18 year old DS shows no empathy or regard for me - Aspie maybe?

[MangoMungoMidge]

DS is an intelligent lad with a good job. He has always been focussed on what he wants and is interested in (exams/job/sporting achievements/x box).

He lives at home with me and DD. He barely speaks to us, but is articulate and humorous when conversing with friends. He is, and always has been, very self contained/untidy/selfish which may all be typical teenage traits, I know. As far as I'm aware he has no issues at work and is well regarded.

Until very recently I had been giving him lifts/tidying up his room/ preparing his meals/ doing his laundry blah de blah.

But last week light bulb moment I went to collect him from an activity and he kept me waiting outside in the car for an hour (no text or anything) "because I was doing something". I went so bloody mad about this, but he totally failed to understand my annoyance. In fact he doesn't seem able to do empathy and I think has some Aspie tendencies. His DF is slightly Aspie.

So I've withdrawn my cooperation and stopped acting like his servant/chauffeur and he's managing to survive, but I want to help him to acknowledge other people's feelings and needs or he'll one day make someone an absolutely shit partner but I don't really know where to go from here.

Is there a book I could read "How to help your slightly Aspie son be a nicer person" or something like that?

Any thoughts, guidance, whatever would be appreciated.

If you look on the National Autism Society's website, there is a lot of advice. There is also a helpline number, and a PDF of aspie traits that you might find interesting.

That said, he sounds like a fairly typical self centred teenage boy!

I think you trying to find an excuse to explain or legitimise your son's hurtful behaviour. Whilst yes, autism is a spectrum, I think that what your describing is rude behaviour, not 'Aspie' behaviour. Personally I think you need to talk to him about what's acceptable behaviour and what's not, not blithely want to label someone with a diagnosis that causes untold difficulties and problems within family units.

Tbh I'd think there would be a hell of a lot more of things than this that would have concerned you if he did have Aspergers Syndrome. I don't have a teenage boy, but have a younger one with HFA (can be labelled 'AS') and nothing at all in your OP would ever lead me to think AS. But have a look at the NAS link a pp gave, maybe there'll be other things you recognise.

You're right that it might be beneficial teaching him some more awareness of the feelings of others though... maybe worth looking more at books on this, rather than AS.

He sounds like my teen, who I suspect has As tendencies which manifest in selfish behaviour, lack of empathy and a few other issues ( but never enough for diagnosis) However, his younger brother, who actually has an official AS diagnosis is not like this, much more helpful and kind. basically, it has always taken much, much longer to teach Ds1 that he is not the centre of the universe than it should and he has to be forced to be more independent ( on every self care task and responsibility) rather than evolving into it gradually. He still forgets to say please 2 times out of 3. I don't have an easy solution except be firm and try to handle things calmly, it's a shame you didn't start sooner, I expect you were hoping he would grow out of it ( I know I have).

DS2 has Aspergers and is very thoughtful and considerate. What you are you are describing sounds more like narcissism, a certain amount of which is normal in adolescence.

Aspergers is NOT code speak for 'rude, uncaring and lacking empathy' It really isn't. Many teens and young adults are extemely selfish and narcissistic..sometimes nature, sometimes a bit of nurture too .. my ds1 has tendencies to think the world revolves around him, but he is gradually maturing and I have to say the big change happened over the last two years..he's 21 in march.

Ds2 has ASD and he is kind and caring. He lacks social understanding but has no desire to be rude to people and has no 'center of the universe' mentality.. he just isn't self aware enough for that.

Have a look at the NAS website..Aspergers/ASD (they are removing the distinctions) are diagnosed according to the triad of impairments..basically impairment of social understanding, difficulties with language and communication (in higher functioning, won't understand sarcasm, idiom etc) and lack of flexibility of imagination. Emapthy is a small part of the ASD picture, and it's more of a lack of seeing how other people feel than rudeness.

I am trying to play devils advocate to a certain extent here, I am perfectly aware that there is a tendency to stick the As label on selfish men on mumsnet and it annoys me too. However, as it have experience of one teen with AS and one difficult teen without a DX I am very aware of the grey areas that exist at the margins of the autistic spectrum! the OP doesn't say whether her son has recently developed his selfish tendencies or if this is a continuation of childhood behaviour ( as is the case with my son ). I can see why someone would prefer to think their son had AS than to think they were narcissistic, as As elicits sympathy, narcissism definitely does not! especially on mumsnet. Maybe my son is a narcissist, if so he has been since he was two, if so why? Personality disorders are deemed to be more nurture than nature so should I be to blame? I think my oldest probably has an element of Pathological demand avoidance! which is deemed a spectrum condition, but again, the waters are muddy.

