ASD son talking constantly about latest obsession -help!!

[PrancingQueen]

How do I manage this?
He’s a lovely boy, 9 years old, but since the age of 2 he has developed obsessions about some quite random things. He watches You Tube, reads books to ‘research’ and talks about nothing else!
His current obsession is frankly so boring (to me) I want to scream . He has talked about nothing else for 3 months - HELP!
How do I manage this?
If I say let’s chat about something else for a while, he’ll either manage this for all of 2 minutes before crow-barring in his subject, or just look at me like I’m mad!
I’ve really tried to involve myself - some obsessions have been more interesting than others, but honestly, this current one is so damn boring.

Any ideas welcome. Thanks for reading.

PowerPoint is a godsend. It is also one of my DDs obsessions so it kills two birds with one stone because she gets to use it to create a presentation about one of her other current obsessions and she's happy as a clam for hours then I only have to sit through 2 minutes of a presentation. And it was really useful during homeschooling 😂

My ds has had burning obsessions from before he could talk really. He would drag me down the street to view his favourite TV aeriels, lamp posts, the bins with the french numbe seven on.
He's 26 now and his obsessions are mostly football and Grand Prix and he has an encyclopaedic knowledge on the statistics of both and is very clever at getting onto his subject.
So I might be talking to his sister and mention a neighbour has gone on holiday to Bournemouth and ds will pipe up "In 1976 on September 11th Bournemouth lost to Huddersfield after having this player sent off in the 27th minute" Fundamentally any time, date, name or place will prompt ds to come up with a statistic.
The positive is though that serious discussion is saved for his brother and father though as he doesn't think females know much about football so doesn't consider them worthy of his in depth knowledge. He's also unbeatable when watching Pointless if "his subjects" are on.

@Daisychainsandglittery
DS told me that it is really not important to him if I listen or not (he'll tell me if he wants a contribution from me) - he just wants to get rid of the facts in his head.

I'm having that PowerPoint strategy, thanks!

Mine is in a war theme. It started with the actual war then focused on tanks for a bit, then guns now how waned to Nerf guns. I feel its my fault as I flippantly expressed distaste for romanticising wars, which kicked off DS's interest in it. Godsake

I feel your pain!

Youngest son's current obsession is with horror film characters. As he is 9 and has clearly never watched any of the films this is slightly wearying.

I encourage him to draw them so we have a variety of Freddie Kruger drawings scattered about the house 🤨

My DS has had obsessive interests in many things, none of which even remotely interest me. I'm very good at tuning him out. It's not about having an audience or conversation, so my interest or interaction seems totally incidental to the data dump.

The intricacies of mandarin vocabulary was a particular low point for my monoglut self. Still, he's happy enough with an occasional "really?", "Wow" or my personal favourite, "good stuff". Having said that, when I don't bother, he doesn't stop spouting shite, hence my position that I'm just there.

I'm a shit mum but at least I'm still mostly sane.

Reading this thread has made me feel so warm an fuzzy. I have an autistic DS and this is all so familiar. I'm definitely guilty of tuning out at times and getting irritated, but I absolutely love the wholehearted enthusiasm and joy he has about his special interests. ❤

and*

I feel your pain. I have 3 people in my house going on about their obsessions. I normally make it a rule that if they talk for more than 30 minutes at a time then I am allowed to talk for 10 minutes about what happened in last week's episode of casualty.

Titanic, Henry VIII, ghosts, our house history, politics, various TV progs. Dd2 is 20 and still going …

Omg - just got back home and read your replies! Thank you
So many special kids (and adults) and some amazing obsessions!

DS’s current obsession is war ships.
He’s been through dinosaurs (they always stay around), the Titanic, aircraft, sharks, Godzilla and other more random interests.

It’s the level of detail and knowledge that astounds me. I wish he could focus the same way at school!

Loving the PowerPoint idea, and the time limit to offload.
I read that some kids with ASD and obsessions hide or mask their obsessions at school or with friends so ‘information dump’ on those close to them who’ll toleratelisten to their monologues.

