Zander's Inside Voice

Boy #1 has no work ethic. I hate saying it. I tried so hard with him. He’s always been…slow. Slow to follow directions, slow to take care of what he needs to, slow to grasp what the hell is going on around him.

He got fired from his fast food job last night. At McDonald’s. He’s been working fast food since he graduated almost two years ago. He worked in a gas station briefly before they fired him too. He claims that it’s everyone else’s fault, EVERY DAMN TIME.

Now, part of me feels like I am being too hard on him because he is on the spectrum. But he also is just barely on the spectrum and he manages to function in ways that work with his friends. He does everything that they need him to do, when he needs to do it for them. But everything else that he doesn’t necessarily want to do has always been a struggle.

He also has a ton of very long hair and a long beard. He refuses to even consider how that impacts how people see him. He acts like he’s so chill and relaxed that he must be on drugs. I’m just not even sure what his problem is. While I am excited to see him after almost two years, I have a lot of concerns about his future.

He’s known for a long time that he MUST send his transcripts to the college he’s applying to but it hasn’t been done. Why? He just hasn’t gotten around to it. He works, hangs out with friends, and sleeps a lot. Life is passing him by and sometimes he is aware of it and other times he doesn’t seem to care or notice.

How do you inspire someone to get their life moving when they don’t see that there’s a problem with what they’re doing? How do you get them to see what unless they start doing something well, nothing is going to materialize for them?