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Autism and only children

TheCatWoman

I'm an only child and was the typical "lonely only", i only ever played wit one child before I went to school, where I was overwhelmed, obviously. But I wonder how being an only child affects autism? I think quite a few of things I really struggle with are made worse by being an only child, like my almost total lack of competitiveness, did I not learn competition because there was no one to compete with? I have an intellectual understanding of competitiveness, but it's not something I really feel, I'm far more likely to just walk away from competitive situations, I rarely have any sense of achievement either, more a feeling of 'oh well thats that then'. I think I'm also very highly affected by noise and other distractions, I know others are too.

It would be really good if there are any other only children here who are autistic?

Parents

  • I am an only child. I am quite competitive, however, to the extent that I no longer play card or board games, because I have recognised that I am a really bad loser. However, I think that being an only child, contrary to received wisdom, has made me more generous. Unlike my two children, I never went through the measuring the level of pop in a glass with a ruler, to ensure equal shares, phase.

    I think that having a sibling, especially an older sister, would have helped me to be more socially adept.

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  • I am an only child. I am quite competitive, however, to the extent that I no longer play card or board games, because I have recognised that I am a really bad loser. However, I think that being an only child, contrary to received wisdom, has made me more generous. Unlike my two children, I never went through the measuring the level of pop in a glass with a ruler, to ensure equal shares, phase.

    I think that having a sibling, especially an older sister, would have helped me to be more socially adept.

Children
  • in reply to Martin

    Thats interesting Martin, competition and competitivemess both confuse and scare me, you seem to have arrived on this planet with it and I didn't. I think being an only child has made me more generous too, maybe it was the shock of being called selfish at school, I wasn't, I just didn't really know how to share because I'd never had to do it before.

    Whan I had my own two children I was horrified because they fought all the time, I really beat myself up for being a terrible mother because my children appeared to hate each other, it took me a long time to realise this was normal.

    Being an only child dosent' mean you don't get compared unfavourabley to other children, it happens and it's horrible and you don't understand why.

    I'm not saying that to not be an only child would be better, just different, I do think there are lots of things you don't learn as an only child, like sitting down and having tea with someone you've just had a massive fight with.

    Before I had my diagnosis and was trying to find out more about myself, as well as a lot of negativity around only children anyway, I learnt about learning windows. From the research I read it would seem that there are periods in a persons development when their brains are open to learning particular things, like language for instance and social cues too. After a time of no stimulation it seems that these windows close and it's very very hard to open them again and people either fail to learn or they only become conciously competant. A lot of the research was based on feral children, those who had been brought up by animals, usually dogs, many came from Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was fascinating not just about what these children could tell us about our own "normal" development, but what they could tell us about the subtleties of canine communication.

    Has anyone else heard of learning windows, is it still a thing?