Struggling to Connect-- Fatherhood with My Asperger's Child. Chapter 9-- Helping Him Find His Path. My name is Hank. My son, Hendrick, was kind of slow to develop and he had some problems with speech development. He didn't really talk very much until he was over two years old. He was slow to be potty trained.

When he was about three, we started taking him to different doctors trying to get a diagnosis of what was really going on. There was talk of learning disabilities, but nobody really could pin down exactly what it was. At that same time, he was getting into trouble at school and we had to leave to go to another daycare.

At some point, when he was around 3 and 1/2 or 4, we started taking him to speech therapy and things picked up at that point. He seemed to pick up more of an interest in talking and learning about language and things like that. But school and daycare was still a struggle. He wouldn't do anything that anyone told him to do.

He was very obstinate. He wouldn't pay attention. He would only do what he wanted to. When they were trying to do things like group activities, he would interrupt and try to get everybody's attention. We put him in a Montessori environment after moving, and he did a little better there. But ultimately, we were still seeing a neurologist/psychologist and still weren't getting any definitive diagnosis of what was going on.

There was some talk of learning disabilities and communication disabilities and even some discussion of possible autism, but nothing concrete. Again, we moved for a job and put our son in a private school and very quickly found that it didn't work out due to discipline problems. After that, we decided that maybe public schools were the way to go.

One of the teachers there had a daughter with Asperger's syndrome, and it was at that point when Hendrick was maybe six or seven that he was finally unofficially diagnosed. I'm a librarian, and my wife works with books, so we're both big readers and we started reading up on everything we could about Asperger's syndrome.

We both learned and thought, hey, this does sound a lot like what's going on with him. There were other things going on too, but I think the Asperger's part was a pretty big chunk of it. Later on, he was diagnosed with ADHD. However, the diagnosis was not the solution to all of our difficulties.

He wouldn't study, and he still wouldn't listen unless it was something that he was really interested in. He would still be disruptive to the rest of the class. That's been his career pretty much all the way through high school. We tried to lure him with promises of Pokemon cards or video games, and he wouldn't change his ways for that.

We also tried threatening to take away video games or threaten to take away other things, and that wouldn't do anything either. No matter what we tried, there was really no way to motivate him. The teachers felt the same way. At times, they would just take him out of the environment as opposed to trying to get him to fit in. He'd go to work in the library. You can't do a whole lot for him when he's at school.

My wife and I both work, so there's not really any way we could hold his hand all day long. It was never really something that was possible. But we did have some very patient teachers and some very patient administrators, and I feel like that's the main reason he made it through to graduation.

After High School. After high school, his mom really wanted him to go to college, as did I. Think he could be successful if he found the right degree or the right program, but he has never found something that interests him enough to do it. He started going to the local community college here, and he just would not do the work. He would skip class and he wouldn't do any of the basic things to succeed at all. So it was a waste of our money and a waste of our time to send him.

He was content to stay at home and play video games, but we pushed him to get a job. He's had several jobs since he was 18, maybe six or seven, mainly retail. He worked at the Goodwill, going through their donation of boxes. He also worked at Walgreens and at a department store nearby. He was also a stock boy. So he's worked at several different places.

Right now, he works at GameStop part time. He also has a job at Best Buy. He's had a lot of the same issues with his jobs that he did at school. If he wasn't interested in it, he wasn't motivated to do it. That's just kind of been his frame of mind from day one. He's now 25 and he lives at home.

His mom still washes his clothes and generally cooks for him. He does know how to do these things, but his mom's a bit of a spoiler, so she tends to do just about everything for him. I don't know if it would change anything if he had to do his own clothes, but he doesn't seem very motivated to move out.

That being said, I love having him around. He's a great kid. We really have fun together now that he's a grown up, but it's just been a struggle to get him to take his life seriously and think about what he wants to be and work towards that goal.

Advice for Other Dads. I would say to other dads that you have got to be patient. You can't try to rule them. You can't try to be forceful with them verbally. Be aware of your approach to the child. You've just got to find out what's the best thing for your child. Try to find their bright spots and identify what's important to them.

Maybe encouraging them to take classes or go into a career that appeals to them as opposed to something that maybe you feel like they should do. Don't try to fit them as a square peg into a round hole. Be aware of what they're good at, what their strengths are, and what their weaknesses are. Then try not to fight them.

I really kind of watch out for those kinds of people in the media, like Sheldon on Big Bang and other people that are on TV now. I'm very proud to have Hendrick as my son. I'm proud to have an Asperger's kid. He's still got so much potential if he can figure out his way, so I'm hopeful and I know that it is hard. But if you're patient and you stick with it, I think you can have some really great things happen.