PUBERTY AND AUTISM by Rami Serhan

PUBERTY & SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT FOR CHILDREN ON THE AUTISTIC SPECTRUM: WELLADJUSTED VS SELFADJUSTED: Puberty is a critical stage in the social development of children. They go from individuals whose actions are largely inconsequential to “welladjusted” and responsible adults seemingly in an instant. Being well adjusted basically means that the adolescent observes older peers and adults and picks up on the glorified behaviors of the era and masters them. Essentially by observing rewarded vs. frowned upon behaviors, she learns the standard operating procedures for socializing while largely suppressing her emotions in the process. Once that is accomplished she receives a pat on the back from everyone in sight and is ushered in to the world of adults. This is something that works quite well for the neurotypical kid who finds it easier to replace natural tendencies with socially accepted codes of behavior. This wide scale substitution of inherent behavioral tendencies in favor of social constructs is not an area of proficiency for the autistic adolescent. In fact many spectrum children in an attempt to fit in, try doing exactly that. They try to set aside who they are and end up increasingly miserable, anxious, demoralized and depressed. Autistic kids need (& ought to be encouraged) to observe their inner self and grow in tandem with their inherent driving forces, wherever these may lead. Parents ought to teach their autistic children to explore what their own constitution is telling them about every social activity and every rule and code they encounter. The body constantly gives signs to reflect how comfortable it is with our actions. Signs of incompatibility include headache after a late night at a crowded dance, tummy aches and diarrhea around summer camp, emotional turmoil, temper flares, withdrawal, increased clumsiness, regression of behavior to a younger less mature age, anxiety, depression etc… Parents ought to teach their children to connect these signs to recent or upcoming activities as an incentive for the kid to explore the most suitable activities for him or her. Suitable activities are the ones that give your adolescent peace and even mood. These activities may or may not conform to what is considered “hip” and popular at the time. In fact parents ought to encourage their kids to spend less time discerning “cool” activities and more time going for activities, clothing, style and vocabulary that keep the kid at ease. What is glamorous in the eyes of neighbors and peers is irrelevant in making these choices. An autistic child is typically not going for a popularity contest at school but for a comfortable way to make a connection with one or two friends. Parents may wonder if their child’s individuality may provoke taunting and bullying. Well, that might very well happen but its longterm consequences on the psyche are infinitesimal compared to suppressing natural tendencies and following the herd. While an autistic kid with a budding social life is usually struggling with making these choices a little bit of encouragement and validation by the parents goes a very long way. All adolescents are emotionally volatile, but autistic adolescents are even more emotionally vulnerable. An autistic adolescent may not be consciously aware of the need to customize her lifestyle and activities. She may only realize that things happening around her are making her life difficult to maneuver. This is an added responsibility for parents to observe their child’s misery and defuse any feelings of inadequacy that might grip their child in addition to pointing out the presence of other options the kid can explore. The resulting customized style developed in tandem with who this kid is, represents the concept of becoming ‘self adjusted’ or ‘autoadjusted’ as opposed to the glorified welladjusted or adjustedtosocialnorms. The future is bright for those autistic kids who learn early on to customize their life and preferences to their own individual liking. Living a custom life takes away plenty of the emotional struggles that would otherwise hold the child back from academic achievement, independence and a personal identity. INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY VS EXTENDED ADOLESCENCE:

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For a neurotypical adolescent, the road to developing personal identity is pretty much mapped out. Basically, once puberty hits, she make enemies of her parents, their friends and most of her teachers. Next, she inserts herself into a small group of similarly aged peers whom she admires and over identifies with. She closely observes the leader of the pack to get the cues for what is socially glorified and what is not. In the process she develops mad crushes on few public figures that she idealizes and tries to model herself after. She does that typically on the recommendation of the pack. By going through this process she finds herself picking up a cohort of behaviors deemed appropriate and glorified for the times. She makes this cohort her own through trial and error. By the conclusion of the process, she has formed an identity. At this stage she is convinced that one need not fundamentally process social and emotional input to be “cool” or thriving. She concludes that one can thrive on the graces of following the behaviors of trendsetters. Furthermore, the dangerous proposition she comes out with is that fundamental processing of information makes her less cool and threatens her “pluggedin” status; since the burden of processing academic or emotional input consumes energy otherwise necessary to keep up the established social posture. The often consequential shallowness, mediocrity and apathy toward core human issues that grip much of the neurotypical community are by no means a sign of deficient or incomplete development. To the contrary, these are consequences of a popular choice taken by fully able, sound minded people. What about autistic spectrum kids and identity formation? Well, the process for autistics is not nearly as straightforward or as accessible. We start with some basic questions an autistic adolescent attempting to form an individual identity ought to ask herself, Do you like me because of who I am or because I seem sufficiently malleable for you to mold me into a mirror image of yourself? Do I have a crush on this person because he or she validates me and challenges me to grow or because this person is someone with whom I identify and like to emulate? Does who I am match other people’s view of someone they would take up as a friend or intimate or business partner? Do I want to look for likeminded individuals who accept me for who I am or do I want to make changes to my disposition and create a social persona to become that match? Do adults digress from my concept of idealism because they have practically found out that getting along in real life requires a slightly different set of values or because they are two parts evil and three parts stupid? Should I be working constructively toward wider acceptance of who I am and others like me into the repertoire of healthy personalities or is an ideologic revolution necessary to fix society up? Many autistic adolescents grow up relatively quickly in their sense of awareness of removed societal and political affairs. They develop a sense of identifying with suffering and injustice across the world. They very quickly develop ideas on the difference between how things are and how things ought to be in society. However, most autistic adolescents lag behind on developing a sense of self independent of the immediate surroundings. They may not be nearly as antagonistic to their parents or teachers as adolescents. This is not something to brag about as a parent. It is a sign of lingering unanswered questions. Many spectrum kids fail to comprehend the human meaning of puberty and its personal and social consequences. Autistic adolescents may not belong to [or seek to belong to] a defined pack that guides their choices. Instead they randomly and indiscriminately overidentify with any impressive person they meet. This could cause a lot of confusion which may spill over into many areas of their life. Many grow up without realizing the difference between emotional intimacy and sexual encounters for example or between an understanding friend and a predatory acquaintance. Many autistic adolescents go well into their twenties even thirties before they realize why two people get together to form a family and have children. All the meanwhile, many autistic adolescents would be resisting these aforementioned developmental milestones thus accentuating their isolation. As a parent you want to explore with your child, if her avoidance of certain social situations begins from past rejection or stems from her sense of rebellion against social customs. Many autistic kids

