The Biggest Social Mistake Is Taking It All Too Seriously

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I think this is good advice for parents raising an ASD child as well. Knowing when not to care is the most important social skill and is often neglected.

The most important thing to know is not to take things too seriously. Thinking too much about socializing is counterproductive to your social success.

In other words, not every single thing other people think about you is actually important.

Everybody will sometimes think: "that was rude", "that was strange", "that was stupid", etc. about pretty much everyone they meet some of the time.

Even if most people think certain unflattering things about you it's not necessarily important. People know they have their own flaws themselves and are more accepting than they might seem. If everybody see you as rude/dumb/overly verbose/etc. but with redeeming qualities that they like it's not important to worry about it.

Stressing out over "what is that person thinking? Yikes, I just saw that expression what does it mean? OMG, did I just really say that, will people remember it(and then thinking about it in the future during social interactions, I've been down that road before)?" is counterproductive to social success.

My advice, if some aspect of socializing is really that bad learn some things about it, but when actually socializing learn from practice. Let it go while you socialize instead of thinking "OK, what did I learn..." let yourself use what ever you have learned and think about naturally. If it doesn't work out at first just be patient and keep at it. If you made a mistake in the past reflecting on it when you're alone might be a good idea, but even then don't over do it. Anything that just happened in the past even a second ago should be put to the back of your mind while you focus on the present.

I've never had social skills training but I've heard a lot of it overdoes it. Wasting time on minor eccentricities is going to take time away from learning the important social skills and raise the child to be anxious, neurotic, and to have low self esteem. Besides that a person who hides all their eccentricities will come across to others as dull and boring.

Few things not to worry about: Do not worry about posture unless its causing health problems, if it doesn't interfere significantly with communication don't even worry about speech oddities, don't worry about the way you walk, don't worry about style of clothing or hairstyle. A lot of these things seem important in high school, but none of them are important for life.

Besides trying to normalize everything will just lead you to a place where you have no idea of who you are anymore. Sense of personal identity is important for psychological well-being.

okay...while i believe your "advice" was written with good intention, i do disagree with some of your points.

it seems to me either you are in a really good mood and are loving everything about life and decided to write this advice in the most simple, straightforward, kind way as possible. or this advice was written to smooth away the hard edges of various difficulties that people have while socializing. and yes while its true, social skills can be learned by some and be effectively used in one's life, in reality, more than likely an individual's multitude of social difficulties/eccentricities or other abnormalities cannot be cured or just disappear just like that. and while autism is on a spectrum meaning not all autistics will essentially have the exact same problems and therefore can not be thrown together to follow one set of advice or rules for proper care, attention, etc or the proper social skills training. its a spectrum.

. i think if you make such a bold claim that a lot of training is overkill, i would expect to see some evidence to back up such a claim, and if not, it is just an opinion thrown in to be viewed upon as thats the way it is fact. which of course, it is not.

okay......but then before that statement you said . it seems to me you are saying two different things. In one way, you are saying to allow the child to have their eccentricities and let them be as they are....but then you are also saying that wasting time on eccentricities is going to raise the child to be anxious, neurotic, and to have low self esteem. so then i must assume that you believe that being eccentric means we are anxious, neurotic, and we have low self esteem. that is a very unfair, ignorant generalization/accusation of complete strangers, dont you think?

. ....i gotta tell you this seems to be completely irrelevant as a mere mention of broad medical advice and/or hypothetical circumstances , that can be completely different and entirely explained by something like a medical condition/birth defect/ car accident injuries, etc and has absolutely f*****g nothing to do with autism . at all. its almost like you are saying that all autistics are odd in appearance, speech, posture, etc. and then you thrown in about clothing style or hairstyle. i dont get your point.


i think in the end, you were telling us to think about all these different things which one after another are contradicting and or completely irrelevant to autism. and then you end it by saying having a self identity is essential to psychological well-being. okay...well how do people go about that if we are told to not be eccentric and dont worry about this or that and dont overkill the training and/or you might raise a child to be neurotic, anxious, and with low self-esteem. so i guess in the end, we are supposed to have a perfect identity with as little as difficulty as possible which makes no f*****g sense at all. and it has nothing to do with autism. at all. so again, while i believe this was written with good, honest intentions, i just felt the need to point out some of the logical gaps in your advice.

Dunno about biggest, but yes, taking it too seriously is gonna hurt ya.

I meant the parents and therapists wasting time trying to change eccentricities that aren't actually a problem. I wasn't talking about the child wasting time being eccentric. Reread it again with this clarification and it will make sense.

. ....i gotta tell you this seems to be completely irrelevant as a mere mention of broad medical advice and/or hypothetical circumstances , that can be completely different and entirely explained by something like a medical condition/birth defect/ car accident injuries, etc and has absolutely f***ing nothing to do with autism . at all. its almost like you are saying that all autistics are odd in appearance, speech, posture, etc. and then you thrown in about clothing style or hairstyle. i dont get your point.[/quote]

I never said the word "all". I personally do have a kind of odd speaking style and walk funny and my own personal sense of aesthetics for clothing that differs from the norm. My parents didn't know I had AS but I remember being very annoyed if they took these things seriously. My parents are drama queens who would nitpick over everything and it almost drove me crazy.