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Interesting. It's like two opposing ends, no? Because I can guarantee those thoughts never cross my daughter's mind. She kind of starts from the assumption the other kid did it on purpose, and then she never stops to consider the fact that maybe they didn't. And she gets stuck in a completely different way. I wonder what predisposes a person to immediately respond one way over the other. It seems like most people have a "preferred" or most likely response.

I really liked what "In this together" said about "inappropriate" stuff. Inappropriate is my 11 y.o. son's favorite word. Having an ASD child turns all your parenting ideas on their head. I used to be anti-swearing, anti-violence, etc. Now, I just want my son to not get excluded or bullied. He hates swearing, violence, etc. but hé,s SLOWLY learning to let his NT friends do these things without him getting upset about it. I actually wish he would swear because it would help him to not be isolated by the other kids.

....I'm starting to get really nervous about 6th grade...these are the things that make me wonder if it would be better if he knew...

I had an interesting talk with my son tonight. He mentioned 2 kids that he played with...er...I mean...Hung Out With...today at camp. One was a kid he hadn't talked about before, Mark. He said "Actually, Mom, I need to talk to you about Mark. You see, the problem is that he curses." kind of tentatively, trying to figure out what my response would be. I think we really are at the point that he understands my expectations about cursing, but seriously, I don't know if he can be a 6th grader and exclude from his circle of friends any kid who curses. I'm not sure there are any. Anyway, here is what I said...

"You know...not everyone comes from families with the same rules and values that we have in our house. Some people may have parents who don't care if they curse, so when they curse, they might not even be breaking any rules. We have those rules because I think it is important--especially for kids--not to curse because I don't like the way it sounds. But it is possible that Mark comes from a family who doesn't think it is a big deal. What is important is whether or not he is an overall nice kid. If he is a nice kid who happens to curse, I think it is OK to still be friends with him. I also think it might be wrong to judge people just because they curse. What do you think?"

My son said that he agreed. Mark was otherwise a nice kid and it wouldn't be fair to not be friends with him just because they disagree on one thing.

Now, I will say that when he was younger, I would not have been able to reason through this with him like I did. He needed his rules to be more black and white. I do have to say that I am very pleased to know that I can start introducing some shades of grey without disrupting his entire understanding of the social universe. In this case, I think the important "frame" was that different families have different rules and that this kid may not be breaking his family's rules because there may not be a rule prohibiting cursing. This allows my son to give his friend a "break" that doesn't simultaneously invalidate his own personal rules, or the rules of our house.

I guess even as a younger kid my son could see some shades of grey, provided there was an underlying logic that could be explained to him.

Can you imagine being a parent who doesn't have to do this stuff? I honestly can't. I wonder what it is like...cruise control parenting. It might either be nice, or incredibly boring.

My son is more of a "if they do it, it must be right" unless he is certain ahead of time that they are wrong. (This scares the crap out of me BTW)

However, we handled cursing by a careful explanation of each word and why it was hurtful - we have particular difficulty with the ones with religious implications, because my son knows we aren't religious and therefore those words aren't hurtful to us, so the logic was something like "why can't I say d--m if we don't believe in heaven or hell?" Took some discussion to explain how respecting others' beliefs is important, and how someone who believes a certain way would be hurt or offended by the use of certain words (I used an analogy to things he feels strongly about and wouldn't want someone being flippant about) and understands not to say them.

We probably do better than most parents when it comes to cursing - except when he's scripting off something he heard, but I don't think he's entirely conscious of what he's saying at those times.

Regarding cursing

I have a (now ex.) family in law that curses a lot. I newer ever do (makes sense after I found out about the Asperger).

Since they were very small, I have always explained to my children that I do not want cursing in my home. When they grew older I explained that there are social norms regarding cursing and that it is important that they know when it is ok to curse and when it is not. They can do it with their friends at school etc. (no reason to hamper their social interactions, and they would do it anyway, so they might as well know that I feel that it is ok).

I feel that it is important that they learn that there are different social settings. It will not work if they go to an job interview and start cursing (a lot). They might come across as more stupid or uneducated if they do that.

Now I just have the problem that every time they have visited their father and his familiy, I have to remind them again and again that I do not want it in my home!

