5/1/2012 Links

I have three links for today, focusing primarily on social skills and coping:

1.  Aspergers Girl has an excellent post on 20 things NOT to say to people with Asperger’s, and 15 beneficial approaches.  A lot of what she says can probably apply to how we approach people with other problems as well.  People who say some of the 20 things NOT to say are most likely trying to be helpful—-to offer the person with Asperger’s hope, to motivate the person with Asperger’s, or to demonstrate that they understand what the person with Asperger’s is going through.  But what they say can easily be construed as offensive.  If you want to be supportive, it’s better, as Aspergers Girl notes, to be willing to listen and to convey that you are there for the person with Asperger’s and will provide help that the person wants.

2.  Literary agent (for Rachel Held Evans and others) Rachelle Gardner talks about how you can be supportive to the writers in your family.  What I liked about her post was that it presented writing as (in a number of cases) a thankless job, which makes me feel better, since there are times when I wish that my writing were more appreciated!

3.  Yesterday, I linked to an interview with Temple Grandin.  Temple made two points that I found helpful.  First, she said that we should be willing to try new things, for how do we know if we’ll like them or not if we don’t try?  Second, Temple said that people get fired for getting mad on the job, but not for crying, and so there are times when she goes to a solitary place and just cries.