It’s really cheered me up reading about your amazing kids, thank you.

I have ASD (and ADHD, so not only do I have special interests, I have shitty impulse control so I interrupt people to talk about them ) and I feel embarrassed if someone tells me I’m going on and on but I do take it on board. I’ve been told that A LOT over the years but if it wasn’t pointed out to me, I would just steamroller over the conversation.

Currently I’m obsessed with evolution. I got sidetracked and fell down a rabbit hole about the extinction of dodos - I can tell you what happened to all of the taxidermy models, if you’d like

Only one suggestion, OP: ride it out. Your son's "special interests" are slightly less obscure than my son's were.

He's a pretty functional adult now.

Michelle Garcia winner (American SLP) has some really cool books and resources to help teach social communication and social thinking. Lessons can be delivered in a really fun and friendly way to help children/ people to learn about how others are thinking and feeling, to read social cues and to recognise when ‘interests’ may not be interesting to others and how to find more mutual territory. Additionally you could look to agree ‘topic time’ abs when that time is over then you are no longer willing to discuss that particular topic. X

I do love their obsessions! Honestly, DS (7 and on the spectrum) does impress the hell out of me when he's going on about the Tudors ("No, not Catherine Parr. That's not the wife I'm talking about, mum."- mum often gets it wrong ). Right now, it's all geology and stones and crystals.
My strategy is 'I'm a bit tired now and my brain needs a rest from thinking about and listening to such interesting facts. I just need a bit of a pause.'
It works for us.

I can tell you what happened to all of the taxidermy models, if you’d like

I... err... sort of actually do want to hear about this.

An autistic mind can be such a curious mind. That is something I absolutely love.

AnnaMagnani you've got my attention, do carry on....
I've listened to 5 years of my autistic dd obsession about frozen. No sign of it slowing down and as the holidays have now started the poor love is in full stim mode, I think I've answered the same question over 80 times today.
I'd like to switch my brain off now😬

@amusedbush - Yes please tell me (otherwise I'll have to find out myself) - I am the one who geneteically contributed (to put it mildly ) to my DC's AS and ADD.

I am also interested in the dodos.

I’d like to know about the dodos.

What they need is a similar friend so they can just talk their own thing and ignore each other. Dd2 & best friend have been doing this to each other for 15 years 😂

Ds is now 33 and has always had obsessions around different topics. From about 8 years old it was atlases, capital cities, mountain ranges, rivers, flags etc then his brilliant prep school gradually broadened his interests to include history and languages. He taught himself Russian at senior school then studied Russian at university. Fell into a job in Germany so pretty fluent in German too. Never thought those early obsessions, nor the Russian interest would actually lead to anything meaningful .... I was so wrong!!!

Our son is almost 20 and recently told us that we’ve never been interested in him as we told him he was boring when he talked at us about Minecraft. He was diagnosed late and never had any sort of social skills work so remains unable to understand or moderate his communication. We felt pretty shit when he said that, but we were trying to explain to him that he couldn’t expect us to listen for hours to him talk about something we didn’t understand and weren’t interested in. So not great really.

Dunno about kids but autistic DP has designated times to talk about his obsessions 😄 also I have my talking time too. He knows it’s five and take

Are you doing any work with him regarding social communication i know DP had therapy etc as a child

@Doubleraspberry that must have been hard to hear.
That’s what I’m worried about really - balancing his non-stop chatter about the Bismarck, the Hood, the Yamato etc and the endless details about how they were torpedoed and sunk 😬

His knowledge astounds me but I will definitely use some of the advice given here to get him to understand that it’s not socially appropriate to dominate conversation with his interests all the time.

It’s also encouraging to hear about adults who’ve used their talents to forge careers.

DS wanted to be a palaeontologist from a young age, but now it’s naval architecture.
He needs constant verbal prompting to do anything functional so we’ll see!