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Rudeness

NAS85155

Hello!

my 10 year old daughter has just been diagnosed with autism and we are struggling with her awful rudeness.

she is awfully rude to me and her dad and so unkind to her younger sister. We are treading on egg shells all the time and are struggling to cope with her behaviour.

Any ideas on what we can do? It’s usually when she’s stressed or anxious but she knows that it is unacceptable to be rude. She says she can’t help it.

any advice would be great fully received.

thsnk you, 

Emma

  • I am almost 23, recently diagnosed autistic female and I have quite a bit of anxiety about accidentally being rude in certain situations, because I was always being told off for being rude as a kid (i.e. not smiling, reluctancy to speak to strangers, forgetting pleasantries) and I genuinely found it hard to know how I was meant to be acting/speaking. When that's happening you need to be patient and explain/re-explain the social rules. 

    Being actually unkind, i.e aiming to hurt someone, is different,and pretty unacceptable. If she's angry/stressed, encourage another outlet, don't let her take it out on her sister and use autism as a catch-all excuse. E.g. vigorous excercise like running or matrial arts are very good for channeling anger/stress, and they also help a lot with anxiety. 

  • "Rude" is a very broad term that encompasses a lot of things.  

    For autistic people, sometimes we are interpreted as rude because we see things from a different perspective or because we are honest about things.  Sometimes we don't understand the social rules or think that they're counter productive.  There are so many different ways that we can offend people without meaning to.  Sometimes we just need space.

  • If she's saying she can't help it, perhaps she's struggling to manage her feelings, or maybe there's something in her environment that's causing sensory issues and making her irritable. I know that when I'm experiencing sensory overload, or having big feelings, or dealing with an unexpected change, it can make me really short-tempered and even more blunt than I usually am- and I'm old enough to have a 10-year-old kiddo of my own!

    Since you've said she tends to be ruder when she's stressed or anxious, it might be worth taking note of the circumstances leading up to that. There might be a pattern there that could help her figure out why this happens.

    Or, as Peter says, she might just be very blunt! Sometimes autistic people can say things that other people perceive as rude, when our intention was just to be direct.

  • is she rude or just blunt? There is a difference. A blunt person will tell you unequivocally you look fat in a dress, because you do, a rude person is more sadistic, they want to hurt your feelings not just dryly state facts as they see them.