Should I encourage ds to tweak his personality?

[PossiblyDreaming]

I know this sounds awful. I know. But. My 9yo has become such a pedant over the past few months. He constantly corrects everyone - his teachers, his friends, me, waitresses in cafes. Everyone. Each time he does it I tell him that if he hasn’t got anything nice to say then to please not say it. It makes people feel small and it’s not a nice thing to do. He claims I correct him (making him pronounce T’s, correct his homework etc. nothing on the level he does) so therefore he can do it too.

I’ve just driven him and his mate to a hobby and the whole drive ds was just constantly correcting his mate - friend says “we’re probably about 5 minutes away now”, ds replies “no, we’re not we haven’t even gone past X yet it’s at least 10 minutes and even if it was 5 minutes we’d be 10 minutes early so we’d have to sit in the car until it’s time”. Comments like that to absolutely everything his friend said. He does this constantly to everyone and it’s incredibly annoying.

He’s in year 5 and at secondary will be going to a school away from all his current classmates. I’m already worrying about how he’s going to fit in. He’s being assessed for ASD but it’s taking years and even if he does get a diagnosis he’s high functioning enough to not really require additional support. This pedantry could be a part of ASD, I suppose.

Please be gentle. I know it’s an awful thing for a mother to say but I’m just really concerned at how unlikeable he’s becoming. I don’t want him to be excluded. He can be such a lovely, kind and funny boy but when he thinks he’s right about something (and annoyingly he usually is) he cannot let it pass without making a comment. Any advice on how to approach it? Or should I just leave him to it and hope it’s a phase he grows out of?

My son is very black and white and used to say those kind of things to his friends. We had to be equally black and white in response. We found that giving out soon specific examples of what was and was not okto day, helped him navigate his way round. It's almost coaching, but being very blunt about it.
It really is an age thing and learning the art of conversation, give and take etc etc. Your son wasnt wrong in what he said, but the delivery could have been better!
He had friends who accept him the way he is, but he does need to know that until people get to know him, he's going to run them up the wrong way until he learns the niceties of social interaction.
It's hard, but try and give him options on how he could approach the conversations

I’ve always been a bit like him.
I would try to get through to him that you are bringing him up and he isn’t bringing you up or anyone else so it isn’t correct behaviour to contradict people.
I would also try to encourage him to socialise as much as possible as that’s usually how people learn to be pleasant.
If he is very rigid and pedantic I wonder if a book on etiquette might help, provided it covers not correcting others. However, he is a bit young. Maybe later.

It’s part of your job as a parent to correct things like this.

Not unreasonable at all.

There’s nothing wrong with making him aware of his behaviour and asking him how he thinks his friend feels. It’s a good way to learn and develop.

My ds, slightly older than yours, was similar, also has traits of asd. Still quite black and white, but I think he has improved with age.
I think being a teen ager did make him a bit more conscious about his behaviour and learned not to say certain things, though he is still quite sharp tongued towards me sometimes. I just keep telling him why it's not nice and to think about other people's feelings.

He’s being assessed for ASD but it’s taking years and even if he does get a diagnosis he’s high functioning enough to not really require additional support. This pedantry could be a part of ASD, I suppose.

It's interesting you have put this when if he is autistic, the additional support he clearly needs is to do with pragmatics and social communication support and development. Social stories would be a good place to start. Lego therapy. Comic strips. Social communication videos on the app that I can't remember the name of. All would be better than nudging his personality.

It’s also a sign of anxiety and children do get this more frequently when they have a parent who overcorrects them. Only you know what happens in your house but the fact that he’s saying he’s emulating you suggests, to me at least, that you need to find a way to stop and move from correction to demonstration / letting him fail. If he doesn’t cross his t’s and fails a test because the teacher he’ll learn not to do it again. Same with homework - just mark it as a teacher would and make him rework it until he gets it right without correcting him. He doesn’t need you to point it out every time.

