I have never had a cuddle from my 4 year old

[RogerThatOver]

My 4 year old has never given me a cuddle. She doesn't like to be touched and certainly not embraced or kissed. She will sit on my lap but usually is climbing all over me within ten seconds. She has no empathy for others at all and will reply to 'I love you' with 'well I don't love you' Tonight she sat on my lap and I looked into her eyes and told her I love her and she pushed me in the face and laughed. She seems to genuinely not understand that that hurts and looks bewildered when I told her it did. I see other 4 year olds running up to parents and grandparents after nursery and I'm starting to feel sad about the lack of affection. She shows that she loves me in that she loves spending time with me, draws me pictures, is polite and so on and I know some people are naturally less affectionate but AIBU to think her behaviour is unusual here?

steppemum

Also agree with the imaginative play. I had a Sindy doll and house. And I played with them. But the play involved knitting patchwork blankets to go on her bed with cocktail sticks; or 'reorganising' things. Setting the very elaborate dining table and sorting out the fridge.

I was also obsessed with horses and had an imaginary pony. I would wake up early to muck out, groom, feed, exercise a pony that didn't exist.

But there wasn't a narrative to my playing and I didn't play with other people because I couldn't cope with the fact that they wanted 'stories' to go with it, or to input their own ideas that conflicted with mine, and I didn't do that.

TBF Steppemum, the OP mentioned lack of empathy specifically, just not using those actual words.

I typed and deleted on the 4 year old & empathy thing. Schmoopy put it better. I would hope your DD didn't have enough insight to understand the pain and blood at 3 or 4. If she had, it could have been deeply upsetting.

I think our worst parenting mistakes have been when we haven't picked up that DS is upset. He doesn't show it in NT ways - sometimes I think it takes him a long time to pinpoint what the matter is even to himself, and then it doesn't necessarily occur to him to express it. Or perhaps we don't see whatever signals he does send. My default parenting stance has been to assume he's ok & coping if he isn't complaining, but I am learning that that's not a fair assumption. I see it with the empathy thing too - seeing someone in pain is quite a complicated experience and no matter his feelings and reactions, I wouldn't necessarily expect him to put his finger on them and express them straight away. But a few days later he might be quite upset, purportedly about something else and out of nowhere.

TBF Steppemum, the OP mentioned lack of empathy specifically, just not using those actual words.

She did. But I wonder sometimes whether it's such a pervasive stereotype that people feel that, unless they mention it specifically, ASC won't be considered. When, actually, there could be far more plausible explanations for it. Such as the person concerned being 4.

My boyfriend is autistic. He has huge empathy, is compassionate and considerate, kind, direct and honest... but you wouldn't always know it. His facial expression rarely changes or shows any emotion and sometimes he needs to be reminded that his feelings aren't enough and that, unless he communicates them to the other person, they won't know (but that's a theory of mind thing, not an empathy thing).

that is interesting singing. My friend's ds has ASC and she talks about teaching him to recognise his emotions.

So when he was little he would say he was tired or cold, and she realised that he wa sfeeling an emotion but couldn't identify it. By talking to him, she might work out he was eg scared. Then she would name the emotion and ask him what it feels like inside and he might say his tummy hurt. Then she would say things like, this is what scared feels like. When your tummy hurst like that, that is what it feels like to be scared.

It is a slow process, but now aged 10 he is able to identify and name many emotions in himself.

The thing is though that from birth to 4, giving or wanting no physical contact/affection isn’t common, neurotypical behaviour. Of course, I’m not saying neurotypical should be the only accepted version of behaviour but the way the op’s child isn’t displaying a need or want for affection does suggest something away from what we perceive as ‘the norm’.

Steppe my daughter will often start complaining of random pain when she can't explain a feeling or doesn't want to do something. For example, I always lay out her clothes and go in at a set point in the morning routine to ask her to get up and dressed. She wouldn't get up if I didn't do this. If her sister moves her clothes or she thinks her socks look too rough, she'll start wailing that her ankle or something hurts - even though nothing has happened. I try telling her to just voice that she doesn't like the feel of those socks and then we can swap then but she really struggles to be that direct.

It does sound as though an assessment with a paediatrician would be a good idea. Your DD lining up her toys does sound like ASD from what I’ve read.

I think some people are not as cuddly as others, though, so it may not be all that significant that she doesn’t like cuddles.

OP she sounds a lot like my little girl two years ago. Inflexible, very rigid play, we had to tip toe around her because she had such high level emotions. Socks always need to be inside out. Set up worlds and got so cross if we moved things or tried to join in. As a baby, she needed to be swung in her car seat or she was screaming. Fast forward and I would think she definitely has some hypo and hypersensitivity issues but she's otherwise settled down a lot. She clearly has a lot in her head and lives very much in there, but the red flags aren't really red flags anymore as time goes on. Could her resistance to affection be the physical sensation and her language around it being, well, stubborn? My DD doesn't really get love, obviously, and she's a stickler for doing things off her own bat and not just because others expect her to. Now my DD has a better understanding of what love actually is she's far more willing to concede that she loves people!

OP - it has taken years for my friend's ds to get to the point of being able to pinpoint what the problem is. At 4, he would not have been able to tell you that it was the socks, he would just feel that something was wrong.

My dd at 5 used to have morning melt downs over nothing. She would say it was something eg couldn't find her shoes, but would then melt down completely. It took me ages to realise that she was stressing about going to school, struggling with transition, and what she needed was for me to stop, gove her a reassuring hug which helped her to get pass he stress, and then we could move on. She is NT but she could not pin point the actual issue either.

Same here steppemum. DD generalises her anxiety and just completely catastophises. I think it's all part and parcel of why she likes to feel in control of everything. it's getting much better as she gets older but she still needs a lot of space and processing time.