HEATHER writes:

My five-year-old son was recently diagnosed with Asperger’s. One of the red flags noted by his speech therapist, and then by the psychologist who diagnosed him, is that he “can’t play pretend.” By this they mean playing with dolls or action figures, coming up with a spontaneous little script. It’s true, he does find this difficult, especially with unfamiliar adults. With me, he can, but it’s never a spontaneous experience. I didn’t notice for years because he can spontaneously play pretend in so many other ways – he can pretend to cook, pretend a stuffed animal is a pet, pretend he’s an explorer, firefighter, or fur trapper, pretend his bed is a ship, etc. He can play with other children in these ways too. I never had to teach him any of this. But in a clinical setting he’s unsure of what to do with dolls, and labeled with “can’t play pretend.”

I don’t dispute his diagnosis, and I acknowledge that playing pretend with dolls can really help his speech and social skills (although drawing cartoon situations seems to work better for him). If I need to teach him this form of play for the sake of his development, that’s fine, though I question if it’s really play if it’s not natural to him and just feels like work. But I wonder if part of the problem is that female clinicians are expecting him to play like a girl.

I also have a three-year-old son and recently realized that he can’t play pretend in this way, either. It feels stilted and unnatural just trying to teach him. I asked my husband if this is normal for boys. He says he never played this way except to please his sister. However, my husband suspects that he may have Asperger tendencies and can’t really comment on what is normal for boys.

I don’t know where to turn for advice. The internet is filled with articles about how boys should play with dolls, and many of my girlfriends are clinicians. What is your experience with the ways boys play? Am I ruining my sons if I don’t teach them this specific form of play? Can I just teach social things in ways that make sense to them, like cartooning?

Laura writes:

I am saddened that you have been encouraged to think your child has a mental disease.

It’s a well-established fact that boys are less inclined to play with dolls. You’re right, this idea smacks of social engineering, and it’s pretty scary. You mentioned that your son “is obsessed (in an autistic way) with building things and figuring out how the world works. He’ll likely grow up to be an engineer, as all his forefathers have been for the last seven generations.”

I guarantee you, not many engineers played with dolls as children.

You wrote in a subsequent note:

With the pretend play – if you were to say, “Hey, you be a police man and I’ll be a fireman!” he’ll know exactly how to play and come up with an engaging, interactive script. But if you hand him a pair of action figures and say the same thing, that’s when he’ll get confused. I don’t know if it’s because he’s more interested in figuring out how the figures work, can’t stay on top of the game because of his poor working memory and processing, or isn’t sure what the adult’s expectations are. I do value this type of pretend play – I did a lot of it as a child – I just don’t know how much to push it with my boys, or how much of their difficulty with it is from Asperger’s (in his case at least), or just boyishness. I think he might occasionally play with figures on his own in his room, but I don’t think it lasts long or gets socially complex.

Action figures didn’t exist for much of history! Children turned out okay. Who thought up this crazy idea anyway? Toy companies? You’re right, he may be drawn to the physical properties of the toys because he has a mechanical mind and perhaps doesn’t see them as human, which they are not. (I they aren’t the hideous, demonic figures.) Let him gravitate toward play he enjoys.

I’m sure you are aware of the vaccine and autism connection.  However, it seemed from what you told me in further e-mails that the clinicians ruled out serious neurological problems in your son, although he does have some learning difficulties, things which may just be developmental or may be permanent. He’s only five years old and many five-year-old boys are not whizzes at writing or desk work. I suggest that you shelve this diagnosis of Asperger’s (which involves poor social skills) and the autism diagnosis altogether, except if you can use them to obtain some kind of useful government services, such as speech therapy or occupational therapy, that you feel would help your son.

Why Gender Matters by Leonard Sax and The Essential Difference by Simon Baron-Cohen are generally good overviews of sex differences in children. Baron-Cohen may go overboard with diagnosis of autism and Asperger’s; I haven’t followed much of his work, so I can’t endorse it all, but he offers a common sense division when it comes to sex differences. He describes the “essential” sex difference as between the systematizing male brain and the empathetic female brain.

The empathizing-systemizing theory argued that, as a group, girls typically develop empathy at an earlier age than boys do. Empathy includes the ability to recognize other people’s thoughts and feelings and the drive to respond with appropriate emotions. Conversely, research suggests that boys, as a group, typically have a stronger interest in rules and patterns, analyzing and creating rule-based systems.

In other words, that’s normal for boys. He also writes that “autistic” boys still normally empathize with the suffering of others. They can’t always pick up, however, on other’s people’s thoughts or emotions. Your son can learn how to do that by living in close contact with others and, if he marries, his wife will compensate for his deficiencies in this area. We don’t need to abolish sex differences! I think some of these “autistic” traits are exacerbated by extreme individualism.

Sax has also written about the overdiagnosis of children:

[W]hen you visit a mental-health practitioner in the U.S., exercise extreme caution. Realize that the official guidelines now in force are not guidelines at all, but rather a license to diagnose anybody with anything.

[…]

Sadly, this waffling is likely to contribute to a continued rise in mental-illness diagnoses in the United States. Over the past two decades, American culture has made almost any deviation from a continual smiley face into a psychopathology, especially for children. [emphasis added]

What is the end, or the purpose, of your social conditioning of your son? Most of all, it is to help him to fit into family life and work with other people. He probably will not be a social dynamo. That’s okay. In your daily life with him you will see what he needs to work on and improve.

It is not easy for women to understand male tendencies in a culture that disparages them, but if you observe boys closely in playgrounds and social settings you will learn a lot. You might be interested in studying, if you haven’t already, the Four Temperaments. It helps to think of your child’s temperament, as opposed to his place in the diagnostic manual. I highly recommend these talks by Mother Mary Bosco.

I wish you the best with your little boy. Remember at all times that you are not alone in this important work of raising him. Most all, you want him to have everlasting happiness. Here is a Catholic Mother’s Prayer for her Children:

O Good God, we thank You, that You have given us children, made them heirs of heaven by holy Baptism, and entrusted to us their training. Penetrate us with a sense of our responsibility; assist us in the care of their health, but especially in the preservation of their innocence and purity of heart. Grant that we may teach them early to know and serve You, and to love You, with their whole heart. Grant that we ourselves may carefully avoid all that we must forbid them, and may assiduously practice all that we should teach them. We commend them, O God, to Your paternal care and to the guardianship of Your holy angels. Bless our efforts, O heavenly Father, and let our children develop to Your honor and persevere in virtue till the end! Amen.

And a prayer to your child’s Guardian Angel:

I humbly salute you, O you faithful, heavenly Friends of my children! I give you heartfelt thanks for all the love and goodness you show them. At some future day I shall, with thanks more worthy than I can now give, repay your care for them, and before the whole heavenly court acknowledge their indebtedness to your guidance and protection. Continue to watch over them. Provide for all their needs of body and soul. Pray, likewise, for me, for my husband, and my whole family, that we may all one day rejoice in your blessed society. Amen.

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