Before I had even got to the bottom of your post I was wondering about ASD, as this is something I have encountered with children I have worked with. The thing is, as you identify, this is incredibly wearing and not likely to win him any friends - I mean no-one likes being constantly corrected. My own dd who is ASD has a different issue where she struggles to play other peoples games and wants it to be the exact game she wants to play or nothing, so we literally have to practice phrases like 'what would you like to play?' 'I would like to play my game, but we can play your game first'. She needs that scaffolding to support her social interactions, because what would be obvious to most people isn't obvious to her. I suspect your son is the same and really needs thing setting out for him, he also probably can't distinguish why its different when you do it, and to be honest I would try to change your approach to correcting him, because it's just not working. It is really difficult, but I would practice phrases he could use if he disagrees that something is accurate - I don't mean a different correction, but like with the example you give of him being a pendant about the time, he could say 'what do you think we will do when we get there'. I do feel for you, me and dd have practiced appropriate responses lots of times, so I know whee you are coming from. He needs you to support this aspect of his socialising, so don't just leave him to it and hope for the best.

You should tell him. It's your job as a mother/parent to make your children aware when they're being socially off.

I’m autistic but I wasn’t diagnosed until I was an adult.

I have clear memories of my mum telling me as a child to stop correcting people because it’s rude and embarrassing for them. I was told that nobody likes a know-it-all. It has stuck in my head and while the urge is still there, I’m much better about it than I was.

Now I settle for correcting people I see on TV because they can’t hear me

@amusedbush

I’m autistic but I wasn’t diagnosed until I was an adult.

I have clear memories of my mum telling me as a child to stop correcting people because it’s rude and embarrassing for them. I was told that nobody likes a know-it-all. It has stuck in my head and while the urge is still there, I’m much better about it than I was.

Now I settle for correcting people I see on TV because they can’t hear me

Same. I really have to bite my tongue though. I still struggle with it a lot.

I knew it was ASD as soon as I read. This is classic and takes lots of work to adjust. It needs adjusting those because it's a very irritating and unattractive quality. Carry on, Your'll get there.

I was going to ask about asd! My autistic ds does this.

I do explain to him that people don't like being corrected all the time.

However because black and white thinking I've explained it in a way of rules.

For example if what someone says is incorrect and it will mean they face a problem then suggesting they aren't correct and you think y is ok.

However if what someone days has no impact (eg it doesn't matter how long it'll take!) then correcting them makes no difference. I explain it can make people feel stupid always being told they're wrong. He's empathetic to this as he says being autistic sometimes makes him feel stupid as he just doesn't understand things others seem to find easy.

It's very wearing though. Ds is 17 now and still does it at times but is much better than he was at 8/9 and I'd say he even had a period of being worse at 15/16 but we were in lockdown so maybe I just had to experience it FT and that's why it felt worse?!

But it's so hard because genuinely it's not natural for them to accept incorrect facts. My ds will never say half last 9 if it's 9.31 (for example). Because he cannot understand why you'd say half past 9 when it isn't. He will say 31 past 9! Still will now. But he'll also accept people will use approximate times and fight his every instinct to correct them

I’m like your son too, and I don’t like it but can’t help myself. I just can’t see how everyone can’t be a logical thinker. I have learnt to curb it a bit, but I think my family puts up with it a bit too well. My DD is the same too and I can hear how harsh she sounds with her friends sometimes. Luckily, she also has a very warm and loving side to her, so they seem to be able to put up with her. It’s all about balance, and remembering that you don’t always have to be right.

@itsgettingweird that sounds so similar to my Ds. It’s only been in the last year I’ve managed to convince him to accept a drink being called a “hot chocolate” as he would insist he hated hot chocolate and would only consider warm chocolate.

My DS isn't autistic and went through this stage around the same age. He used to drive me bonkers especially when he corrected me in front of other people. Thankfully he just stopped doing it.

