#38 | Executive functions struggles lead to anger

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

• SEEING AUTISM by Barb Avila: https://www.lynncdavison.com/pl/2147533610
• What Autistic People Need Phone Wallpaper
• Motivational Triad Phone Wallpaper
• STEAR Map Phone Wallpaper
• Reflective Listening Phone Wallpaper
• LivesInTheBalance.org for Ross Greene
• Collaborative Proactive Problem Solving Process Phone Wallpaper
• Executive Function Online Summit

Hi everyone, its Lynn. I am your adulting coach. I help autistic young adults systemize adulting with their families together.

Today's struggle is from a mom at the Facebook Group: Parents of young adults 13 Plus with autism. This mom is struggling with her daughter who is 15 years old. She gets angry when she is reminded to get some things done. She gets angry.

So here's her thinking my 15 year old daughter gets angry when I remind her to do things. I don't want to remind her to do almost everything. But if I don't, she doesn't get those things done. All she wants to do is be on her phone, or her tablet all day every day. I've asked her what she thinks might help but I can't get anything from her.

So let's look at things using Barb Avila's format of Understanding > Connecting and then figuring out the Practice that she outlines in her book SEEING AUTISM. Let's use this process.

UNDERSTAND

First what what is going on? The thing we need to remember and notice is that screen use does release dopamine in the brain, which can negatively affect impulse control. In other words, you're getting so much pleasure from what you're doing, you don't want to change you don't want to do something different.

So that is what's happening with our autistic young adult is that they're just getting having so much fun on their pads or their phones, that they don't want to stop.

And when we ask them to stop, it's going to make them angry. It makes perfect sense that it's going to make them angry.

So what else do we need to keep in mind and one thing I did want to mention today is some of the typical concerns of a person with autism and I just wanted to add that hopefully I can find it quickly is what autistic people need. And let me see if I can I'm pretty sure it's going to be here please. Is it going to be there? All right. No, it's not I can do this. Alright. I can do this with you.

One of the things that my daughter's therapist, who has an excellent practice working with people on the spectrum suggests is that our autistic people, the people we love need, they really need predictability in their lives.

Sometimes that might be the reason why she's going to her iPad or phone all the time, because she knows she's going to get a predictable hit of dopamine from there. So having that predictability is really helpful.

Another thing that he suggests that our autistic autistic young adults need is they need to be efficient. In other words, they don't want to spend to waste their time. They want to make sure that they are using their energy as efficiently as possible.

And that makes perfect sense when we look at the motivational triad anyway. Because our our limbic system, our primitive brain is always going to be asking us to be safe. That's that predictability that keeps that safety factor up to be efficient, meaning that we're, we're conserving our resources, so we're not throwing our energy away. And then the third thing is with the motivational tribe triad, actually, I can bring that up really quickly, as well, is that motivational triad, I just think it's so helpful. And then the third thing is that we want me just make that bigger for you. Oops, I think I can do that. Here. No, hold on one second. I can't make figure out how to make that finger. Oh, I know what I have to do. Hold on one second, so lean. There we go.

Lynn Davison 5:02
There, okay. So this is the motivational triad. And this is what's going on with all of us humans. We want to seek pleasure, avoid pain and conserve energy.  

In particular, when we have an autistic mind, which tends to be with most cases when you have autism, it tends to be hyper vigilant. It's looking out for what's going on in the environment, and protecting itself all the time. That's just the way that the autistic brain works.

So that's what is happening with her daughter is that she's always you know, she's angry because she just wants to reject anything that doesn't keep her safe. So when we're looking at that, she's wanting to conserve energy. She's wanting to avoid pain, staying safe, keeping things predictable, and she's wanting to get that pleasure from from the iPad and the iPhone, that makes perfect sense that's what she's needing.

So let's go back up here. Let me just put this in the right place so that I can go forward with you there. So just understand that that they want predictability. They want efficiency, and actually they don't just want it they really need predictability and efficiency.

They also need specificity in language. So that's really important to our autistic adults too. If we tell them you know, we need you to  do something else other than be on your iPad. That's not specific enough for them. It doesn't give their brain the information they need to make a switch. So we need to just get more specific in line in our language.

