8 year old son not understanding that I’m the parent

Yeah, it’s usually strong emotions or overload that push me into meltdown 

Honestly, it totally baffles me, some of the things I just don’t understand. I’m a metaphysician so I delve into all areas of my subconscious mind and the only explanation I have for these totally blind spots and the way my brain works, is autism. Even the experts don’t know more than this yet. And we really are at the centre of our own little worlds but it’s taken me years and years of inner work to be able to see that and still somehow, have a relationship with the outside world. 

An example of a common occurrence in my life as a kid. I would be screaming and shouting at my mum, telling her I hate her and to go away. Yet inside I was crying and saying, please help me, I love you so much, please don’t leave me, I don’t know what’s happening. I remember crying when our rabbit died and I was so disgusted at what was happening to me, I locked myself away and cried, I wouldn’t let anybody see me and I vowed never to let this happen to me again. I didn’t know what was happening to me. To me it was disgusting and horrible. It was like when I eat and it feels disgusting when the food is inside me ~ which it still does to this day, unless I eat raw food ~ but this crying thing was something else as well and I had no idea what it was. I used to ask for elocution lessons when I was a kid. I come from a Yorkshire speaking family, and they thought I was mad, but to me, learning to talk felt really important. So when I didn’t get the lessons, I would throw all presents back at them, days later when they finally managed to get me to open them, and I would be so confused? Why in the hell did they get me this ***? My mum used to be terrified when I went to my dads works Christmas party every year, because they gave you a present and my mum knew that if they gave me a doll I would go mad and probably attack the Father Christmas, because I would think what are these idiots doing, giving me *** I don’t want. It was as clear as a dew drop to me, that if you’re going to give somebody a present, make sure it’s what they want. Hard hard could it be? 

It’s a funny world some of us live in, but if you’re ever unsure of what he’s trying to tell you, let me know because I can usually tell. I didn’t know what was really happening in my world, for years, but it’s all falling into place since I got the diagnosis. And my memory is like a hd video, stored in my mind, and I can even remember what I was thinking back then, when I didn’t even know what I was thinking at the time. It’s weird. I never even knew why I had to go to school so sometimes I just wouldn’t go, if I didn’t want to and when I was there, I did what I wanted. I’m not sure if I’d get away with it today. But it wasn’t because I was naughty, I just genuinely did not know why I was there or what it was all about and if I asked questions, they thought I was being rude or naughty or something. I used to wonder if the other kids in the play ground actually enjoyed what they were doing or if that was even possible. I used to wonder about how they seemed to know what to do, where to stand, what to laugh at etc. Yet I was bright and intellligent so I guess they just thought I knew what was happening and I was just a naughty kid. I pieced my language together through a combination of reading and watching tv so often times, I’ll say things and people will all think I know what I’m talking about, but I haven’t got a clue but I know how to deflect the conversation, I just ask people open ended questions about them and appear interested. 

So you could say to me, I need to eat to keep my energy levels up and that means zero to me. I can do nothing with that, it just doesn’t make sense. But in my burnout, I started playing a game on my phone, it could even be a kids game, it was easy but I enjoyed it, I’ve never really played games on my phone before. And I noticed a pattern. When I didn’t eat or drink, I couldn’t win the levels, and when I did eat and drink, I could and when I rested as well, I didn’t even want to play the game, I wanted to go for a walk. So in that, I learned why I needed to eat and drink. That was last year and I’m just now starting to work on it with my support worker. We’re going to get me to eat and drink regularly, so I can fast regularly. I’ve trained as a raw food coach but I won’t practice that until I learn how to eat myself! It’s like, if I don’t want to eat or drink, for whatever reason, then I won’t and won’t think nothing of it until I have a migraine or whatever and even then I don’t care, I’ll just take tablets, even though I’m working towards being drug free! It’s like if I’ve got it in my head to not do something, it’s like it’s impossible to get me to do it because I can’t ever see a single reason to do it. It’s a weird thing because I can talk about it, but in that moment, of deciding to eat or not, all that matters is what I want to do in that moment and I become blind to anything and everything else. It’s not an easy mind to grasp but it’s a beautiful mind, like all minds, when they’re given the space to flourish, grow and express themselves. Much love to you and your family X

A social story might help. They can be very effective with some children. You can find generic ones online but the ones that work best are personalised. The child usually likes them because it is a book about them. They end with a reward for the desired behaviour to positively reinforce it.