I have aspergers and I do curse, a lot. But not during things like job interviews or Junior League meetings. I mean really. Do you actually think we are that stupid? I suppose some are because they were brought up to think they were that stupid.

Your kids will be what you raise them to be. Or what they choose to be once they get away from home. End of story.

It has nothing to do with stupidity. It has to do with having difficulty understanding social interactions and social situations. Although cursing in inappropriate situations can make you look stupid to other people.

You know, one thing I have learned throughout my years of being a parent (and I am only about 11 years into it), is some kids require a lot more parenting than others and some require very different parenting. Before I was a parent, I used to be pretty judgmental toward other parents who I thought were doing things wrong or being ridiculous or whatever. But I have grown since then. It's not nearly as simple as I once imagined it would be, when my kids would eat only healthy foods, would sit still and engage and dazzle grown-ups with their impeccible manners and social skills, and would have kids knocking down the door for playdates because they were so well liked and "cool."

I have aspergers and tend to follow some rules (I like obvious social rules - then I know what to do ), and cursing is one of the things that make me uncomfortable. I know this is not a universal trait.

I am from a country where cursing is videspread and prolific, also in kids movies (also for very small kids). I do not want my children to think that this is the only way to speak and interact. By teaching them that it is not ok in my home, they learn to distinguish between social settings. I do not mind that they swear, they just have to think about the time and place. If they learn that swearing is the normal way of interacting they will have a hard time not to do it, and it will hamper them in certain situations as eg. job interviews.

My parents raised me with an absolute ban on cursing - and I more than likely have Aspergers, just not the benefit of a diagnosis - nobody in my family raised me to think I was stupid. I do, actually, struggle not to curse in certain situations.

I have trouble "switching" from speech that's acceptable for one kind of audience to a different style of speech. This does not make me stupid. It does, however, make me struggle when I'm in a social situation where cursing is encouraged (hanging out with my husband's friends) to a social situation where it is absolutely inappropriate (hanging out with toddlers.) I also tend to mirror the speech around me, so it's not so easy for me to just never curse. My son struggles with this as well. An inability to change speech for your audience is a standard deficit in pragmatic speech, which many - but not all - people on the spectrum share.

I am not sure what brought out this defensive quality in your posts, OliveOil Mom. We are all doing the best we can and trying to use this forum to figure out what is best for our children. Nobody here is confusing AS with stupid, near as I can see. I think you are forgetting that each kid has his or her own set of specific challenges and strengths, and some of them are different from the ones you know.

The womenfolk in my family (on my mothers' side) curse. The menfolk in my family for the most part do not. My dad only did sometimes when driving, when someone would cut him off or something.

This carried over somehow. My husband does not curse and neither does my son. It is really strange but that is how it ended up. My husband does not like it when I curse. I try not to; but do on occasion; My son still hadn't picked it up. Well, when he was really little, I think he tried to say the f-bomb, after hearing me say it, but it sounded like "fa" (but really loud), but no one could tell. We ignored it and it went away. Now he seems to know somehow which of my words not to repeat. I am lucky, because if he was saying this stuff, we'd have problems.

This isn't really helpful, but I thought it was funny and maybe would lighten the thread a bit. It does also show that kids are interesting and varied in what they do.

I'm honestly not sure either and I do recognize it. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about it. First off I want to say that what I'm going to say is just my opinion and only my own and I don't mean that it's something that all parents should follow.

I never sheltered my kids from anything. They watched South Park when they were little. They could watch anything, horror movies, slasher movies, anything. I'd say "You know that's not real, right" or "Thats a stuntman and makeup, he's really not beheaded" or something to that effect. I would talk about the special effects as special effects. I'd take about the underlying oints that a movie was making (Pulp Fiction) etc, when they were little and watching it with us. They grew up with that. They knew that Mom will rake everything over the coals and analyze it. "Oh please, zombies couldn't happen because of the humidity! They would fall apart!" etc. Yeah, I take the fun out of everything.



I'm so tired of people acting like we cannot understand the same things that NT people do. All it takes is just telling us. I have a friend, an adult friend with AS. She may be more effected by it than me in some ways and me more than her in others. She had a problem with taking time things I say literally. She would get upset when I told her "I'll be back in a minute" and wasn't. All it took was me explaining to her what I meant and telling her that a lot of things I say are not literal. I think a lot of people here would have said "Oh, she can't understand it, I'll change this and that for her". Well, yes she could. All it takes is somebody that doesn't treat you like you CANT.


