This is the final post in a series about being a mom with Asperger’s.

There’s some question about how having a parent with Asperger’s affects a typical child. I definitely see ways in which my aspie behavior has influenced my daughter’s behavior. She’s told me stories about how friends at college or colleagues at work have pointed out deficiencies in her social skills. Although she’s a very empathetic, compassionate person with a high emotional IQ, she occasionally does things that others consider thoughtless.

Recently, Jess was talking with a friend who was discouraged by his job search progress. Her response was much like mine would have been. It’s a tough job market for new graduates and you just have to keep at it. When he expressed his frustration at how unsympathetic she was being, she realized that she was saying to him what I would have said to her.

Although she understands social nuances, she sometimes chooses not to “play by the rules” because she’s seen how a less conventional approach has affected her at key points in her life and she finds some value in it that is probably hard for people raised in typical families to relate to.

She’s also related stories to me where she was shocked to find out that other people thought she was being rude–for not sharing a birthday treat, for example. These were instances where she simply didn’t think about what the right thing to do in that situation was. More than one person has attributed these faux pas to her being an only child, but I think it has more to do with my AS than her lack of siblings.

So you can see where being an aspie mom is going to result in your kids picking up some socially unacceptable habits, no matter how hard you try or how socially adept they seem to be.

Having an NT partner or spouse can go a long way toward helping you “mind the gap” when it comes to parenting. My husband is everything I’m not when it comes to social skills. He’s naturally compassionate, outgoing, empathetic, and confident. He can walk into a room full of strangers and strike up a conversation with anyone. People instantly love him. When it comes to our daughter’s social skills, I give him 100% of the credit. He modeled behaviors for her that don’t come naturally to me and that I’ve never learned to fake well.

As parents, we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye. There were times when he thought I was being too cold-hearted and there times when I thought he was being too sentimental. We’ve had to compromise on some issues and agree to disagree on others. We’ve both made mistakes. But we’ve also come to realize that we have our own strengths.

When Jess needs sympathy or relationship advice, she usually talks to her dad. When she needs help filling out forms her new job or fixing her computer, she calls me. She intuitively worked out what we can each give her as parents long before any of us knew what Asperger’s was.

That’s the thing about moms with Asperger’s and their kids: they know how to adapt.