#22 | When Others Say, "They're Lazy."

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

• A Thinking Person's Guide to Autism, Looks Like Laziness

• Breece Piper’s blog

Hi, it's Lynn, your adulting coach. Thank you for watching this video. I help autistic adults and their families systematically create a life they love that works.

Today's topic is when others say they are lazy. What's really going on? And you know, I had to figured this one out too, because sometimes I do get frustrated. Like not only with my autistic adult, also with their teachers.

I remember back in 2006, when my son's math teacher had him call me and tell me that the reason why he wasn't doing well in math was because he was lazy.

I have to take the deep breath that I truly resented, that was the feeling, what she said and he eventually ended up out of her class because anyone who would force an autistic teenager to call her mother and call himself lazy, is an irresponsible educator, in my opinion.

But she did ask a good question, which is how do we measure effort?

If we look at the growth mindset, we want to encourage our kids to put out effort to try and solve problems and you know, to put their energy into difficult things and be willing to be uncomfortable and move past that. So, you know, how do we measure effort, a nd can we?

So I once again, had to turn to Google and find out what other autistic young adults think about this topic. I find it fascinating that now, we can find out so much from them, and from the way that they write about their life experiences. 

So one of the best places I went to is Person's Guide to Autism. And I love this because it's news and research from autistic people, professionals and autistic parents. So I find this resource very handy. Shannon De Roche Rosa wrote about, you know why we consider autistic people lazy. Here's what she suggests you need to consider. 

Sometimes when they look lazy, is because they won't do what they're asked to do. That makes sense. I wish that you know, some things are just automatically done. And I've realized now that in order to put those things in place, I'm the one that has to come up with the patience for the process. So he suggests that when they look lazy sometimes they're just adapting the best way they know how. Okay, so that must be the reason why. You know, things aren't always done exactly when I want them done. This morning, my son said, you’ve got to give me a few minutes to wake up. And five minutes later, he came up and he helped me but he needed to be able to define that period of time that he needed in order to be ready to move furniture. So I do think that we have to have the patience to recognize that they're just adapting the best way they know how. 

So here are some of the considerations that Shannon suggested we think about, are they minimizing transitions or motor planning demands? I see this in my young adults rooms, especially on their bedside tables. There's the toothpaste they need, the medicines they need are all on full display. That would never happen in my bedroom. Mine are all  in a drawer or in a cabinet. For them, it’s better to have them out on display. Because now what they're doing is they're minimizing the motor planning demands of getting whatever they need in order to function.  That makes sense. And she suggested or are they're just taking processing time? All right. So what she's suggesting is that they need space in the day for mental downtime. Okay, so why is that? And Shannon argues that it's their subconscious is working on whatever problem they're trying to address. To take that breath, not have such pressure on their executive function skills to make a decision now and make it happen. They just need more time. Yeah, she's right on that one because I have noticed that if I'm more patient and get more young adults time to process things and not expect them to get you know, as much done in any given day as people with not autistic brains can do., then I am lining up with what's real, what they're capable of doing. Okay, I think she's got a good point there. And then the last one is smoothing transitions. Are they having a hard time breaking the inertia of doing something that they're really engaged in and getting all those dopamine hist from YouTubing, playing video games, are they having trouble with that transition, and making it possible for them to move from one task to another?

Now, this makes a lot of sense, because I know that we've all asked our kids to get off the game or get off the YouTube and do something with us and they are reluctant to do it because they're so involved in getting all those dopamine hits and definitely have some competition there with the electronics. So what I find has been most helpful in our houses is we if we get a routine showing something that's predictable, like this time, this is what we do. And next time we do it another time. That's what we do now that they're young adults, it's a little less under my control, but every morning the dishwasher is empty. Every morning the dog gets washed. They know that those am tests are in the morning, good. And then the evening may go out again. And you know the dishes need to be in the dishwasher and the dishwasher needs to start so there's like a PM. This is almost done. We just kind of do that with each other, it just smooths the transitions. And, you know, because I know what to expect. 

The lack of clarity about what's next is another factor that plays into looking lazy, like the actual planning of okay, what's the very next step? All the autistic adults that I work with, need that help with defining what the next step is. And actually putting it on their calendar. All they have to do is pull up their to-do list. That's definitely one of the things that has brought structure and planning to the autistic young adults I work with which I'm hoping will continue. My idea is to get them into my coaching and graduate. So, you know, by following the process that I've set up inside there, on a regular basis over a period of time, that they'll start to internalize it and use it in their own lives. That's one of the objectives of the Art of Adulting. 

And then I also found Breece Piper’s blog that you can read that I think was really wonderfully put out there. You know, she said she thought she was lazy. She thinks the expectations for autistic women are that they're always going to be late. And she says that she lives in a constant state of  disorder. That her executive functioning is slow and her daily living skills are still developing. That’s why she is late for appointments; she just doesn’t plan ahead. And sometimes she's hyper focused on something that she's interested in. Sometimes that happens in my life as well. So thank you recently for your insights into what it is and again, she suggested the stereotype with autism is that they are really neat and tidy. And that is just not so many in most cases. In fact, in all cases in my opinion.

So what do we do with all this? The first thing we remember, is that what anybody else says, goes in the essence of this STEAR map. It's something we can't control. It's something that we can decide between that situation and the thoughts that we're going to practice. We have that space to make a decision about the thoughts that come up. So no matter what that math teacher said, it was up to me to decide how to think about that. And I have thought about it many times and we actually moved to a different school. He went in and said Mom, they teach the way that I can learn here. I'm grateful to her opportunity to learn anywhere. That’s one of my thoughts I practice that when a situation comes up, I can decide how I want to act.

So, of course then once we figured out our thinking, we agree on the situation with our ids (just the facts) this is what’s creating that lazy label. We want to get that task at the top of the proactive collaborative problem solving process and find the facts around it.  You know, I noticed that there was toothpaste all around the bathroom counter on the sink.  Please keep it clean, wipe it off, put it down the drain. Whatever it is that’s driving you nuts. 

And that really needs to be part of that list of unsolved problems and skills and we need to address them one at a time through the proactive collaborative problem solving process where we don't try to address it in the moment when our fight or flight in our you know, primitive brain is making all the decisions. So we want to address it at a time when our prefrontal cortex is thinking and theirs is too. So we do this first. 

So we first have the problem. We define it in his boring mathematical terms. Can we figure out ahead of time what our thinking needs to be. We ask them for their thinking. Then we present ours to say what the very next step that we're going to take is to solve this problem so this lazy label can go away. 

So thank you so much for tuning in to the Art of Adulting to figure out what's really going on. Please join me on Facebook. There are lots of good resources there and wonderful people trying to figure this out. 

Bye for now.