To ask if you had a talkative DC, did it impact them socially?

[MumNeedsTea]

I usually don't post in AIBU, so please be kind.

I have a 7 yo DC who literally never stops talking!! I know children sometimes love to talk, but I've never met another child who talks as much. Some my friends and his friends' mums have also commented on it in the past. Nothing nasty, but something along the lines of 'do you ever get a word in edgewise with him around!?' kind of comments.

He won't even sit quietly when he's watching TV... There's always a constant commentary about what's going on! Same when he's playing a game. If I have to hear about what's happening in Minecraft one more time, I'll go mad!

I was just wondering if you've had such a DC and did it get better over time? And if not, did they have issues maintaining friendships? If I find him irritating at times, I worry how he must come across to his friends. He has some really good friends and in some ways being talkative makes him more social, but I worry for when he's an adult continues the same behaviour.
He also has this thing about not stopping once he starts. Like he'll start telling me something and I'll ask him to wait if I'm in the middle of something.. He'll say OK, but still continue. Almost as if he really hasn't registered my request. And he loves repeating instructions!

Maybe it's just this bloody lockdown that's making me question all this. If you've managed to get this far, thank you

@changeisasgoodas no I haven't observed this. He does like talking to himself.. Usually when having a poo

@MumNeedsTea DS likes to sing pretend opera on the toilet

Ignore all this shit about “labels” and “what would be the point of a diagnosis?” Why would you not, only than through fear and denial?

Anyway, I’m glad ASD/ADHD was raised because I saw a few red flags in your OP and they resonate a lot with me and my daughter. She’s always been talkative (verging on verbal diarrhoea ) and although it was charming and kind of precocious when she was little, now she’s 8 going on 9 it is kind of irritating. And she does struggle socially and I NEVER thought she would (she’s too extrovert! Too social!). I see it as a lack of understanding of social norms. She interrupts and talks over people constantly. She also narrates everything she’s watching or playing (what you said about narrating video games rang a bell with me) without actually checking to see if anyone is interested... or even listening.

Anyway, if you decide to go down the path of getting a paed referral - please don’t fear a diagnosis. You look at any person who gets a diagnosis as an adult and they’ll tell you how much they welcomed it - how suddenly everything made sense. They understand why they are the way they are, and they don’t feel like a failure anymore. It’s a heavy burden to carry, being neurodiverse and undiagnosed.

Anyway, it’s not a label for the child, it’s a signpost for the adults who are there to help the child.

Someone I know has a 30+ daughter like that. It's not real conversation because its so one-sided; she talks at you non stop , verbal steamroller. She's never had any normal social life with her peer group, has never left home, no career. I am pretty sure she is "on the spectrum" though never been diagnosed.

Re diagnosis, there were underlying sensory issues and a little behind in motor skills as a young child which I put down to his precocious language development, there were definite but subtle differences in social skills and emotional regulation. School eventually flagged it aged around 11 and he was diagnosed quite quickly. It helped at secondary school for staff to see where he was coming from in a way.

I definitely remember him making noises all the time at quite a late childhood age

@EnglishGirlApproximately that made me laugh out loud

@Haworthia thank you for that. Knowing the benefits of getting a diagnosis is very helpful.

Whether or not it needs a label I do think you can be explicitly teaching him listening skills and social cues.

I have a friend who finds it very hard to stop talking. She's hyper aware of it and it makes her feel bad about herself. She's never struggled for friends and as a quiet person, I find talkative people to be brilliant company because there's less pressure to think of things to say.

I am sure my friend would have benefited from explicit skills coaching from her parents at an early age to help with impulse control around talkativeness.

The idea that talkative children are necessarily more intelligent is utter rubbish! Not saying they're less intelligent either, but there are plenty of extremely stupid people out there with verbal diarrhoea, just look at some of our world leaders...

Op my 8 year old ds is exactly the same, he literally never stops talking. He will talk when no one is in the room to himself he just can't help it.
He talks over you all the time and you can't get a word in edgeways.

I'm currently in the situation of getting him assessed for adhd since his school have requested I look into it.

