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In my latest reading of The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships, by Temple Grandin, and Sean Barron, Temple appears to vacillate some on the issue of how much parents should pressure their kids with Asperger's to socialize.
On the one hand, she believes that kids with Aspeger's should learn basic social skills, such as manners, being polite, and the ability to converse with others outside of their area of interest.
On the other hand, she advocates that some kids with Asperger's be removed from high school so that they can finish their degree online or in another environment. She refers to parents who home school their kids or enroll them in a community college class a few years before they graduate. Temple thinks that teens with Asperger's do not need the social pressures of high school (i.e., teasing), for they will not be socializing with teenagers later in life. (My response to this is that they may still have to interact with jerks later in life!)
Temple is for encouraging kids with Asperger's in terms of their talents, for that can lead to a career. Even if people with Asperger's are deficient in social skills, she contends, they can still gain a fulfilling job through their talents and hard work. Moreover, they can thrive in relationships among people with a common interest. Temple believes that it is necessary for people with Asperger's to know some basic social skills, but she still maintains that they can thrive even when they are not social butterflies.
Politeness, manners, and the ability to converse with others outside my area of interest are certainly things for me to work on. Hopefully, I'm getting better at these things, but it's still something that I need to work on each day.
Regarding relationships with people who have common interests with me, that happens, on some level, but on some level, it does not happen. My interest in religion and politics, for example, does not attract to me everyone who is interested in religion and politics, but I can converse with some people about these topics.
On the issue of developing talents that I can use for a career, I have thought about developing my writing so that I can have a portfolio. I have written a lot of blog posts, but those are not exactly articles. Articles are better-written than my blog posts. I've thought of writing more articles online, for Helium, or other forums. And, as Temple did, I should probably read articles to see what makes them good, so that I can gain tips for my own writing.
