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Behaviour versus naughtiness

robey1978

Hi everyone,

I've just joined this forum in order to better understand my niece's behaviour. I'll give you a bit of background and hopefully you can help. I have 2 big sisters. My eldest has 2 kids. My nephew is 11 and my niece is 8. My niece has recently been diagnosed as having high functioning autism. She has a mental age of 5 1/2. Generally she is fine and has all the normal fights with her brother Etc. sometimes when she's not too happy I can see when it's her autism and not just her being naughty. It stands out. Other times I think she's being naughty and it's not her autism it's just her being a normal child and needing to be told off. 

My parents are very supportive to my sister and help her when they can but sometimes I don't think she gets told off enough. Everyone in the family puts all her behaviour down to autism and she gets away with a lot. My brother-in-law will tell her off and he takes a telling and generally when he tells her off that's the end of it. My sister tries to be more diplomatic with her and talk to her but sometimes I just think she needs told off. 

My wife and I have a 10 month old daughter and when we go round to my parents they enjoy spending time with her. When my sister is there with her kids my nephew loves spending time with her too. My niece did initially but now I think she's not so keen as she is seeing my daughter getting a lot of the attention from my parents. I think this is a normal reaction from a child. My parents or sister don't say anything and I bite my tongue but then she'll start saying things like, "she's making noise and it's annoying me" Again, I think this is a normal reaction from a child but not an acceptable reaction and they should be told so. My parents and sister don't say anything to her and I end up saying something then feeling a bit awkward as I'm the only one who's done so. My wife agrees with me but doesn't feel it's her place to say anything at my families home. 

I'd just like a bit of advice to see if what I'm doing is wrong or if there are other ways of dealing with it. I don't want my sister to think that she's a bad parent. It's quite the opposite. She's great with her and so patient but sometimes I think my niece gets away with murder and it's always put down to her autism. Any advice would be appreciated. 

Thanks

  • Thank you very much for your reply. It was very helpful. I thought it was a good point you made about the sensory issue with the noise and it just coming across wrong. Thanks again for your reply.

  • Autistic kids are certainly capable of misbehaving like anyone else - 'autistic' doesn't equal 'robot' or 'stupid' - so I'm sure she's naughty sometimes. It sounds like your main problem with her, though, is that she keeps saying tactless things and failing to understand somebody else's point of view. That's probably not deliberate naughtiness, that's just being autistic. 

    The fact that it's not deliberate naughtiness, though, doesn't mean it can't be addressed. The thing to remember is that autistic kids often do things for slightly different reasons than regular kids - and also that 'telling them off' often doesn't work. Too many words together can just confuse and overwhelm them, and then all they get is a general feeling of stress with no clear lesson, and then often behave worse because they're stressed. 

    Saying 'She's making noise and it's annoying me' could be jealousy, but it could also be a sensory issue; autistic kids very often are more sensitive to noise, and your niece might be trying to say what an adult might phrase as 'The noise she's making is really kicking off my sensory problems and I don't know what to do, please help me.' Or, if it's jealousy, it might be a way of asking for attention or reassurance that is, characteristically, not very tactfully phrased.

    I think that rather than assuming that a scolding will set her straight - trust me, it probably won't; you can use negative consequences but it needs to be very structured and as it'll be the parents' job to deal with the fallout it has to be their choice - you'd be better of tackling it with your sister as a shared problem that needs a creative solution. The main issue seems to be that when you bring your daughter round for a visit, your niece gets upset, either because she feels insecure or because the noise is causing some sensory problems. If, rather than telling your sister your niece is misbehaving, you take the line that she seems distressed and that while her little cousin doesn't understand it now it's probably wise to start them off on the best terms possible, and maybe we could work out exactly what's bothering her so we can address it... That'll probably go over better. 

    The question really, I think, is whether her problem with her cousin is autism-specific sensory problems, or autistically-expressed ordinary problems. It could be either, or a bit of both, and they need very different solutions, so get specific and find out which it is before you do anything else, is my advice. Believe me, I know autistic kids' behaviour can be maddening, but you have to get Zen about it or it just gets worse!