OP what @Haworthia said is really true.
My DD is a talker and I was sure from an early age that she had ADHD. She was diagnosed at age six. She was very behind at school- just couldn't focus. She now takes medication on school days and it's made a massive difference to her progress.
The process of diagnosis took an academic school year - in our case I thought CAHMS was brilliant but I suppose it depends where you live.
It's really helpful to have a diagnosis as PP have said but it's not a panacea. I shall try harder I think to guide my daughter to check for social cues. I'm a talker myself and given to interrupting (I suspect I may have ADHD).
Interesting that so many of these compulsive talkers have a diagnosis as that wasn't even one of the red flags that made me pursue it.

Write him a social story - it could be quite funny. Bill The Boy Who Wouldn't Stop Talking. Weave in the effects of Bill's incessant talking on other people and the moral is that when he has something important to say then no one is listening!

It sounds a little ADHD ish and bit ASD ish but unless he has other quirks he may not be neurodiverse at all just his head filled with stuff. Possibly, he is worried he will forget something before he says it. How about a notebook and he can write down questions as he thinks of them. I think a symbol to show no talking at specific times like when you are working.

I think irrespective of if he has a something then you need to be very clear with him 'did you think the man in the shop wanted to hear about minecraft?' 'What made you think the man might want to hear about minecraft?' Was there other people in the shop? What was the man really thinking about? I woul try and tease out of him what his understanding is of the listener and you need to teach him, via modelling behaviour active and passive listening. You also need to teach him reciprocal cues so things like 'do you like ice cream too'. However, talking is a way of working out the world around them.

Dx didn’t help ds1. He’s 2e and actually only talks when he’s medicated, so his monologue is internal normally. Paed describes the meds as slowing down the voices so he can actually verbal use them instead of them just swirling at ten million miles an hour in his head. Monologueing can be a bit aspie, though, but everyone is diffferent.
My other 2e kid has an iq of 142 but was non verbal until 7. 😬
Constant talking doesn’t necessarily equate to adhd or aspergers, and in isolation I would be sceptical. I would be a little firmer with boundaries around interrupting and social rules. If school are willling to support a referral for assessment then you may as well. Usually psychs will require reports exhibiting markers in two settings in order to evaluate and diagnose properly, alongside testing. Anyone will take your money though

Diagnosis or no diagnosis your son is an ideal age to work on his social communication skills.
Turn taking , listening, cues from your listener etc.
There’s lots of good material out there for work on social communication skills.
I always feel sad that the cute talkative child may become the office bore , or the adult you avoid at parties , if no help is given to them in childhood.

My DD11 never ever stops talking and I used to notice when she's with her friends she would often interrupt - not in a horrible way more excited and agreeing and having opinions on every single thing, but she talks over people and it must be irritating. We've done lots of work on listening skills and showing other people youre interested in what they have to say and she tends to catch herself now and say sorry sorry what were you saying, or if you stop talking because she's interrupted she will stop too and pretend to zip her lips until you carry on. It's a work in progress! She's very popular so can't be a huge issue socially but it's rude and she knows she needs to work on it.

I know multiple children like this. It is difficult but possible to stop. I gave one child 3 triangles per hour to limit her contributions - I know that sounds harsh but I just reminded her 'is this really important for me to know? Okay you have our full attention...etc which actually helped her as the others listened to her more and didn't switch off as they'd previously found her irritating.
I also have others where I sort of made a joke with them over their 'commentary'....do you need to tell me how you are stacking those when I can see you?

As long as it is light-hearted, I don't see an issue as I think teachers have a massive role to play in teaching kids effective socialisation. I do have kids at the start of the year where I wince a bit. By the way, the above methods come after a chat about how sometimes we have very important things to say and an adult will listen, but sometimes silence is nice! (In a jokey way!)

Dd is 8 and like this. She has ASD. Does not stop talking. It is quite hard to tolerate especially when we are tired or stressed. Dd6 is NT and gets the brunt of it when they play together. We have tried to teach her to listen and not repeat herself. I'd say it is a barrier in making friends.

My ds is the same, I saw a video on Facebook (I’ll try find it) and it’s exactly like him, I cracked up when I saw it

He’s 10 now, he talked very early and has always been curious about everything, he loves to learn and wants to know everything. He is awaiting an autism assessment (not saying your ds has autism) we know he has it, assessment is just to confirm, our dd is already diagnosed.
Lockdown has deeply affected his mental health, he already struggled beforehand (he also has ocd and germaphobia so you can imagine how hard the coronavirus has been!)