I am not going to take offence if some parents speculate about autism when trying to understand difficult children as cases are not always clear cut and I know what a struggle it can be. I find parenting my autistic child much more straightforward in many ways.

Yes, many of us, myself included, have lovely children with AS but there are also children with AS who cannot deal with other peoples needs and we have to maintain sympathy for them and their families too.

I thought all two year olds were narcissistic.

Likewise many adolescents.

If it continues into adulthood then there may be more of an issue.

Thank you for all your responses, especially wiggly, and I apologise if I have caused offence to some of you; that was not my intention.

Just to clarify a few things:
DS's way of being is not new.
DD is younger and doesn't behave as he does.

Whatever DS's issue, how can I move forward with him and help him be a nicer person to those around him? I've tried talking to him and he just walks off or says I'm overthinking.

Really not sure what to do, hence my post.

Sounds like a normal 18 year old to me.

Time he started taking care if his own life though.. stop running around after him. Being kept waiting in the car wouldn't have happened I would have went in and said come now or your walking... clear choice.

*You're

Why did you wait? There's an hour you'll never get back.

He's an adult, and has a job. Maybe time for him to sort out his own transport, and it might teach him some manners as well.

Stand back a bit.

Is that not just how teenage boys behave?

I don't have any experience with older teenagers, but with DS1 (nearly 14) I try to let him live with the consequences of his actions.
He has learned from experience that if he wants a lift somewhere, he needs to give us a reasonable amount of notice and observe basic courtesy by thanking us.

I expect them to tidy their own rooms.

I prepare their meals but expect assistance and if I cook, then they clear up.

I do their laundry, but again expect assistance with it.

DS3 went through a stage of seeming quite self-centered and entitled, from when he was about 6 until he was about 8. It's as if someone had told him that it was my job to run around after him (it's not). I found it perplexing and a bit exasperating. Thankfully he got over it.

I want to help him to acknowledge other people's feelings and needs

I think you've already started helping him, by not doing things for him that he's perfectly capable of doing for himself.

My DS, then aged 16/17, once let me sit waiting for him outside college for almost a hour. He'd told me he had an exam, so I assumed it was running late. It turned out he was lying: there was no exam, and in fact he had bunked off college entirely that day.

I have no idea what was going through his head, and whether he thought I had suddenly become stupid as well as soft .

I have a good friend whose son has Aspergers. During the teenage years, it did sometimes occur to me that my DS was behaving in ways we may commonly think of as the more difficult traits of Aspergers, e.g.: not considering other people's needs or POV; not evaluating consequences or risk; not understanding or avoiding adult requests; sudden volatile emotional outbursts... There are brain changes during the teenage years, and maybe some of them do mirror AS characteristics... But the biggest difference between my DS and my friend's DS was that mine understood his behaviour was difficult or unacceptable (if I ever managed to get him to listen) but chose to ignore me; whereas my friend's DS didn't really get it at all, but was (sometimes) willing to try anyway.... Now, 2-3 years later, my DS has grown out of this kind of 'challenging' behaviour. My friend's son has too, to an extent - but he still often struggles, and really does not understand why some people find him so difficult.

Whether or not your DS is on the autistic spectrum, you can still tell him if he behaves unacceptably and ask him to change bad behaviour like the stuff you describe. If he's still doing it in a few years, your suspicion may be right.

My goodness you've been looking after him and still do that now he's 18. And now you wonder where the trouble is coming from?
Maybe because he never learned to look after himself, because you did that for him. Secondly he doesn't know you do something special for him and he should be thankful and all of that. Because he never learned that bit. What you did was always normal for him.

How to help him? Well it's a bit late now. But I really hope for the poor man that although it's a bit late. He'll soon learn to look after himself.

It'll be difficult for him. But I'm sure it'll make him happier that he now has got some more privacy as mum isn't cleaning his room anymore.
Hopefully you'll learn to treat him as an adult. He's 18!!!!! He's always your child, but he isn't a child anymore.

I wish him all the best.