There are several other things that I'd love to explain to you. If you join me in The Art of Adulting. We can really look at what it is that is the focus of somebody the needs of someone who is on the autism spectrum.

One other thought is that they need a thinking partner they can trust. They need somebody to hear their thoughts. They need them to be somebody that can help them sort through their thinking. That's very important for an autistic person because sometimes the confusion from the way that they're thinking is hard for them to sort out on their own. Makes perfect sense.

CONNECT

So let's connect with ourselves and with them as our second step in this process. 

Lynn Davison 7:45
So here's her thinking in a STEAR Map:

• S: My daughter
• T: I tried. She won't talk to me. She just won't meet the expectations that I have for her.
• E: I'm sad and I'm frustrated and I'm probably thinking of the worst case scenario if she continues to act like this.
• A: And so it gets me into kind of a spin. I do look to others for help. I do tend to spin on the negativity and worry. T
• R: The result is I keep trying.

Here's here's the trouble with "I keep trying." is that it's a one sided effort.

We need to recruit her energy into solving this problem because we cannot solve it on our own. We need to solve it with her.

So here's the young adult's STEAR Map.

• S: My life.
• T: I don't want to change
• E: Resists any suggestion that's made by anybody.
• A: She follows her accustomed pattern.
• R: Nothing changes.

We need to understand with compassion that that's where she is. I know you love your daughter down to her toenails. I'm sure you've done everything that you know to do. The trick is how do we get her to do something.

We've got to figure out how do we get her to solve this problem with you because she's now entering young adulthood. She's starting to think on her own. She's not doing what we're telling her to do just because we said so.

We need to get our young adult in the process of solving for these problems. So what do I suggest?

The first thing is that we practice proactive partnering and, and this is what we need to do for sure is we need to stop telling and start listening.

And we talk in a declarative way.

Instead of asking a lot of questions of our autistic young adults, which can tend to put them into that fight flight or freeze mode, and we don't want them to get there because their their wise brain has gone offline and their primitive brain is now running the show.

So we want them to understand that we hear them to see that we to know that we see them that we we care about they're safe with us and that they can move forward with us to help them solve their problems. And the best way that I know how to do that is to reflectively Listen, using declarative statements.

• It sounds like you're upset because I'm asking you to get off the iPad. It's just a short reflection of what's really going on.
• I'm seeing a lot of resistance to change, whatever it is making a declarative sentence so that they can then think, Hmm, okay, let's turn that wise brain on. Is that Is that what's happening? In my life? I'm resisting change. It's a very good question that they can ask themselves.

So this is one of many skills that we teach inside The Art of Adulting for both the parents and the young adult.

The idea is that the parents learn to practice the skills first so that they themselves feel better, and then they become the coach that their autistic young adult needs. That's the second part of the process.

Lynn Davison 11:15
So of course, I'm going to recommend from Ross Greene, the collaborative, proactive, problem solving process that he advocates at his site, LivesInTheBalance.org.

First we start out with just the situation, what are the facts of the situation? You are spending eight hours a day on your phone or on your iPad? Start with just that. See if we can get agreement on the facts. Okay, it's not eight hours, it's six out what is it? You tell me? How many hours a day do you think you spend, you know, what are the hours? You know, is it okay, let's try six hours. Okay, that's not right. Okay. Let's try five hours. Let's let's agree on the hours that you're spending on the iPad. Let's start with that.

And notice I corrected myself. I was doing the questioning. It's a habit that's hard to break. I've got to get to the declarative statement so that I don't take my autistic young adult into that fight flight or freeze mode where they're not thinking so well. 

The next step after we really have stated and agreed on the situation, we really go to the empathy step. And we listen, listen, listen, and when we ask that question, what are their thoughts and feelings about that situation? One of the best practices that we can use to slow down our thinking so it just doesn't turn into one of those spin cycles like on the you know, the washing machine where you can't tell one piece of the clothes from the other because the thoughts you can't tell one from the other is to make the conversation visible.

