Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi there,
I am a single mum who was recently diagnosed with high functioning autism.
My son, who turned 4 at the weekend, is also showing lots of features of high functioning autism. He recently started pre-prep.
School are great and are supporting him with things like visual cues and timetables so he understands what's happening when and he is actually doing brilliantly at settling in. Between myself and the school, we are sorting paperwork for extra support and assessment for ASD. I am a GP which is proving quite helpful.
Seem to be having a big problem with son being overly affectionate. He has always been very cuddly which hasn't been a problem up until now (he never settled at Montessori when he was 2 so ended up stopping going so this is first time really being around lots of others). However, he is constantly hugging and being tactile with the other children in his class and they really don't like it. He has told his teacher and the class room assistant that he loves them and keeps cuddling them.
I keep trying to explain to him that while he can cuddle his family, other people don't necessarily like it and it can upset them. He doesn't seem to be taking it on board. I have mentioned to the school and on the paperwork that I am worried that him being over tactile with others will cause a problem. My mum picked him up from school today and the teacher had said to her that she will be speaking to me again about my son wanting to hug and touch the other children again as it seems to be upsetting them.
I'm not sure how else I can tackle this. He has a tendency to go around knocking down the other kids' building blocks too, again I have tried explaining and demonstrating for years that this is not kind but he doesn't take it in.
Im getting worried that because of his behaviour that he is going to be ostracized very quickly by the other children. He is a very happy little boy but I worry that he could end up in a situation where he ends up isolating himself because of his actions.
My son had a similar problem where he would touch or tug at little girls' ponytails (shiny bands) or anything shiny. Culturally, elders pat the heads of children out of affection and his grandfather would do that, which made him assume this was normal. But he would touch shiny coloured rings and necklaces too so it had to do with what was catching his attention rather than touch. He was a similar age and was eventually diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. I'm a GP myself, and I tried to help by understanding what his favourite colour was, which turned out to be red, so he had plenty of shiny red toys that he had. It didn't last long with the 'touching', but it was problematic at nursery and in play dens where little girls would scream. My son would just sit there perplexed and all the parents would be shouting at me as though he had misbehaved. The difference is that he was never mischievous or naughty, just his autism and the way he saw his world. At the time I tried to explain but angry ranting parents had no patience or willingness to understand. Conversely, as he grew older, he would misinterpret 'tig' the game and would end up crying if he was tagged. In his literal world, he had most likely been assaulted as there is no abstraction, no grades of touch and everything translates to being hit. I remember grabbing his arm once as I nearly lost him in the crowds at a fairground and he couldn't understand why and assumed I had somehow punished him for something he had done. It was never about why I was doing something, but the action that he misinterpreted and I would have to explain why I did what I did. He's 18 now and displays very different signs of autism, mostly subtle, but it takes a great deal of effort and understanding when it is easier to get frustrated that he is not normal. Neurodivergent yes, but I often wonder if the issue is society's inability to adapt and understand autism, when society expects him to adapt to 'normal' when that is not possible.