Diagnosis: Empathy

I coach tee ball with a friend of mine whose child is on the autism spectrum.  I know that because she wears a sound-muffling headset, waves her hands uncontrollably and mumbles to herself (and because he told me so).  Her inner world shows externally and is clear if you know how to interpret the signs. When I engage with her, I do so gingerly and with the tools given to me on how to meet her where she is because engaging a child on the autism spectrum is different than engaging a child that is not. 

Over bagels, my coach friend and I talked about a child on the team who is also on the autism spectrum.  His cues were much more subtle and took a trained eye to notice, which I had not.  I had treated this boy with one understanding and now that I had a different construct, I treated him appropriate to where he was.  External signs of an internal reality.

Our bagels shifted to a long cup of coffee and we spoke of a parent on the team. He was loud, made demands of us, of the league, yelled at the officials and rode his kid like a pony.  He was a jerk.  We'd seen this over enough games and practices to know this was a general state of being -- external signs of his internal reality.  So we adapted our approach to 'Dad-on-the-Jerk-spectrum' and things calmed down with him because we'd changed our approach and met him where he was. 

To be clear, my intention here is to observe that external cues (be those ear muffs or yelling over missed calls) often suggest an internal reality.  I can no more diagnose Autism Spectrum Disorder than I can Little Man Syndrome, but what I can do is meet folks where they are and adapt my style to their reality.  Some inner realities have external cues that are easy to observe and others do not.  Regardless, as a counselor recently reminded me, we're all dysfunctional and on some kind of spectrum, even if there's no diagnosis code.