PRODIGAL SON ARTICLE

14th December 2021

Paul Jordan

THE PRODIGAL SON: How to live effectively with your parents as an adult son or daughter.

As is commonly understood, many people, if not all, have ideas or expectations when they are adolescents about how they intend their lives to pan out or proceed. It often starts with what elective subjects they study in high school, whether they engage in romantic relationships, what sports they play and where they attend university. This is the norm for about 98% of the population known as allistic (whose brains are wired conventionally), because we anticipate it will lead to stable employment doing jobs they are qualified to do, marriage and children and a life independent from parents. For the other 2% who are neurodiverse or autistic, as I am, (their brains are wired differently), these events are often delayed.

Sometimes, life throws curveballs in our way and these are by definition totally unexpected. Conventionally, as I understand, young adults who were born in the 1940s and 1950s did not seem to have any setbacks. They got married, often relatively young, and moved away. Their sons and daughters, by contrast, don’t always have ‘smooth sailing’. For reasons such as disability, romantic breakup or divorce, rented property being sold by the owners, illness, dismissal from work, saving money and ageing parents needing to be assisted and cared for, adult sons and daughters are sometimes compelled to move back in with their parents. As I experienced, this contradicted my expectations of tutoring at university and perhaps marrying a young woman I met there. This reminds me of the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32).

I had lived from 2009 to 2013 in an apartment my father owned, which was near the university I attended. I was able to care for myself and write my assignments but was always fearful of some fixture or fitting being damaged and having to report that to my Dad. I had friends visit and sometimes looked after a young woman from university who had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, which provided loving and calming experiences for both she and I. Because he paid the rates and cooked food for me every weekend, my Dad resolved after I graduated to sell the apartment and I moved back to my parents’ house.

An adult son or daughter who returns to live with their parents may regard doing so as a backward step, but when we believe God has plans for us, the situation seems to tell us that we are required to look after our parents – that we are required to serve others, and to be other-centered. This is in line with Luke 15:19 ‘I no longer deserve to be called your son, treat we as you would one of your hired workers’. The autistic returning to live with his or her parents has the additional need to be totally selfless and take other people’s perspectives or points of view.

Here is a way of doing this which I learned in psychotherapy:

The ability to take other people’s viewpoints depends on the autistic’s theory of mind. That is, for the autistic to realize that other people have beliefs, desires and intentions to themselves. Most allistic people (who do not have autism) can learn to do this when they are four-year-old children. Therefore, it is easy for small children who do not have autism can easily take turns in group activities, understand how conversations work and how to take other’s viewpoints. This is done in groups using pretend play or what is called metarepresentation, where children impersonate others (especially occupations) to take on other people’s perspectives.

For autistics, it is a different story. They do not have theory of mind, supposedly because their brains are wired differently. A lot of autistic children prefer to interact individually with adults because they have difficulty interacting with other children. Autistic children also consider themselves to be ‘miniature adults’. Adults are usually too busy to teach perspective taking. However, this skill can be taught, so I would like to demonstrate how that can be done. This is accomplished through a protocol for taking perspective that was invented in 2004 by Irish husband and wife psychologists Dermot and Yvonne Barnes-Holmes. Naturally, it is called the Barnes-Holmes protocol. It relies on words which link two things in both directions not through any property of these things, but through contextual cues. These words specify how two things are related and they are called relational frames. In this case, they are temporal (NOW, THEN), personal (I, YOU), and spatial (HERE, THERE). The sentences that follow illustrate what are called simple relations, reversed relations and double reversed relations. Double reversed relations are often misunderstood by autistic children, so I have simplified the terms using words that are found in all languages. THEN is replaced by BEFORE and THERE is replaced by the words ANOTHER PLACE. You go through the sentences cancelling out the repetition (IF HERE WAS THERE AND THERE WAS HERE) cancel each other out and mean the same thing until you master perspective taking and it becomes like flicking a switch. It was a revelation that my psychotherapist taught me this skill when I was 29 years old. Here are the associated sentences which I invite the reader to learn:

Suppose I have an apple and you have an orange. Imagine I were you and you were me. Now tell me what I have and what you have.

A:

a. it is like this:

b. I have this something X

c. you have this other something Y

d. I want you to think that it is like this:

e. I am you

f. at the same time, you are me

You can think: John has an apple and Peter has an orange.

I am standing by the yellow door and you are standing by the brown door. Tell me where I am standing and where you are standing.

B:

a. it is like this:

b. Now, I am standing (M) at the yellow (M) door (M)

c. At the same time, you are standing (M) at the brown (M) door (M)

You can think: Kate is by the yellow door and Holly is by the brown door.

I am standing here by the yellow door. Imagine that I am you, and you are me. Also imagine that here is over there, and over there is here. Tell me where I am, and tell me where you are.

C:

a. it is like this:

b. I am standing (M) here at the yellow (M) door (M)

c. You are standing there by the brown (M) door

c. I want you to think that it is like this:

d. I am you

e. at the same time, you are me

h. at the same time, here is another place

i. at the same time, another place is here

You can think: Bruce is standing here by the yellow door and Yvonne is standing there by the brown door.

Suppose that yesterday, I was reading and that today you’re watching TV. Tell me what I did yesterday and what you’re doing today.

D:

a. it is like this:

b. the day (M) before this day (M), I was reading (M)

c. today (M), you are watching (M) television (M)

d. because of this, I want you to say to me what I was doing before

e. because of this, I want you to say to me what I am doing now

You can think: John was reading, today he is watching television.

Suppose that yesterday, I was reading and that today you’re watching TV. Imagine that yesterday is today, and that today is yesterday. Tell me what I was doing yesterday and what I am doing today.

E:

a. it is like this:

b. the day (M) before this day (M), I was watching (M) television (M)

c. today (M), I am reading (M)

d. I want you to think that it is like this:

e. now is before

f. at the same time, before is now

You can think: yesterday Phillip was watching television, today he is reading.

Suppose that today, I am standing by the yellow door. Yesterday, I was standing by the brown door. Imagine that here is over there and over there is here. Tell me where I am standing today and tell me where I was standing yesterday.

F:

a. it is like this:

b. today (M) I am standing (M) here at the yellow (M) door (M)

c. the day before this day I was standing (M) in another place at the brown (M) door (M)

d. I want you to think that is like this:

e. here is another place

f. at the same time, another place is here

You can think: today Sarah is standing here at the yellow door, yesterday she  was standing there at the brown door.

Suppose that today, I am standing by the yellow door. Yesterday, I was standing by the brown door. Imagine that here is over there and over there is here. Also imagine that today is yesterday and yesterday is today. Tell me where I am standing today and tell me where I was standing yesterday.

G:

a. it is like this:

b. today I am standing (M) here at the yellow (M) door (M)

c. the day (M) before this day I was standing (M) there at the brown (M) door (M)

d. I want you to think that it is like this:

e. here is another place

f. at the same time, another place is here

g. at the same time, now is before

h. at the same time, before is now

You can think: Today Jenny is standing here by the yellow door. Yesterday she was standing there by the brown door.

When you master this, you will be able to take others’ perspectives automatically when you communicate by realizing that every word has communicative intent or what we call illocutionary force. Words mean everything and service isn’t a problem when you say exactly what you mean while taking the addressee’s viewpoint.

In closing, I repeat the words of the Centurion in Matthew 8:8. ‘I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.’ This indicates acceptance of the adult son or daughter and any necessary reconciliation.

God bless.