Anyone who thinks kids with ASD aren't capable of empathy....

[Greensleeves]

...is wrong.

I am going through some pretty heavy stuff at the moment, and I'm also ill and couldn't face cooking tonight - dh and ds2 are out anyway, so it was only for ds1, who is 15 and has Asperger's. I gave him some money to go and get himself whatever he would like to eat. I also gave him a big cuddle and said "sorry I'm a bit of a crap mum at the moment, I love you very much".

He replied "You're not a crap mum, because you've brought me up to understand that you're a human being too and can't always be perfect, and at my age I should be able to sort myself out sometimes when you're having a bad time".

I'm actually crying (he's gone out).

You have to explain in minute detail, hippy, because he won't be picking up facial cues or body language as easily as a typical child.

My ds1 learned to interpret and use non-verbal cues and more conventional responses to emotions the same way he learned the scientific method, or English grammar, or any other "system" - a child who has the London Underground map memorised at 4 and lectures old ladies in charity shops about the human respiratory system at 6 can learn anything with the right scaffolding and support. We used social stories a lot, ds1 had a set of cards with them on that he found really helped him and reduced his anxiety a lot. And constant (and I mean bloody constant) dialogue within the family. We got used to microanalysing ourselves and each other a lot. Even watching TV together, we discussed people's interactions and responses to each other.

My little girl with ASD said today (after I said 'have a good day at school') "it's nice of you to be concerned but you know I'm going to have a bad day".

It is such a tired old cliche that nobody with ASD can feel empathy.

Some really struggle but others just don’t.
I can see big variations in various family members with it.

It’s like the ‘they can’t have ASD because they’re sociable and like making friends’ thing.

My eldest definitely feels empathy. He's eight now.

When I had DS3 he was five. For some reason day 5 after I had the baby (c section), I decided it would be a great idea to make a Victoria sponge (I have no excuse for this lunacy). Anyhow, half way through the mixer broke. I remember standing in the kitchen with this bowl full of cake mix and a broken mixer and sinking to the floor quietly sobbing (I blame hormones!). DS walked in pushed up his sleeves and said "mum, what can I do?". He was five. It made me cry even more.

Admittedly he had shown more interest in my cannula than his new baby brother! And for the first six months pretty much ignored him except for saying " mum, your baby's crying". He's pretty attached to him.now though.

I love him.....he is quirky and funny. He is unfailingly kind and gentle!

❤️❤️❤️ bless him , and you

Its the big misconception about autism.

If only ALL the professionals knew that!

I detest that assumption. My son is the kindest, sweetest, most generous soul -incredibly loving and really sympathetic to others feelings. He struggles a lot in other areas -his anxiety and stress levels are through the roof. Everyone is different.

Agree anxiety and stress levels are a major debilitating issue for children on the spectrum. I don't think this is anywhere NEAR properly understood or recognised, and for thousands of children daily life, and especially school, is a bit like dodging bullets in the dark

My aspergers son said to me the other day, “I know life is really hard for autistic people, but my life is great because I have parents who really help me” in the middle of the supermarket, I nearly blubbed 😂

Autistic people experience empathy differently, but I really wish they would do away with the myth that we don’t have it at all, it’s really insulting.

I have a private theory that the people who think ASD people don't have empathy are actually the ones with the impairment, because they're demonstrating a complete inability to see that other people may communicate in different ways to them, and that feelings are still real even if you can't see them.

^^ namechange fail.

^^ Wrong thread fail, too. God, I'm hopeless. But your DS sounds fab, Greensleeves (and I say this, having been to hell and back and back again with a child with AS...)

Weirdly, my AS child feels empathy with things like flies (can't kill the buggers), but not with his parents or siblings. But agree that they can have empathy. There's more to AS than empathy/no empathy... Nemo, mine would have been interested in the cannula, too.

That is absolutely fantastic, what a wonderful day you have. My dd is nearly 11 and totally lacks empathy. I will be pucking up and she will start shouting asking what's for dinner.

OP. YANBU. My ASD DS has just literally come in and pronounced how fed up he is of people thinking that he has no empathy because he has ASD.

Grrr, I was talking to a friend ages ago about a murder that was in the news at the time. She said “ I expect he had Aspergers” right in front of my son who has Aspergers. Drives me fucking crazy the ignorance that people have about such things. So YANBU.

Think about what life is like for (some) kids with ASD. They don't get nonverbal cues that people are annoyed with them, so they don't know that people are annoyed at them until they lash out and say something. Or people are making fun of them for not following some unwritten social rule that they may have had no idea existed. You'd be anxious, too, if people lashed out at you or made fun of you every so often and you didn't understand why they were doing it.

Yep. It’s like others are speaking a foreign language. It must be so confusing to suspect you’re doing something that puts people off but not know what it is.

How fab greensleeves

Totally get you with the learnt behaviour thing too, and so much of what has been said on this thread. My ds (coming up to 11yo) doesn't have the virtue signalling thing either and may not always recognise intuitively why someone behaves in a certain way but has understood how to decode and translate it, and when he recognises if someone else is sad etc, is utterly kind. More so than his NT and rather, um, self-absorbed despot of a younger sister

And yy to the stress/anxiety though

Of course, there are a lot of negative stereotypes about people with ASD. People with ASD might also have to deal with stereotypes about disabled people in general. Some of the stereotypes might be true about some people with ASD, but not necessarily about all of them. Just like stereotypes of any other type of people, really. Some British people like tea, some don't. Some Americans have guns and like McDonald's, some don't.

I would like all the teachers in my school to read this thread. Not that they don’t get it, and so many are brilliant with our ASD children—but some find it a challenge. And just to see these stories and these insights would be better than most training I could afford

Oh, and congratulations OP. Anyone would be proud of such a child. It’s all in the parenting (is what I tell myself when things go well)!

My friend's son has asperger's and he is such a lovely lad. We compare him to my dh and there are so many similarities. My dh seems to be in the spectrum but undiagnosed so these discussions are so beneficial to me, thanks all