Did your parents ever train your social skills?

Post Reply New Topic

I forgot exactly when, I think it was less than a year ago, my mom would train me to talk for at least 30 seconds without stopping. Sometimes she would ask me to randomly start talking about stuff and other times she would say something and then she will be like "ok, at least a 30 second response".

For some reason I found it really tricky. My mind would always be blank without anything to say. Sometimes I would only have 1-word answers. She even went as far as saying "doesn't matter how foolish your statements are, just start talking."

Its weird because I can say quite a bit on certain topics of interest, but then when I'm done what I needed to say, I'm done for the day. I can't be flexible and keep responding with long answers regardless of what the other person says. So pretty much my thoughts come in "spurts" and when I've expressed my thoughts, it may take a few hours before more thoughts come to my mind.

I often came from school and cried, so I got many advices what to do when kids... or you can tell them...
I got also advices how to blend with people, why should I pretend I like the same things and it's wrong to tell people all the truth.
I used to ask how to talk by the phone. I wrote all, including Good morning!. I still do it, but not as exactly as before, I write only must-be-said list.
I also often ask if sth is good or bad for me.

When I was a kid, the social rule of thumb was : Children are to be seen and not heard, so any child who prattled nonstop at an adult for 30 seconds or more would usually have been told to STFU. My folks did, however, stress things like eye contact, firm handshakes, terms of respect like 'Sir' and 'Ma'am', common 'please' and 'thank you' etiquette and that neither tantrums and/or meltdowns in public would not be tolerated - period.

As far as friend-making strategies, not so much, but like you with the stream-of-consciousness talking exercise, I don't think that would have made any significant changes in my behavior.

I don´t think that my parents trained my social skills. I think that they even made them worse by not allowing me to go out with friends or not allowing me to travel with friends. They were very authoritarian. That way I got alone and couldn´t practice my social skills.

Considering my dad is a stereotypical "Aspie" (although undiagnosed)....uh. NO

ugh, sorry for the duplicate post.

I am not sure if it was a training, but I was ecouraged a lot by my relatives (not my parents) to have a social life they liked. They made me playing in a basketball team for example so it would make me self-confident.

My parents tried to teach me social skills, but after awhile they just gave up.

No one knew I was autistic when I was a kid, but my mum did help me out on certain things. The thing she helped me with the most was sarcasm. I just didn't quite understand it but she taught me how to use and understand it. Obviously I am not perfect and still miss sarcasm sometimes but I'm sure she helped. She taught me about similes as well, although metaphors I found much more difficult. Again though, I believe her teaching me helped as I am now looking at an A-B grade on my English course!

Poor mum tried to teach me and my brother manners... that didnt go quite so well...

_________________
I have HFA, ADHD, OCD & Tourette syndrome. I love animals, especially my bunnies and hamster. I skate in a roller derby team (but I'll try not to bite )

Beyond lecturing/yelling at me after a social mistake? NO.

But I did get to sit through my mom's laments about my poor social skills and hear how she wished she held me back in kindergarten to work on social things. Along with the questioning of why didn't i go out to parties like my brother? (that usually just got me to tattle on my brother's drinking to remove the focus from myself).

I'm fairly sure that both my parents are Aspies and have far worse social skills than I do.

Oh, I got lots of manners training - the sir/ma'am drill, soup spoon use, telephone manners, standing up straight, etc. Some of it came from a very small school I attended, some from my family, especially my grandparents. One time I got in soooo much trouble for not returning a preacher's hand shake. He had weird palms - I couldn't handle it. When I was little learning manners was fun. By the time I was a teenager, my dad and stepmom tried to redirect my behavior with nasty comments and name calling. I wouldn't recommend the technique.

This is interesting because my son tells me he has pretty much the same issue with getting words out. He says that he has a brain that's like a computer, and a mind, and they work together to put together the puzzle (that's 100 pieces and looks like toad from super mario ). He also has good germs and bad germs that battle, and when the good germs win the battle they change the bad germs to good, and then his mind and his brain can work to put the puzzle together "in time" and he is able to get his words out and sound like normal kids. When the bad germs take over the good germs, then they lock up his brain and his mind so they can't put the puzzle together. When the puzzle can't be put together his words don't come out right and he can't talk.

I have him (me, my husband, his teachers, his daycare provider) working with a speech/social skill therapist and she says he can express himself fine in a small, calm controlled environment but with his friends he gets anxious and can't think and it's hard for him to communicate because he is worried about how his words come out.

I'm trying like hell to teach my son social skills, at least enough not to get beat up and maybe have a friend or 2. Things like you can't hit people, boss them around, try to enforce my rules on everyone else, control everything..that kind of get along stuff without being yelled at, called names or getting tossed across the playground. It's really hard. I never realized how hard social skills are until you try to teach someone. It's no wonder you guys have such a hard time!

My mom always changes the subject when I bring it up, but I'm pretty sure she's somewhere on the spectrum hahaha. So no, she never helped me out socially.
She did, however, point out a lot of the weird physical things I did, so I've been able to work on those. She trained me to swing my arms when I walk, not flail around in public, all that sort of stuff.
The emotional emulation training mostly came from one of my NT ex-boyfriends hahaha.

_________________
I'm an author and public speaker on autism, gender, and sexuality
Read my articles @ http://kirstenlindsmith.wordpress.com
Follow updates @ https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kirsten- ... 9135232493

My parents focused mostly on teaching me to control my temper. I have one hell of a temper and when I'm set off I can lose control. I even hit a girl once, in 6th grade. Mostly I just shout and argue and end up crying because there is just too much emotion to release any other way. I got endless lectures around the theme, "You have to learn to control your temper."

As for social skills...well, I always had friends. Not a lot of friends and I was not popular, but I had a couple school friends and two very close friends on my block. I don't think they were worried about my social skills and they think that being different from everyone else is a good thing. They taught me proper manners, but since they did not know I struggled with body language or nuanced speech, they did not help me develop those skills, and those are the two biggies that hold me back socially. (Plus, I flirt very well and did from a pretty early age, so they probably assumed I did know body language!)

People are more forthright on the East Coast to begin with (where they live and where I grew up), and for another, both of my parents believe strongly in saying what you mean, rather than skirting around it or hinting, so that is how I was raised to speak. Here in the Midwest, my blunt and honest manner is considered rude and pretty much abnormal, so people assume I'm using nuanced speech and think I'm saying something I'm not. It causes a lot of communication issues on both ends! My husband does not want to live on the East Coast (he's uncomfortable there, as he grew up in the Midwest), but I sure hope we end up on the West Coast someday; I'm told being upfront is acceptable out there, too!