huge bill where we have to, you know, have surgery on their knees or teeth removed or we figure that one out because we just love them to pieces.

So maybe if we could apply that same approach to ourselves, where we notice how we are doing the very best we can. We love our autistic adults down to their toenails. We there's no limit to how much love we want to give them. The you know, our partners are our life. It's you know, life really is good.

So let's that would be something that I think our future self would encourage us to do. So that's an option there.

PRACTICE

And that's what I'm going to suggest that we do for our practice. Here's how I know that we're powerless in this situation. But I don't know if he's going to be home for the summer.

So if your autistic young adult it who is now in college, he's coming home for the summer. I suggest that you might want to consider setting a boundary and here's how we want to do that.

1. We want to identify the request. I would like your room to be free of clutter on the floor. Your room has clutter on the floor and it's not safe.
2. What I going to do if your room has clutter on the floor, is I'm going to take a laundry basket up and I'm going to pile whatever is on the floor into that laundry basket and that I'm going to tell them that I'm going to say when I go to your room and the floor is cluttered, I'm going to pick up your things and put it in a laundry basket. And in my case, I actually took everything out of the room and hid that laundry basket. That was a number of years ago. It made an impression on my child, which she still teases me about it to this day. 

That was because she had so many clothes on her floor and she still had so many other clothes in her closet. So I knew that it wasn't going to hurt or harm her anyway, but it was going to say to her look, this is intolerable in a very visual way in a harmless way. And you know, once you keep your room up for a couple of days without stuff on the floor, then I'll return those clothes back to you is what I was willing to do.

3. And that's where I had to be willing to follow through on my boundary and keep my promise to myself that I was going to act on the boundary that I set.

So I noticed that in the Facebook posts. There were a lot of comments to this, you know in this way where we set a boundary. And I'm just suggesting that you you can't do that, obviously when he's at school, but maybe at the home and when it's home with the summer you can take some of your power back and see if you can't get them to practice that.

Because we have to remember that with our young adults, we really only have three roles. And our roles are to encourage them to warn them and make sure that we are consulted by them, that they're comfortable coming and asking us what they ought to do.

And I want you to notice the crown and that's because the monarchy in England has the same roles. And so whenever I'm frustrated with my autistic young adult sometimes I just pretend I'm putting on my crown and I'm saying okay, what is within my power. I can manage my own mindset using a steer map. I can encourage them, I can mourn them, and I can be consulted by them.

Especially when I'm willing to reflectively listen and understand what their perspective is first before I seek to be understood, which I borrowed from Stephen Covey.

And the reflective listening process starts with, "It seems like plus the emotion you're upset because I took the clothes off of your floor. And I'm not returning them for two days." That's just a good example of a clear reflection.

And notice it's a declarative statement. It's not a question. It's not, "Why can't you?" It's, "I've noticed you're upset. Because I cleaned off the floor of your room and you want your room to be private. And that's okay. And I appreciate your want for that but I have needs as well."

And that's where we add this keeping the room clean to that list of lagging skills. And and solved problems that our friend Dr. Ross Greene describes in LivesInTheBalance.org such a good thing to do keep a list so you can notice the progress you make.

And then he again he really does advocate that we do this in a collaborative way. Or it's the two of us solving the problem in a proactive way where we're solving the problem when everybody has their wise mind in gear, not when they're worried or feeling threatened or you know fight flight or freeze is happening in the middle of a bad situation, you know, a tense situation, that

1. We're all agreeing to sit down on the facts.
2. What's their thinking?
3. What's our thinking? So you're sharing their STEAR maps, we're keeping it low, slow breaking it apart?
4. And then okay, what's one thing that you can do? Maybe if I just leave that laundry basket up on your floor, and we just throw stuff in there? Maybe that's the right situates solution to the problem. I you know, I don't think that I really care if your laundry basket is open on the floor. I mean, I'd rather be in the closet, but if it's easier for you. We'll keep it right there on the floor.

And then I have one more suggestion for our mom. And this came from Martha Beck I just watched her Instagram presentation. It's less than a minute yesterday. And she suggests that we out-kind our mind.

1. That when we notice when our brain is spinning in that kind of thinking that really is creating that worry that we stop.
2. We don't push back on the thoughts. We just stop.
3. And we say to our brain, "Things are really going a bit rough for you today. It seems like these are really this is a really difficult time for you right now. And we talked to our brain in a kind way.
4. And then we notice that sometimes that tension is going to melt away and our mood improves so that we can feel a bit more calm, more peaceful, more centered, just by noticing Oh, that's what's going on in our brain and talking to ourselves in a very kind way. 

Lynn Davison 17:16 So we out-kind our mind. Thanks, Martha Beck.

I hope these ideas are helpful to you and I look forward to addressing future concerns. And I hope you'll join me at LynnCDavison.com/blog for the transcript and resources included in this video.

Bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai