?Honey, can you get Bobby off of Nintendo? Susan yelled from upstairs.  ?We?ve got to leave in 15 minutes.?

It was time to see Psychologist number four.  I had long ago stopped thinking that there?d be some magic answer to Bobby?s Asperger?s issues but I still held out hope that a competent therapist would help add some sanity to our lives. 

?Bobby, it?s time to get off Nintendo!? I yelled (in my house, we yell all the time) into the den, where Bobby was mesmerized by strange characters running, jumping and killing God knows what.

?Hold on, I need to finish this level!?

?No, you don?t! Shut it off and go get ready, we have to leave!? This exact conversation happens about twice a day.  I should just tape myself saying this and time it to go off every 6 hours or so.  Sometimes I feel like if I hear Bobby say ?hold on? one more time, my head will explode. 

?Why do I need to go?? Jenny whined from her room.  ?I?m not the one with Appleberger?s or whatever it?s called.?

?Because you can?t stay home by yourself.  And besides, this is a family therapist.  That means his job is to try to help all of us?Bobby, are you off Nintendo yet??

?Hold on, I?m almost done!?

No?head hasn?t exploded yet.

Here?s the part where I walk into the den and threaten him with a fate worse than death.  ?Bobby, shut that off now or I will shut it and you?ll lose Nintendo for a week.? I said as I stormed into the den.

Surprisingly, we made it to the therapist with no heads exploding and no lost Nintendo time.  Sometimes miracles do happen.

I guess miracles come in pairs.  Our new therapist actually had some interesting ideas we hadn?t heard two hundred times before. 

In this first session, we discussed a concept he called Acceptance.  This meant accepting Bobby for who he was instead of who we wanted him to be.  For years, we had been trying to make Bobby ?normal? instead of understanding what made him unique, and loving him unconditionally.  We needed to start seeing the world through Bobby?s eyes instead of our own.  He has some significant challenges and they weren?t going to go away by us telling him to ?work harder?.  We needed to have a more empathetic mindset; which means we needed to appreciate and validate his point of view.  It also meant we needed to stop thinking we needed to treat him like any other typical kid.  He wasn?t typical?and that was okay.

This simple concept actually had a pretty significant impact on our home environment over the next few days.  Just accepting that Bobby had different motivations, ways of learning and ways of communicating significantly decreased the constant yelling.  It didn?t cure his Asperger?s (he would probably never be ?cured?) but it helped us start to create a more supportive environment.  As parents, we were trying to shift Bobby?s view of us from jail wardens to problem solvers. 

We knew this wouldn?t solve our problems overnight and there were many other things for us to learn.  But after years of frustration, it was a pretty good start.