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resist conventional social settings due to a conviction of absurdity of such settings. We may intellectually debate whether contemporary social systems are inherently absurd or not. However, for practical purposes, as a parent you have to show your child by example the benefits of intimacy and friendships in creating inner peace and tranquility. Showing these benefits ought to be done through examples acted out and then explained in plain language. For example, a mother upset about a personal problem, calls on her best friend and speaks with her about it. At the end of the conversation, the mother is not nearly half as upset since she has her problem in perspective and has acquired ideas about possible solutions from a sincere person who is less emotionally invested in the problem. It helps a lot if the adolescent son or daughter witness the process of problem resolution and are then narrated to in plain matter of fact language what happened. Autistic adolescents have to experience for themselves the meaning of forming friendships, how different this is from being attracted to a person of the opposite sex – or same sex and how to turn this attraction into a connection and an intimate and fulfilling relationship. An autistic kid can form a secure individual identity only during challenging encounters with other similarly aged adolescents. It will be cruel and other kids who are more intuned to “social norms” will mock her and bully her and antagonize her and shun her away. You cannot love your child by shielding her from all this or by fueling her rebellion against it either. You can love your child only by attending to her wounds as they occur. Rest assured that if she keeps trying to socialize that she will either stumble upon likeminded people who accept her or she develops sufficient social skills to get along with autistics and neurotypicals alike. As a parent you can make the process easier by giving her pointers and most crucially by explaining that rejection and mockery are a natural part of socializing. Many autistic kids when rejected once or twice tend to take it very personally and lose hope that they ever will be accepted by anyone. You, as a parent, have to emphasize that social rejection has many reasons most of which are not related to who she is. Additionally, parents have to explain that everyone goes through cycles of rejection and acceptance until they finally find their social niche. Please note that most autistic adolescents need periods of lonesomeness to work through sensory overload. These are periods of rebuilding in which she may not want to share her life with anyone else. These are very healthy retreats from social life as long as they don’t take over and replace one’s life. So what are the requirements an autistic kid needs to reach an individual identity and snap out of adolescence and into adulthood? 1 Autistics need an understanding household that accepts and encourages their uniqueness and nonconformity 2 They need to be encouraged to accept who they are irrespective of any glorified role models. 3 Autistic adolescents do not thrive on playing an assigned role. They need to be encouraged to understand that they are an advanced breed who can only thrive when they originally design their own social role; and they need to be encouraged to do so. Passive parental acceptance in NOT sufficient encouragement. 4 They need one or two friends with similar dispositions to validate their paths. 5 They need to keep trying to socialize despite the high probability of rejection. 6 They need to know that other people’s derogatory remarks reflect only the speakers’ mental state and are exclusive of the reality of the spoken of. 7 They need to know that negative comments, bullying and cruelty directed against them do not define who they are. However, their reactions to these misbehaviors do. 8 They need to mingle on their own terms – only with kids they like to mingle with and not necessarily ones that are chosen for them. 9 They ought to be discouraged from mingling with adults and focus on their age group. 10 They ought not to follow any pack leaders since that makes them transfer the burden of growing up to someone else; they become spectators and their development stalls. 11 They need exposure to examples of sensitive people who went against the grain and succeeded in life despite being different from the insensitive majority. Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Vincent Van Gogh among others come to mind in this respect. Neither one lived an especially easy or happy life by conventional

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terms. However, they overcame immense adversity to achieve selfsufficiency, satisfaction and a thriving demeanor. 12 Finally, autistic kids need ample time doing all this. Their progress ought not to be measured against their chronologic age. They typically start late and spend more years honing their social skills. One hopes that the outcome of the tortuous social exercise around puberty culminates in the autistic adolescent finding out who she is, accepting herself and loving everything she stands for. Failure to get to the point of acceptance reflects badly on selfconfidence, capacity for independence and ability to reach intimacy in personal life. Furthermore, failing to reach separation of self from environment makes for an erratic, often inconsistent social disposition and ultimately leads to social isolation and oblivion. RAMI SERHAN, MD (consultant@sovereignresearch.org) is a consultant to healthcare providers on the matters of sensitivity, autism and hormones since 1998. He resides in Renton, WA. REFERENCES: CHILDHOOD & SOCIETY BY ERIC H ERIKSON; W. W. Norton & Company (August 1993) THE ESSENTIAL JUNG BY CARL GUSTAV JUNG; Princeton Univ. Press 1983 SELFEFFICACY IN CHANGING SOCIETIES BY ALBERT BANDURA; Cambridge Univ. Press (May 13, 1997)

CONTACT INFORMATION: Rami J Serhan, MD Medical Consultant Sovereign Research PO BOX 1324 RENTON, WA, 98057 206 6591ASD (273) consultant@sovereignresearch.org

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