Every Wednesday, Jacob attended a Social Skills for Adulthood group with his school psychologist. There were several guys in the group, most of them Autistic, like Jacob. It was sometimes interesting, sometimes boring, but it was not optional, so he went.
One week, the topic was to dream about your future. Each group member shared about what they wanted to do in their future, what kind of job they wanted, and where they wanted to live. The leader asked a few follow-up questions after each person shared. When it was Jacob’s turn to share, he said his goal was to live in Sweden. The man who created his favorite video game is Swedish, and it sounded like a cool place to live. Whenever he did an online search for Sweden, the images all looked awesome. It would be so cool to live there! His group leader asked follow-up questions, like if he wanted to live in a city or in the country. Jacob preferred the city because he thought the country might smell like a dairy farm, which he hated. The leader asked if he preferred a house or apartment, with housemates, or alone.
“I’ll live in a house in Stockholm, Sweden, with my parents,” Jacob said.
“With your parents? I thought they lived here.”
“They do,” said Jacob, “but they’d have to move to Sweden, obviously.”
As soon as he said it, a couple of the guys laughed, and then stifled it. He couldn’t tell who was laughing or why. Jacob passed on the other questions and kept quiet for the rest of the session
When he got home, Jacob replayed that scene in his head, worried about why people laughed at him. What had happened right before the laughter? He’d said his parents would have to move to Sweden. Now that he thought about it, he realized that was an unexpected answer. When he thought about the future, he just assumed that he would keep living with his parents. They’d always lived together, and he couldn’t picture living apart from them. It made sense to him that if he moved to Sweden, his parents would come, too. Now that he thought about it, he realized most adults move out instead of staying with their parents. His parents had a life and jobs of their own and might not want to move to another country. Still, the idea of not living with them scared him. He’d never lived alone in his life, and her didn’t know if he’d like it. Maybe everybody felt this way before they moved out on their own for the first time.
By the time his mom and dad got home from work, he’d decided that he would definitely not be ready to move out as soon as he graduated. But at least now he was thinking about the possibility of living on his own someday, instead of just assuming he’d always live with them. At the age of eighteen, he wasn’t ready to take that step yet, and that was okay. He had time to prepare for the next step in his life.