NAS39248 I completely sympathise with you, we sound like we are in very similar situations. 

BlueRay, you have completely opened my eyes!! Thank you. It has never occurred to me from your point/my sons point of view, it has been a very educational experience reading your replies. This is why I came on here. 

Although I know a little about the spectrum as I also work with children, I never realised that his/your brain would even not understand commands or asks. It now makes a lot more sense to me and I will strive to improve my communication and understanding of my little boy . Thank you  

I know that mimicking me is one thing however when she is giving details and instructions that I have not used then she understands. Certainly some things can be explained by your reasoning but it doesn't always apply to her.

Her meltdowns come from pure overload of one emotion be it anger or something else strangely confusion is not something that triggers a meltdown for her at least 

By telling her sister, in great detail, why she should pick up the toys, demonstrates only that she can copy what you say, it doesn’t mean she understands what it means, and especially not in relation to her. So when she is confronted with something she is told she can’t do, she doesn’t understand it and so of course she will meltdown because her brain is in confusion. Compromise doesn’t work for everybody. It doesn’t work for me. I’ll never compromise, but I don’t need to, when I understand, according to the way I see the world, what others are saying and what they are expecting from me. And that’s not an easy task because on the outside I appear intelligent and I seem to appear to understand what others say, but I don’t understand them and they don’t understand me.

I’ve said many times, if I had got my diagnosis when I was younger, I doubt I would have accepted it, so I can understand what you’re up against. But definitely, just because we appear to understand something, we don’t always. For over 30 years I studied food etc, I still do, yet I couldn’t relate it to myself, I didn’t know why I had to eat. I’m only just starting to understand that now and the consequences of not eating. 

I was a raging alcoholic but because I could only express myself through other people’s words, my doctor thought I had control of it! Lol! I was dumbfounded. I thought, what did I say to give him that impression? 

My hat goes off to you, raising autistic kids.  I’m astounded at how my brain works and how it has these total blind spots in some areas but how in different conditions, I can talk about those things as if I have full understanding of them. It’s astonishing and I can see why teachers etc thought I was schizophrenic. 

I know she is fully aware as on the days she decides to do as asked she explains to her sister in great detail how and why it is important to pick up our toys. This demonstrates understanding and awareness it is purely down to when she doesn't want to do something that it escalates and as she gets angry she then struggles to cope with feelings. If I let her do whatever she wants 24 hours a day maybe she wouldn't argue but since that would be highly irresponsible it is not possible so compromise must be made. 

Not sure pecs will work with her last time she saw something like that she got upset saying she wasn't stupid. But we are introducing it for all of them so she doesn't feel singled out.

How do you know she's fully aware? You could have told me, as a child, all day long why I should pick the toys up, but even though I would understand it on an intellectual level, I wouldn't really understand it so I refused to do any household chores when I was a kid., I thought it was outrageous and I wasn't going to be anybodies slave. My mum had to cover for me. I understand it now, that I've got my diagnosis and I've worked with support workers, but I never understood it back then. 

But picture cards and stories help me. Honestly, I'm highly intelligent, very successful in my social work career and career in mental health so my support worker was a little hesitant to mention picture boards etc to use with me, and I said no, this is how I learn. I already have laminated pictures on my wall and I use stickers etc when I have completed things. She's getting all excited now because she loves all that, cutting and laminating etc and I'm excited, because I'm going to finally learn how to live independently. All my life everyone has simply done things for me, until I hit this major burnout and I was finally forced to look after myself. So even though I'm intelligent in some ways, I don't understand easily the every day things of life and some of them I need to understand in order to help me live an uninterrupted independent/interdependent life. The picture boards will really help. I can't wait to get mine regarding eating. 

This sounds like me as a child. I am only just, now, at 52 years old, recognising my parents as parents. I don't call them mum and dad and I never even spoke to my dad until I was 16, because I knew who my father was (God, and I'd never been to church and neither did my family talk about god!). I wouldn't even do what teachers told me to do. I thought it was outrageous that these people even thought they could tell me what to do. I thought it was insane and they thought I was insane. It was such a confusing time for me and like your son, I couldn't understand why my parents were trying to take responsibility of me when they weren't even taking responsibility for themselves. With the toys thing, in my eyes, if you wanted the toys picking up, I would see that as your responsibility because it is something that clearly you want, so in my mind, I would think, why don't you do it? It just seems like a ridiculous thing to me, to tell somebody else to do something that you want doing. 

