Literal Thinking - and a laundry story.

Image is of a laundry basket with linens in it.

The other day, I asked my autistic teen kiddo to help me out with some laundry. I handed him a laundry basket, scooped an armful of dirty laundry off of the floor, and plunked it into the basket. I then said: “can you please take this down to the laundry room? Put the clean clothes from the dryer into this basket, move the wet clothes from the washer into the dryer, start the dryer, then bring this basket up to me.” If you have a very literal thinking child at home, you have probably already spotted my mistake!

He brought the basket of clean laundry up, and went back into his Teenager-cave. I began folding the laundry on the couch with my husband, and after a few minutes noticed that the clothes at the bottom were coming out covered in dog hair and crumbs. I laughed a little and shook my head at myself.

I called my kiddo back out and said, “I should have told you - but I meant for you to empty the dirty clothes from the basket, before putting the clean clothes into it.” He had scooped all of the clean laundry into the bin on top of the dirty stuff I had plopped into the basket! We had a little laugh about it as he said, “ohhhh! Sorry, you gave me too many directions so I just did exactly what you said.” I told him it was no problem, and thanked him for helping me with the chore.

I am so grateful to have kiddos who are willing to help out, even more-so grateful to have kiddos with whom I have a mutual respect, who are glad to complete tasks exactly as I ask them to.

I reflected on how some adults might have handled the situation - and, even how I may have handled the situation prior to raising my very literal kiddo. I know many parents who would be pissy about the mingling of the dirty and clean laundry, and may have the instinct to say something like, “OBVIOUSLY I meant that you should dump the dirty clothes out!” But the truth is, it is absolutely not obvious that the dirty clothes should have been dumped out, because he wasn’t told to do so. Emptying the basket first could be an intuitive step for someone who has completed the task dozens of times - not necessarily so, but it could be.

I know for myself, even routine tasks can require me to follow clear outlined steps every time… there are some things that I do repeatedly that never become an intuitive habit. There are executive functioning skills that are difficult for me even with repeated practice, due to my ADHD. The same is true for my kiddo, and though he isn’t always extremely literal (in fact, he can be quite abstract in thinking at times, and has a killer sense of humour!), if there is a new task at hand, he will follow directions with strict literal adherence.

This is nothing to get worked up about. We take the good with the funny around here - I thanked him for his help, threw the dirty items back into the empty basket, brushed the dog hair off of the clean clothes… and made a mental note to remember every single step next time. Hopefully my ADHD brain remembers that for next time!