PDD 10 year old son so self-centered

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Hi all,
My son is 10 years old (diagnosed at 4 yrs old), and is an otherwise pretty bright, funny kid who does enjoy spending time with friends, his X-Box, and our pets. My latest big concern is how he goes out of his way to be mean to his younger brother and his total lack of concern for anyone but himself. For instance, they will be playing a video game, and if my older son doesn't like what his brother is doing, he just shuts off the X-Box without saving the game, or he'll say something really mean to him in front of friends, or break a toy. When we call him on it, he says "It was an accident! I didn't mean it!" Which I know is total BS. He also insists on being first through a doorway, no matter who he pushes out of the way to get there. He also NEVER does anything nice for anyone without being asked. When I ask him why it seems that he only thinks of himself, he say "It just feels right". That scares me - he has no concern for anyone else, or just simple civil behaviour. He gets away with it now as a kid, but how do I explain to him that if he doesn't make an effort as an adult, people will just think he's a real jerk and want nothing to do with him? Has anyone else had any success on trying to teach empathy, or is it just something that will never happen? Thanks for listening.

Have you letting him get away with behavior like this all his life?
If so, that is why he continues these behaviors, but you can stop letting him get away with it now.

I think it would be a good idea to teach him how to follow rules.

And that rules don't always have an explanation as to why.

Autism has "auto" or "self" embedded in the word, so that is part of the deal.

That said, it doesn't mean that they can't develop theory of mind, but it is a process. It is best to think about it in terms of addressing specific situations like what you describe as opposed to viewing it as self-centered which has a lot of character-issue baggage and negative connotations.

I don't know what your son's developmental age is, but it is likely not 10. A lot of people on here use a 2/3s rule, but some of us have kids under that. Expecting him to do spontaneous good things for people may be unrealistic, and anyway how do you enforce spontaneous? That defeats what spontaneous is. It is like when my S-I-L "told" her husband to "spontaneously" get her flowers while they were at the market. She could have just got her own. If it is the thought that counted, it didnt, b/c he didn't have the thought until she put it there and demanded it.

Anyway, you can call them on B.S, and they should understand that. You explain behavior based on logic and on rules, when the logic isn't there or they don't care about the same things you care about, but it is still important. You can let unimportant things go until another iteration.

We might have problem seeing how other people feel when they send clues but it doesn't mean we can't understand how they feel once we know the cause. That's not empathy we lack, its social imagination.

You must teach the boy to think before he acts. He doesn't have to see how his brother or other people might feel. He just has to think how HE would feel if someone shut the X-Box when HE was playing, said something mean about HIM, broke HIS toy or pushed HIM on the way to door. That's all the empathy he needs: he has to assume everyone feels the same way he would feel if someone done it to him.

Hopefully he gets it and does his best to stop his behavior. Occasional mistakes are fine but he has to seem sorry afterwards - he must stop his "it just feels right" attitude. If he doesn't seem to get it for a while - don't give up and explain, explain, explain whenever he does something wrong till he gets it.

If it continues despite A LOT of explaining and he doesn't seem even a little bit sorry... it may sound mean but he would use some bullying for reference in that case. Turn off the X-Box when he is playing, say something mean about him, attempt to break his toy (no need to break it, just make him think you are going to break it), push him off when he goes to the door. And once he makes a fuss wait till he calms down, tell him to remember the feeling he is feeling and explain that other people feel exactly the same way when he is mean to them. If he happen to say "I don't care what others feel!" answer: "Then I won't care how you feel either" and act like you don't care for a while. That should be enough to teach him that in social life what you give is what you get.

Above method is the last resort though. Try just only explaining first and do the "bullying for reference" only when he really doesn't seem to get it any other way. You say he is bright so just explanations - perhaps repeated a few times - should be enough.

This sounds familiar to me when I was a kid and my mom didn't let me get away with it. She always gave me consequences and it took me years to learn to be a better person. I was in 6th grade when I finally started to think of others than wanting to have things my way and have it be my way or the highway. I got more flexible and I felt good inside because I felt like a good person. I also think it took time for my brain to develop before I was able to finally get it and start doing it. I was just slower than others. I guess that is why they call it a developmental disorder because we mature slower than others.

Also my mom told me my therapist I saw in 5th grade taught me about feelings of others. My mom didn't know how to do everything herself so she took me to a therapist for answers. I can remember as a young child I couldn't understand how my best friend didn't like books or Polly Pockets and I remember thinking she was strange and how could she not like Disney movies I like. I still thought she liked them because I did so I would make her do what i wanted to do. I was pretty bossy as a child. But I matured and then got it. I was just slow and this is normal behavior in toddlers but I was eight and seven when I was doing this so this wasn't normal so I came off as bossy to other kids and wanting things my way.

I also think your son could be trying to avoid trouble by claiming it was an accident. I would always lie by denying things to try and stay out of trouble but it never worked most of the time but even being honest about it, I still would have been in trouble so my logic was to keep on lying because there was no point in telling the truth if you will get in trouble.

I do wonder if my mom knew if this was what was going on, if things would have been easier and back then I didn't even bother to tell her what I thought because I never thought about it.

About not doing nice things unless asked, it may not occur to him to do it and he doesn't know what others want unless they tell him. I don't even know what others want unless they tell me. It's not going to occur to me to go down to the basement and ask my husband if there is anything he needs when he is sick.

That is what my mom did to me. She gave me a taste of my own medicine to show me how it feels. She has bitten me, pinched me, spat in my face, sprayed me with a hose, threw my game pieces off the Candyland board, choked me, all because I was doing these things and wouldn't stop and she had given me other consequences and none of them worked so she did them back to me. This would normally be considered child abuse but she did it as a lesson and this is pretty common in parents. They do stuff back to their kids to teach them.

Thanks everyone - Your responses have helped my perception of the "why". I'm guilty of feeling like I've done something wrong as a parent, and I suppose I have in not recognizing limitations and realizing that we're only human. My son and I have had a few really good discussions about this, and I think we've come to a bit more of an understanding. We are working on a the concept of doing one nice thing for someone without being asked. We've developed a list of things that could be done for people who are central to our lives so that there is no guess work about what to do and who to do it for. I've seen him do this once or twice now, and when I asked how he felt, he said at first he was nervous, but then he felt good when he was thanked

your are kind for making the effort to help him