One of my support workers noticed in me that I have never been parented, and she's right, I haven't, nobody could parent me. And it's not because I was a wild child or anything, it's just that I genuinely didn't understand people or why they were trying to tell me what to do. I used to ask them to explain things to me but they wouldn't or couldn't. It's the same today, for example, sometimes on here, I ask a question, and people get all angry with me like I'm being sarcastic or something ~ I rarely even recognise sarcasm so I wouldn't be able to do it myself. My brain simply sees things in a different way to most people so I frequently don't understand people and visa versa only people tend to get annoyed with me when I don't understand. 

And I scare everyone, even to this day, but I don't mean to and I thought my diagnosis would help my family understand why, and slowly, they are realising why. My brother is a year older than me and used to be a semi professional boxer but I would even lash out and fight him. I'm only small and of slight build but I would fight anybody, not because I like fighting, because I don't, but when somebody attacks me, I don't ususally know why, so it's like I'm fighting for my life and I get all this strength from somewhere. 

You're not going to be able to treat your son like you would most kids. He needs explanations that he can understand otherwise he won't change his behaviour because to him, he's not doing anything wrong. I was in my 30's I think it was, when my dad figured out that to stop me freaking out, he just had to ignore me ~ it was like a miracle moment, I can still see it now. We were putting my Christmas tree up. 

I still don't accept any authority over me other than god, but because god is my authority, it's not like I'm living a life where I'm bad to people and need authority. My support worker says I get away with it because I'm so charismatic and charming and my passion for life pervades all the area where I am. She says it's infectious, and no matter what she's thinking about me, she says she can't help but simply look at the positives and all that's good and as a consequence, what she was thinking, fades into the background and she somehow forgets that she was thinking I was acting like a spoilt brat or whatever she was thinking. She says she feels so joyful in my company that all normal ways of thinking go out the window and for days afterwards, she sees nothing but the good in the world. So she said she can easily see how I got away with so much when I was a kid and as an adult. It was a revelation to me, what she was saying because I was so used to people saying I was bad and wrong etc, it was a very weird experience, I wrote about it on here. Even to this day, I love all people equally and unconditionally so I was constantly surprised when people would interpret my behaviour as the opposite of how I am. I get hated on because I don't love my son, for example, any more than some random stranger I've never met at the other side of the world, which confuses the hell out of me but when I ask questions about it, in all sincerity, people think I'm being awkward or something and I never get to understand what they mean. 

Some of us interpret/experience the world differently. I don't know how to love one person and not love another or like one person and not another. And that's probably why I don't accept any authority over me because to me, we're all equal. I never told my son what to do, it wouldn't occur to me to do that because my brain doesn't work that way and it sounds like your son has a similar mind to mine. 

I learn better through simple pictures and little stories or diagrams and for me to be able to voice how I understand it so I can be corrected if I'm wrong and then I can try again. For example, you might show him, through a creative story, why you would like toys put away when they're not being used, show him the benefits and how happy it would make you if he would help to keep it that way and show him how he will benefit, for example, he will always know where his toys are etc etc.

You may need to get some help with this, for several reasons, not least because you already have your hands full but also because the worker or other person can work with your son in helping him to understand what your role as a parent is. Nobody explained that to me and it might seem incredible to some people, who understand automatically what a parent is, but I never understood it. I'm only just realising why I have to eat and I've been studying food and health for 30 years, since I had my son, but I applied it mostly to him because I never had that connection with my own body. So as a kid, trying to get me to eat, was to me, like trying to poison me. Far from thinking these people are my parents, I thought they were trying to kill me. I hated food and still do to a large degree. I'm training to be a breatharian so I don't have to eat or drink, unless I want to. 

We have different minds that need different explanations and often around things that most people think are totally obvious, such as, why do I need to eat? 

Sounds just like my house! I have an 8 year old girl who we believe is asd and a 7 year old and 14month old when it comes to tidying up the 8 year old is a nightmare .she screams it's not her job to do it there not her toys we treat her like a slave all the usual stuff, but as you say this quickly escalates to meltdown. 

We are starting to use a pecs now, next, then board not to help understanding as she is fully aware but so she can see tidy up as an activity or step to the next thing she wants, this was suggested by a support worker I'm not sure if it will work but she likes the structure of the timetable at school so hopefully it will work at home!

She Is also quite adult in many ways we joke she is 8 going on 18 (goes over her head) but very young in others I just wondered if you found that as well