@Ozanj I really don’t over correct him and his dad certainly doesn’t. He doesn’t really get anxious about stuff, he’s pretty oblivious to what is going on most of the time.

Let him be. He will find his own crowd just fine. Politeness is overrated. Especially if you're a man. He'll thrive academically as a know-it-all, and will find plenty of like-minded jerks on the Internet to have a good argument with.

You don't have to like him. But you should respect him. Pointing out he is annoying for being right is not respect. Telling him to shut up to please others is not respect. You worry a lot about whether others will like him, but have you stopped to ask yourself whether he'll grow up liking you, or seeing you as an oppressive, stifling influence?
By all means, do gently point out the consequences of his actions, but have the decency to let him choose for himself whether he'd rather be right, or be liked. It's his choice.
And do praise him for the accuracy of his observations. It's a skill. It's valuable. It may well earn him a lot of cash when he grows up to be an engineer or a scientist. You don't have to understand it, you don't have to agree with it. But you've got to respect it. It is who he is.

[quote PossiblyDreaming]@itsgettingweird that sounds so similar to my Ds. It’s only been in the last year I’ve managed to convince him to accept a drink being called a “hot chocolate” as he would insist he hated hot chocolate and would only consider warm chocolate.[/quote]
Well he's not wrong is he..
I think he sounds great!

I'm autistic and used to do this a lot.

What I suggest, if you do want to steer him away from it, is reinforce that he's right, and focus on the fact that he doesn't always have to point out that he's right. That it's okay for other people to be wrong about things without him having to correct them - and if possible, model this by not always correcting his pronunciation, etc. so you're not accused of hypocrisy. Status arguments ('I'm your mother/an adult so it's okay for me to correct you') don't typically work for autistic children.

Whatever you do, please don't make him think it's a fault in his personality or that he's somehow unacceptable ('other children don't do this so you need to stop' or similar). It's behaviour thst might need tweaking, not personality.

I certainly wouldn’t ever tell him that he’s being annoying or tell him to shut up, I’m not that awful. It’s just so obvious to me when people are getting frustrated with him - a waitress saying “enjoy your meal” and him replying “it’s not a meal, it’s a snack” etc. that I don’t know how to react. I don’t want to apologise on his behalf as that seems really cruel but also,IMO it’s completely unacceptable to speak to an adult like that who is making a completely inane comment.

You should teach your ds to not correct other people because it's unkind and rude and will alienate any possible friends. Your ds needs lots of support with this, daily, hourly but not by correcting them, just by showing lots of empathy and talking things through. Ask him how he would feel if someone corrected him all the time so he learns to put himself in the other dc's shoes.

It's just so hard though isn't it?

As a quite common ASD trait, it will feel normal and appropriate to correct others on factual things, especially if the child is intelligent. However, it's true, no-one likes a know-it-all and it really is gets in the way of making friends. Support, support, support. Correcting others is not your ds' personality, his brain processes information in a way that makes him do this but with the right intervention he can learn, to some degree, to control this.

There is a girl in my dc's year who always criticises the other children pointing out all the rules they may be breaking and all the mistakes they may be making.

The child says this in a very assertive tone and it seems like she is bullying the other kids as she's constantly putting them on the spot and embarrassing and correcting them.

However, she feels that she is the victim of bullying as the other kids understandably get put out by being corrected all the time. This poor child also tells on her class mates all the time and it's only natural for the other children to moan about her or tell her to do one. It's heart breaking as the girl doesn't realise what she is doing.

Sadly, her mother reinforces the narrative that the other kids are bullying her daughter, rather than dealing with the cause of this, her daughter's unintended unkind and harsh and unlikable behaviour. She is a lovely, clever girl but alienates all the children. I feel she's being let down and needs to be taught basic social skills in a supportive way.

Tell him. He sounds just like my brother. No one told him and he's getting worse with age and it's both weird and unbearable.