Misunderstandings

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I think that is what's most frustrating for both me and my son. He frequently bumps into people, or gets in their way. I know it's because he doesn't understand social rules, but man it stinks sometimes. We went to the school pet show/spring fair the other day and something happened between my son and another little girl. I *think* he may have stepped on or tripped over her feet... he wanted to see her cat that she had entered. I was right there, but I didn't see what happened.

Next thing I knew the girl was crying, and the mom announced loudly, "Did anyone see what happened?" She went on to say, "I think it was your son?" The girl was crying and I couldn't even understand what she was saying, my son absolutely refused to say he was sorry, because he "didn't do anything". He kept repeating that... and we were waiting for the final judging so I didn't want to leave. Besides, I didn't think he did anything major. The mom seemed like she wanted me to do something about it, but I didn't see what happened. I probably could have handled that better, but she caught me off guard.

Don't feel bad about this -- there really wasn't much you could have done under the circumstances, except apologize yourself for what may have happened. These things happen, and parents over-react when their child seems to be hurt. If you apologized, you did as much as you could have under the circumstances.

in kindergarten, i tripped a teacher's aide and she broke her wrist. i was so upset that i was supposed to apologize when she had so clearly tripped over me. it had to be explained to me that my actions could be seen by other people differently than i saw them. i was standing at the front of a line and when i saw her coming from the back to the front i jumped into a jumping jack position and said "no cuts!" and i'm not sure if she wasn't looking or if i was just that much shorter (she was a grown woman) and the next thing i knew she had tripped over my outstretched leg. i wouldn't apologize because i "hadn't done anything." i hadn't. i was standing still and she tripped over me. when she came back the next day she had bandages around her wrist and i did apologize but i was very resentful of being made to. it really crapped on the idea of an apology to me. it wasn't until at least a year later that my mother brought it up and i got upset about it again because she was using it as an example of my stubbornness.

she had to walk me through the situation in reverse, as if it was happening to me instead of her, to help me understand what had gone wrong. punishing me at the time was useless. even forcing me to apologize was more like punishment than penance. i think you did the right thing in doing nothing. it was likely a teachable moment but if you can't tell him what he did wrong, you can't really teach him how to deal with the situation.

i agree that, other than apologizing, you couldn't have really done anything else constructive.



in my opinion, there are only two problems in this world.
misunderstandings and escalation.

everything else stems from there.

Something I've said to my son is, "I know you didn't do anything, most of the time things happen and no one really is at fault, but when someone gets hurt and your presence has been a part of that, you need to acknowledge it and apologize so that they know you at least care they got hurt. No matter how confusing everything was that led up to it, the hurt is real and needs to be acknowledged."

All these years and he still doesn't really get it, but he will play out his part.

Exactly.

And I'm not sure what this says about me, but I couldn't make myself apologize to her either, because *I* didn't do anything, and I'm not sure my son did either. I tried getting him to apologize but when I pushed the issue, he started walking away. I do usually try though. It works when he can see that he did hurt the person.

I think stuff like this is normal for any kid, AS or NT. There are always things like this going on with kids.

I don't think there was anything else you could do, i like DW_a_moms approach to this sort of thing, and explaining that sometimes people see things differently and so we have to apologize even when we didn't do anything wrong, it's just a way of making people feel better.

Interesting point there...