ASD parents may not be very expressive about their own feelings, and may find it more natural and comfortable to talk about the facts of a situation. They may not have a full understanding of others’ feelings. That is, they may be seen as lacking in empathy. They also may have difficulty with seeing things from another’s perspective because of what has been called “mindblindness.” Mindblindness is the difficulty with understanding and predicting other people’s thoughts, plans and feelings, and not realizing that those thoughts, plans and feelings may be very different from their own. This can lead to some difficulties for their children, especially at those times in life when their children have a different way of seeing certain situations (think teenagers!) and they are looking for acceptance of those differences from their parents.
It can help for the child or teen to learn to understand that this mindblindness is part of how their ASD parent is wired – that is it is a neurologically based difference and it does not mean that their parent doesn’t care about them. It can also help for them to learn to directly and calmly express their thoughts and feelings to their parent (rather than expect their parents to intuitively know them), so that their parent can learn about the ways that their children see the world differently.
If you are interested in this topic, you may be interested in my book: My parent has an autism spectrum disorder/a workbook for children and teens.
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