Again, this is me and my own thoughts. It's not for everybody.

ETA; I have mild AS. This is not meant for parents who have kids with classic autism or more severe AS. You have to understand, I see everything from my own point of view.

Good for you for getting all that out there O.O.mom. There is a lot to be said for taking off the kid gloves. I have a friend who takes that approach with her kids more than I do and it seems to work well for her. More importantly, it's who she is and she has to be true to that. I think we all have to be very careful (those of us with milder AS kids) to not let labels become an excuse, etc. We're all just taking it day by day

My kids are all NT's but I explained stuff to them as kids like they were aspies like me. Because I didn't know I was an aspie and thought that everyone required that kind of explination.

I don't like how people think that we cannot understand things, rather than it takes maybe a little more or a different way of explaining them.

From some of the stuff I see here on this subforum, I'm not surprised that people think we need to be put in helmets, diapers and a small room with a tv that has one repeating cartoon over and over.

Potential is better than limitation and usually trumps it. If you limit your kids, then when potential kicks in they will not like you at all. Of course my mother has borderline personality disorder, but still. Either way.

There are two things that are important here: one is that most children do better if sheltered from certain things until they are developmentally ready to handle it: violence and sex in particular. There is a lot of research that indicates that it's better to wait to expose them to certain things than not...what there isn't research on is the degree to which this should be done, and how each individual child will be affected.

Second, there are issues with kids on the spectrum that go beyond explaining things. No two kids are alike. Some kids, like my son, have OCD-like tendencies (he does not have OCD, though) where they can't "un-see" things that are upsetting to them. For him, understanding is not enough - he needs to develop at his own pace, and to be ready for things before they happen. He also has difficulty managing language, despite my very detailed explanations about it.

Case in point - I started out as a parent who didn't want to shield my child from "scary" images and cartoon violence. When DS was very small, Nightmare Before Christmas was one of his favorite movies, because he didn't make the connection between "scary" and the looks of all the creatures - he took their actions at face value. A year or two later, he stopped wanting to watch the movie, and shortly thereafter he banned it from our TV and hasn't watched it since - all by himself, he developed a fear of "scary" images, despite the entire movie being about how things that look scary aren't necessarily so.

This had nothing to do with parenting; I talked a lot about how the characters acted and what they did and how noble they were to take care of each other and fix their mistakes...but at some point, he developed the ability to be scared by imagery and there wasn't anything I did or could do to change it. Forcing him to sit through the movie from that point on was nothing less than torture, and served no purpose at all.

I am very sensitive to accusations of "helicopter parenting" or treating my son with "kid gloves," because it happens to me a lot...except by professionals who know our situation well or friends who know my son well. When you have a kid who appears "normal" by all outside standards, I sure look like a helicopter parent when I have to run interference for him so he isn't put in situations where he feels he can't refuse to do things he doesn't want to do, or situations where he's exposed to things he can't handle. I especially love the situations where - for the identical action, by the same person - I'm called a helicopter parent in one breath, and too lenient in the next because my son is falling apart: happens to me all the time.

So, basically - please ease up on the judgement. I am doing the best I can; the consequences of mistakes for me on this particular issue can be very serious, and we are very carefully feeling our way around. While I did say that I wish other parents would follow MSRB ratings, that's because their choices wind up affecting me and my kid. I'm not judging you or your choices as a parent, obviously your kids turned out fine.

I wasn't judging you, I was only stating my experience and how it effected me and my kids.

I never called you a helicopter parent or overprotective or any of that. You brought that up.

And no, I don't think that other parents should have to follow ratings that they may not care about because it's easier for you or your child. If our kids were the same age and he came over here to play I wouldn't let them play a game you didn't want him to play, but I also wouldn't change what I was watching on the tv in the den while they were playing in the bedroom.

I don't understand why you have to step in when he doesn't want to do something. Why can't he just say he doesn't want to do it? I do understand how some kids who aren't functioning at higher levels may not be able to say what they are feeling/thinking, but if that's not the case, then why not let him speak for himself?

*Removed to get thread back on track.

Last edited by momsparky on 17 Aug 2012, 3:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.