3yr old Autie acting EMO

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The last few weeks my son had started saying things like.

"You hate me and i want to die, i am going to bed."
"Why do you hate me?"
"I suck and want to die."
"Mummy, why does daddy hate me?"
"I am going to bed. I hate you all."


I think he is picking it up at childcare.
Has anyone else experienced this?

No real help here but just wanted to give you a 'hug' I know this must be so hard to hear from a child so young. I would really get together with his caregivers and see what is going on during the day.

He sounds depressed, autistic depression (as stated by Tony Attwood) shows itself different to NT depression, it might appear that he is irritable and aggression when he is in fact very sad.

He is a happy boy. very happy. he just looks at me and says these things and then keeps playing or hugging me.

it is weird.

Is he upset when he does that? I know NT kids say things like that when they are extremely angry. So he may have picked it up from someone getting mad and saying it...

He could be mirroring the behavior of other children. Otherwise, other kids might be putting him up to it, knowing that he's susceptible to being tricked into thinking that this is how he's supposed to behave. When I was in preschool I got in trouble for behavior that I don't quite remember other than that it had something to do with things other kids told me to do.

My son started saying this when he was extremely sad at about the same age; it was the first thing that caused us to go looking for help. This year (he's now 10) we had some more specific language that was really frightening and we wound up in the ER.

Since autism is a communication disorder, there are any number of things a child using this language might mean. In my son's case, it was finally determined to be bad pragmatics: he wants to express extreme distress, but lacks fine-tuning in his language. We have made an agreement that we will take him to the ER (which he didn't like, but which was not a horrible experience, either) if he uses that kind of language because we take it seriously; if he does not intend to hurt himself, he needs to find other words to use. Sometimes we have to remind him.

However, there are all kinds of possible explanations. I would ask at the childcare (for all we know, they could be watching soap operas, where that kind of language is not uncommon.) I would say that while it's likely for there to be a reasonable explanation - take it seriously, not by asking your child (even an NT three-year-old may struggle with an explanation) but by investigating with the other adults who are taking care of your child, and asking the advice of whatever social worker/psychologist, etc. your family may have access to.

My daughter had a bully in kindergarten - on the bus he would tell her he hated her and wanted her to die. We addressed it with the school and they assured us it was 'taken care of' and, it was. The boy was no longer a problem.

But in class several weeks later, she got very upset because of a mistake she made (one of her meltdown triggers) and she screamed at the aid 'I just want to die'. they made us take her for a psych eval, wouldn't let her back to school without one and threatened to call social services if we didn't get it done within 48 hours. So, my 5yo Aspie little girl learned what death was from a social worker - a total stranger who didn't even have any sort of paperwork appropriate for evaluating a 5yo. She had to ask her if she was married, did drugs, had sex...

My little girl was traumatized for a solid year with nightmares and anxiety about mommy and daddy dying, her dying, her dog dying...

So, yes. He absolutely can be picking it up at school.

It might be echolalia - meaningless repetition of phrases he's heard.

Depending on what he's doing when he says it, he might also be speaking for his toys.

Even a NT three year old can not understand the concept of death and hate and things like that, let alone a 3 year old with autism. I seriously doubt that he has any idea what he is saying and he picked it up somewhere. Is he an only child?? Does he have siblings that could have put him up to this? I knew a kid about that age where his deviant older brother told him to "tell mama F*** Y** and things like that, so he did and then got into trouble, but he had no idea what he was saying. When I was 4 years old and in preschool, my mom and dad fought really bad and were going through a divorce. I am also hearing impaired, so the only words that I understood were those that were shouted and so I got into trouble all the time for cussing in preschool, but I had no idea what I was saying as I was just repeating what I heard. You need to do some detective work and find out where you son is learning to say these things.

i attempted in first grade. take it seriously for sure see if you can get him a psych. and if you have concerns about the childcare u might want to move him to a better place.

There is a high probability this is echolalia and he is unlikely to have decoded the meaning. My daughter used to pick up all types of strange statements from other kids at kinder when she was 4 yrs old. We realise it was just repetitive but encouraged her as it was the way she liked to learn.

Having said that the choice of sentences seem bizarre. Hopefully isn't an older child playing a prank on your son.

I agree w. those who have suggested elochia. When I read your post I thought, "where has that little tape recorder picked THAT up?" Some of us have tape recorders for kids, lol, I know I do sometimes. It can be scary when they repeat something above their heads and you are left unsure where the phrase came from.

Hope you can get more info from your child, other children or caregiver on this. It is disturbing, I'll agree.

my 5 yo autie still uses echolalia to communicate with me. at 4, he was starting to verbally interact more, but had very limited skills to do so. we had conversations daily, very short and usually the same one, over and over. he would say to me, "i love you but i hate bad guyses."

he still does this same thing, still daily but only once or twice a day. what i find is that there are times he wants to interact and communicate, but he still lacks the conversational skills. he has great difficulty with initiating conversation. at these times, he falls back on the tried and true sentences. these days his phrases are, "Mommy, i want to tell you something. i love you." every single day =)

My 5 yr old prefers talking to herself than initiating conversation with us, but she has discovered that when she asks for things she often gets what she wants. My daughter's use of pragmatic language has improved dramatically when she gets a toy, food, drink or an outing after using expressive language.

If you know a way of using this self interest to initiate conversation I'd love to know.