So you grab a piece of paper, you grab a pencil, and you start writing down I mean, really, literally it can just be a tiny piece of paper. So it's not intimidating. But you're just saying okay, I hear you're saying this is what you're saying. And then this is what you're saying. And of course, if you're side by side, that's even better. Because then, you know, you're, you're just noting what you're hearing coming out of their mouth.

Lynn Davison 13:36

That's going to help them fear feel heard.  The visibility of their thoughts is going to help in two ways because you're engaging both the hearing sense and the auditory and the visual, and using more than one sense in any learning opportunity is the best thing to do.

And if you can do this over and over and over again on a regular basis with your young adult, they, I'm hoping that that they'll start to see some of the patterns in their thinking.

That's really important that we notice, "Oh, these are kind of habitual patterns," because those are the ones that are given to us by our primitive brain that wants to keep us safe, conserving energy and and seeking pleasure. It's just, you know, the brain loves to think the same thoughts over and over again.

But by making the conversation visual, it's it's going to help her feel heard.

That's our role now that we're we have autistic young adults. We don't have, you know, autistic elementary school kids.

Our role is really to encourage them, to warn if we see anything on the horizon that they ought to know about, and to be consulted by them.

So we're we're switching our hat from being the dictatorial you will meet my expectations in the schools expectations, to having them create the expectations for themselves.

This is why young adulthood, moving from teenager to young adulthood, is such a challenging time, especially for autistic young adults because they have to define what they want for themselves and get their thinking arranged around that.

And with the brain they have that go to that fight, flight or freeze so quickly. Sometimes it can be. It can take longer to make that happen. No worries, we got plenty of time most of us are going to live past 90 anyway.

So we don't have to hit some magical deadline of 18 or 21, or whatever it is that everybody else thinks.

So if we can just slow their thinking down and we listen, listen, that's how we'd help them do that. We listen Listen, listen and we scribe it.

Then what are your thoughts and feelings?

This is where the process gets more balanced, because they can't just act like a toddler anymore. who's just going to throw a temper tantrum to get what they want.

They have to now be patient enough to hear what you're thinking as well. And the way that you make that happen is you just listen more. Nine times out of 10 You're listening to them and one time out of ten you're telling them what your thoughts are.

Then you go back to the nine again.

I mean, it's really unbalanced at this point in time, but that's what it's going to take to help them over the bridge from being an emotional child to an emotional adult is plenty of patience and plenty of time on this particular task and helping them to slow down their thinking to notice the patterns and what their thinking is creating in their lives.

And that's what we teach in The Art of Adulting. I call it the IMAP method.

• We we identify what are the virtues that values that we want to operate from.
• We create our mindset by noticing our thought patterns and which are the ones that work best for us.
• We define our actions in each of the 10 domains in our life. So we know what we expect of ourselves.
• And we practice the people skills that we need in order to get the support the right support at the right time.

And so we first practice this with our own lives. After we've got the practice down. Now we become the coach that we need to be for our autistic adults, keeping in mind all the things that we need to understand because their brains are wired the way that they're wired.

So the other place I recommend to anyone who is as a resource to anyone who's struggling with executive function skills with their autistic young adults, is to come to The Executive Function Online Summit. This is only one that I that I talk about. There are many summits out there. This is the one that I have found to be the most useful to me, and it's going to be in the summer. It's free. So if you can find The Executive Function Online Summit, you'll find it online I'll link to it in the notes is a place where you can sign up for those experts that are really going to help you figure out how to go forward because this isn't this is a fast process.

This challenge is not going to go away. It's going to be around for the next decade at least. And so, you know, in my case is it's been more than a decade, a couple of decades with my autistic young adults where they need me to be coach that works with them, that they can consult, and I need to practice this stuff anyway. Because it helps me make sure that I'm getting out of life, what I really want to get out of life. So

Lynn Davison 18:35
So come join us at The Executive Function Online Summit. Please come join me at the Art of Adulting.

Just find my website, follow the prompts, and download my freebies and see how The Art of Adulting can really help you and your autistic young adult find peace by systemising adulting together.

Bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai