It's everyone else's fault!

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Hello everyone,

I am wondering if anyone else has had to deal with their aspie blaming everyone for things that theynever did? Example: DS has a very bad habit of misplacing his things and it never fails he will say well someone took it, but then what ever he lost will still be where he had it last. Lately he has been losing his homework once finished with it and then he will blame me for losing it even though I will have yet to see the homework in order to check it. Yesterday he forgot his report card at my mother's house and became angry saying we lost it. My mother pointed out that she told them to get their things around to bring home and he left it... we had to go back to get it since it needed to be signed and turned back in today and when we got there it was right where he had left it... he knew right where to go to get it. This morning he blamed me again for him not having his homework... he did his homework while at my mother's and I am sure he left it there but it is my fault.

This blaming other's falsly really gets under my skin. You can be watching him do something that he is doing wrong and he will say I NEVER did that, but you just watched him do it. Example: hitting his younger brother... you JUST watched him do it but he did not do it and it was his brothers fault!?! I don't get this at all.

I know that his birth father had AS (undx) and this man never had anything to do with DS but yet ds does the same things that his birth father did. His birth father blamed all his bad choices on everyone else... the things this man did wrong were NEVER his fault he always blamed someone else.

Is anyone else having this same problem? If you have had to deal with this how can you help them stop doing this and help them see how to handle things better than blaming everyone else? Thank you!

My son used to blame me whenever he hurt himself. Every time he tripped over something or bumped into something, he would rage against me like it was my fault. We would have to discuss it every time, because I didn't want him to get into the pattern of blaming me or others for everything that goes wrong in life.

He doesn't blame others excessively now. I think blaming others is common to executive function disorders.

My son does this, too.

His counselor has said that to admit he's done something wrong is to admit that he is less than perfect and his ego won't allow him to do that.

Whether or not I believe that or not....


Ds is now 15 and still does it when he gets into trouble in school. BUT there have been many times where he was set up to do things - someone told him to throw the milk carton - he just doesn't see that in the end, HE and HE ALONE is responsible for his actions. Doesn't matter if someone tells you to do it, you know on some level its wrong and if YOU do it, YOU will be held responsible. We're still working on it. I think, too, he just does some of the things kids tell him to do so he will be their friend. He doesn't see that he is an 'easy target'.

Im likely struggling with ADD and have all my life. The share frustration you get from loosing track of thing is pretty big. Therefore the need to blame someone. Im not saying its right, I've come to face that its not anyone else's fault. I probably always realized,
but when faced with the worst frustration you dont see clearly. Just bear with your son he will probably come around. Do continue telling that you are not the one to blame for his problems. And try to keep calm even though his blaming you.

Its pretty hard to realise that matter how hard you try you ultimately keep failing. That's how I felt, atleast many times. If lost my busscard in the morning. I could (if lucky) expect a sour face or (if not so lucky) getting yelled at. I've always been a source of a delay and its not nice to feel that way.
Maybe getting yelled at helped me finally getting some routine, I dont know. I know one thing though, it made me feel horrible.

Maybe Omega-3 will help. It helped me. Much more focused know.

sry for posting in the parents forum. I just felt that this was something I could relate to.

Bolle47, thank you. You were helpful and I understand that ds is very frustrated, but I have always been the type that you just do not blame people for your choices (even when I was younger) and it can drive me nuts when he does this. I love him dearly though no matter what.

I will have to look up and read about Executive disfunction (is that right?) again and read about that. I need to get a better understanding as to what is going on so that I can stay calm and be more understanding on where he is coming from, but I definetly need him to start understanding his part in things.

Unfortunately in school ds is an easy target as well and the other kids will set him up but usually it is the other kids hitting/kicking him and when he reacts they make sure he is the only one getting caught. We have had to tell him to not react any more due to he was the only one ever getting in trouble when the bullies were going after him. and that makes me mad since I believe he has a right to defend himself when he needs to since the school acts like nothing ever happens.

I have such a hard time taking criticism, it is physically painful. I used to always do this when I was powerless in a situation.

Teacher assigns homework
Mom reminds to complete it
Mom checks it
Teacher expects it to be turned in

None of these things are instigted by the child, he has no real power in this situation, so if things go wrong how could he blame himself.

Think of it like a soldier in the Vietnam war. He was drafted, forced to go to basic training, forced to go over and walk through a jungle, and forced to fight against people he did not know. He walks out into a field without doing proper scouting first... Who did he blame when he was shot? Himself for being a bad soldier? No, he blames the US government for putting him in a situation where he could fail.

I am not trying to compare the two situations, obviously I don't think you are awful for having your son in school, just trying to explain how he feels with an easier analogy.

It wasn't till I was older and had complete control of my life (age 19 or 20) that I was able to own up to my mistakes OR my accompishments. I would never take credit... I was way at the top of my class in honor role, etc by the end of high school, I earned a full acedemic scholorship to the school I chose... yet I still would not take credit... I would be like "yeah well the classes were easy, or the teachers liked my writing"

I still have trouble taking blame and taking credit unless I had complete control of a situation and face it a child in school has no control over the situation, and does not deserve culpability.

Well, the reason we start out little is so we can't destroy the world until we're grown up and have hopefully learned to be decent humans. Parenting means taking little barbarians and turning them into bigger civilized people.
Your son has a nasty habit that I was going to say is not related to asperger's and then I thought about my childhood, and, noooooo, I did that as a child. Um, as a young adult. I'm so ashamed. I've only stopped recently.
So, um, you have your work cut out for you. Stay rational and calm. Part of what he does is frustration. Part is trying to defer punishment (even if only internal berating) for doing a bad thing. If someone else did it, then he won't have to beat up on himself. I have a hunch you will need to reassure him that you love him even when he makes mistakes, and that confessing mistakes means fixing mistakes without blame and shame.
I had a grandson who would never own up to anything bad, until he finally learned I did not hate him for goof-ups (unfortunately I was out of his life for a few years while drug-addicted mom made his life hell) So when he told me he had kicked over my bonsai tree, I thanked him profusely for telling me right away, and when I went to see the damage, I said, "Wow! When you kick things over, you don't fool around!" and then calmly got the broom and asked him to bring over the garbage can. Since then, he has been much more relaxed around me. (I had to go somewhere quiet to mourn my sweet little tree.)

Last edited by lelia on 24 Jan 2008, 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Wow, that is a really heart breaking view of the most important people on the planet.

You think that's heartbreaking, and not simply realistic? Huh. I'll have to think about that one.
I've raised five children and now play with three grandchildren.

Well, how about this? Everyone's right!
I hadn't really looked at denial in the sense of lacking control. My son has a real issue with denial and it's creating a lot of problems. It's not just with "behavior" but with conversations, opinions, and accidents. I'm really at my wit's end with it.

My son seems to be hurt when we don't share the same opinion. He's always trying to force me to like something he likes. The thing is, I don't do the same to him. I expose him to things I like, but I don't say, "this is good" or "this is normal". My parents did that and would belittle me for liking different things, no matter how benign. (like not putting salt and sour cream on potatoes)

I see these things as inter-related because his speech patterns are the same. I just don't want him to get in this belief system that I don't love him because I don't like Super Paper Mario.

i remember saying someone else had done it when i was smaller only trouble was i was an only child, i didnt want to lie i didnt like feeling i was upsetting my mum, i couldnt understand what i had done wrong{i never used to think through to the consequences stage] i just knew that certain actions made people act in ways that made me feel insecure is the best way i can put it , the safeness goes and suddenly your trying to figure out whether someones cross confused upset or just pissed at you, but you not sure why as you try to be good and remember things so when you forget and someone gets upset with you then you want someone else to take the blame so every thing can go back to feeling normal for you. bwell thats how i used to feel anyway.

MelO1, what you said is fascinating. You gave us a lot to think about.

the times I blamed someone was to even the score. For example if I got in trouble because my sister lied and said I did something, then the next time i'd fall I would say she pushed me. (Unfortunately I wasn't able to make the connection that she actually needed to be at home when i fell for this story to be believable, and so i felt people were "doubly" against me. First because they believed whatever my sister said, second because they refused to believe what I said)

As for your son, I wonder if his problem stems from egocentric thinking. If you didn't make him do his homework in the first place, it wouldn't have been lost, so its your fault. The "we" lost it, as a way of keeping himself from having to face the utter and total embarassment of it being solely his fault. And with most people saying "we" did this results in them saying something like "ok lets look for it" while saying "I" did this results in getting yelled at for your actions. So "We" is a much safer term to use than I

OH, gosh yes, my son does this. He will trip on a toy and blame his dad. He very rarely confesses honestly about anything, even when no one is trying to "blame" him for anything bad. Like when he falls, my response is "Honey, are you OK?", and he'll launch straight into "It's Dada's fault!"

It's really frustrating, quite honestly. And nothing we've tried has worked to get him to stop. It worries me that he'll go running off to the grandparents and say things like "mama is trying to kill me!". The "you're killing me" thing usually occurs when he can't play video games because he has to do his homework.

Argh. I'll be watching this thread for ideas on how to deal with this!

Then why are grown-ups the ones destroying the world? I think children show infinitely more kindness, empathy, sympathy, patience, honesty, and purity of spirit than adults. A child will have an honest temper tantrum if you disappoint them, but they will not call your boss and demand that you be fired. They may get into a fight and hit each other, but they will not send others to die for them. If you are sad, they won't send you a Hallmark sympathy card, but they will hug your knees and cry with you. I think parenting means taking little innocent people and fine-tuning their manners and self-control so they become civilized people without losing their kindess and honesty.

I didn't (and sometimes still) don't want to admit I did something wrong because then I would feel stupid and I have a lot invested in being intelligent.

But I had a thing where I would neither accept blame myself or blame another PERSON for what happened. It would just be bad "luck" that something got lost or a bad thing happened.

Also, when I did well, I put it down to luck or easy work rather than any particular good qualities within myself.

I also get frightened when people disagree with my point of view and feel I have to defend it to the very last (not on all subjects but just those I consider really important).
Sometimes it seemed to me that other people disagreed just to be disagreeable, particularly if they initially agreed with what I said.

So, I think the important thing is not to accept blame from a child if their homework is lost. If they don't hand it in and get into trouble, they might be more careful next time.