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Bad manners and good manners in sickness and in health

peteandliz

Our 13 year old son was recently diagnosed with aspergers. He has all the classic problems with socialising and social communications, but is academically sound. We have not told him about his condition yet. Most of the time he does not use good manners, despite our constant reminders - he very rarely says please and thankyou and generally shows little empathy or respect. BUT whenever he is ill, even with just a cold, he becomes a different child. He is impeccably polite, well mannered and thoughtful. When he gets better he reverts to his normal self. Has anyone else experienced this? Should I be encouraged that deep down he does know how to behave properly, or discouraged because his 'normal' self rejects this?

thank you

Parents

  • silly question maybe.....but what are your children not doing when they are ill that they normally do when not ill?

    Are they off school?  School environments may be extremely stressful - large numbers of peers in close proximity, a large amount of information to process, lots of issues to deal with, therefore at peak stress the whole time.

    Is there another stressful environment they are in that creates an information and sensory bottleneck. Some AS children express their disteress only when they get home and bottle it up while at school or in other pressured environments.

    Could they be naturally very polite and thoughtful, but the circumstances of their day makes it extremely difficult to remember to be polite?

    It just seems your describing something which turned on its head makes sense. Its not that they're only polite when they're ill, its that when they're ill the pressures causing them to be impolite have gone.

    As I say, silly question.....

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  • silly question maybe.....but what are your children not doing when they are ill that they normally do when not ill?

    Are they off school?  School environments may be extremely stressful - large numbers of peers in close proximity, a large amount of information to process, lots of issues to deal with, therefore at peak stress the whole time.

    Is there another stressful environment they are in that creates an information and sensory bottleneck. Some AS children express their disteress only when they get home and bottle it up while at school or in other pressured environments.

    Could they be naturally very polite and thoughtful, but the circumstances of their day makes it extremely difficult to remember to be polite?

    It just seems your describing something which turned on its head makes sense. Its not that they're only polite when they're ill, its that when they're ill the pressures causing them to be impolite have gone.

    As I say, silly question.....

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