attempting to finish everyone's sentences

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my soon to be 12 year old has this obnoxious habit of...

a. cutting you off while you are speaking

b. trying to finish your sentences, even when he has no clue as what you are about to say

c. saying "I know, I know, you don't have to tell me"... again, even when he has no clue as what you are about to say

So far I have tried...

a. explaining to him how rude and obnoxious it is

b. yelling at him when he does it

c. stopping him, and saying "ok, if you know everything I was about to say, please tell me"

d. punishing him when it happens (no TV, no internet, etc)

So far nothing has really worked, and he continues to do it. For example, his mom just sold a bunch of stuff for him on ebay, and they were in the process of discussing the total sale price, minus the shipping, listing fees, etc. I wanted to suggest that we create a separate ebay/paypal account for his stuff, so that he can keep track of all of his sales/fees etc.

I chimed in with "I think going forward, we should..."

him - "I know, I know, I have to give mom the fees"

me - "no, what I was going to say is that..."

him - "I only get $250 out of the $350, I know, you don't have to go over it again"

me - "STOP. STOP SPEAKING, AND LISTEN. You have no idea what I am about to say. Going forward, I want you to set..."

him - "yeah, yeah, yeah... the money needs to go into the bank for summer camp... you don't have to tell me again"

At that point I just lost my cool, yelled a bit, and stormed back into my office. His mom came in crying. It isn't like this is the first time that this has happened, he does it constantly.

I know that social skills can be a challenge, does anyone have any suggestions on how to curb this behavior?

I know someone who does that and she knows it drives me nuts but she says she can't help it and the words are out of her mouth before she realizes she's talking. It's like she can't stop from thinking out loud. She doesn't understand why I get irritated and tells me just to keep talking over her but it makes me lose my train of thought. The thing that really throws me off is she's usually wrong about what she thinks I'm going to say. It's not like I'm giving long pauses, she interrupts me mid sentence. I guess I don't know what to tell you except I commiserate with you. She is mid to late 20's so maybe if you start early you can help him overcome this thing. However, I wonder if anger, however understandable, may make him anxious and prone to do it more.

Generally, most people would say that I have the patience of an angel. Anger and frustration don't come into play right away, it normally takes a lot for me to lose my cool.

I didn't intend to scold that was an afterthought. I was thinking about how my friend said she couldn't control it and that got me thinking about tics and how people said the more focus on it makes it worse.

My husband and I, who both have ADHD, are both terrible interrupters and sentence-finishers. We both are guilty of doing it constantly to each other! Awareness of our problem helps, but it's so hard NOT to!

When your son is in a calm, happy mood, perhaps you could have a talk with him about how, when he interrupts and finishes sentences, it is annoying to the other person, especially if he jumps to conclusions and doesn't let you tell him what you were actually trying to say at all. Don't have this talk immediately after an incident. Wait until you're both in a calm, reasonable mood.

If you tell him how aggravating this is while you are in the middle of it, it will go in one ear and out the other. Perhaps, during your conversation about the problem, set up a code word that you can say when he begins interrupting in a conversation. And please realize that for compulsive interrupters, especially with atypical brain structures, it's INCREDIBLY hard for us to curb our impulse to finish your sentence even if we are incredibly aware that it's one of our big problem areas. So bear with us! It's a little bit like uncontrollable diarrhea sometimes.

I like c. best.

My ADHD makes this a struggle for me. I usually only do it when I'm very nervous or if someone is being annoyingly slow (it may not be their fault they are slow, but it is still annoying). I had a boss who used to make it really hard not to do by having frequent looooong pauses when he spoke. He didn't do it all the time just when he was talking to me. He'd wait till I had something important to talk to him about, tell me he only had 5 minutes, then do this slow talking routine. It was a passive aggressive thing. He didn't do it at other times or to other people.

As for your son, humor (as in answer c. if you do it with a twinkle in your eye) might help. When people are on the defense they are less able to learn new skills or absorb new information. Fear and defensiveness are impediments to learning. Joking about it a little with him when he does it might help him work on changing. New habits take a while to form. If you are really consistent and keep on him, gently and lovingly, for about 30 days, he may begin to form new habits. If it's ADHD or some other neurological thing it may take longer or more radical efforts.

Update:

Last night my son and I sat down, and I asked him about his day. Each time he started saying something like "After school I..." I blurted out something like "went bike riding?", "went swimming at your friend's house?", "raked leaves?"

My answers got more and more outrageous, eventually he became frustrated... and then a lightbulb went off and he said "I see what you are doing"

We had a long discussion on why this was such a bad habit, and how it makes other people feel when he does it. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction

If he is very impulsive that could be an indicator ADHD. Basically you can't say it fast enough to hold his attention.