I do sometimes have to just say ssshhhhhh!! And I’ve had to sit him down and teach him social cues and when he has to wait to speak etc teaching him to say excuse me and then wait instead of interrupting was a big one as he’d just always butt in!

The only advice I have is to try teach him the rules of conversation, like the turn taking and how to wait etc I really had to sit ds down and make sure he was fully listening to do this. I also buy him lots of books, he loves science so he has many ‘encyclopedia of science’ and ‘500 science facts’ types of books that he can get lost in (I do get a running commentary though and a huge science lesson afterwards) it’s just the way he is!

He has a wonderful best friend, they’re very opposite and he will just tell ds to shut up! In a lovable way though and ds does until the next time.

He has always had friends but has struggled more as he’s getting older and I can see when an adult/teacher is irritated. He uses lots of big words too, he once had a teacher who at parents evening said ‘he is too young to talk like that! It’s weird!’ he uses the words correctly and in context but she was so offended by it, that was a difficult school year, they clashed massively.

I wouldn’t change him though, he has a cracking sense of humour too. Only thing I wouldn’t mind is if he’d start his day a little later, he’s up between 5 and 6am each day without fail!!

My four almost five year old never stops talking, the only thing I have noticed is that most of his friends are girls as sadly lots of the boys have already been conditioned to value rough and tumble and the girls have already been conditioned to be delicate.

DS has a friend like this. Never stops talking. They are 25. DH calls him "Yamper Yaw". DS just looks at him sternly, then smiles and tells him to let other people speak.

I don't think he has any neuro deveopmental disabilities. He is doing remarkbly well in sales.

However, dd was diagnosed with ADD at 17. She was always v quiet, flashes of brilliance, never quite performed in line with the underlying intellect. V poor handwriting. At 15 depression and self harm set in because she was so disappointed in her performance and not feeling "right" though couldn't articulate it. After about 18 months of therapy, AD's etc, she was diagnosed and every piece of the jigsaw fell into place. Medication and more therapy helped. She lost a year of school but is 22 now and doing brilliantly at uni.

Regrettably CAMHS turned her away when she was overdosing. £6k and a private consultant psychiatrist sorted it. School never, ever thought there was a problem, I raised potential dyspraxia and was told she was far too high performing for any sen attention.

My advice - if you think there's an issue pursue it and get support in place sooner rather than later. It's much harder to turn a teenger round than a child.

Good luck op. It my be nothing like old Yamper Yaw but it may be something so do everything you can to deal with it. Yamper Yaw might be even more successful if he'd ever been told to put a sock in it.

This is the video

m.youtube.com/watch?v=9S1EzkRpelY

I have a talker, she has talked to me for 14 hours a day since 19th March (my kids last day at school was 18th and my talker wakes early!!)

Thankfully a tablet does shut her up for half an hour here and there and she is able to independently play - plus she has siblings.

Feel bad wishing she wouldn't talk as much given my 2.5yo is globally delayed and completely non verbal, but she is full on!! She has plenty of friends though.

Hmmmm. Mine were average I think. The thing I observed at school in particular was that v talkative kids could be quite disruptive. They didn't know when to stop. As long as you let them know there's a time and a place it's fine. Sometimes 'chatty' at school is code for s/he never stops and is a blimmin nuisance! It's good to offer input and opinions but not if it literally talks all over everyone else. It pisses other kids off and makes them less able to contribute
Sorry to be negative. But that has been our experience. Maybe tho your DC gets that and is more measured at school?

@OhTheRoses ’she was far too high performing for any sen attention.’ 😱😱 I hate that view! Sorry you had such a hard time and were refused by camhs.
I’m so thankful that ds has very supportive camhs intervention, we couldn’t have carried on without their help. Wonderful to hear your dd is doing so well now.

I do often have to ask the talker to listen / let her older sibling talk as she can try to talk over people. She has always been a yapper and is renowned for it, in the family.

Let's hear it (quietly, mind) for the listeners and tentative talkers. I really don't think you can say being talkative equates with greater intelligence. The ability to listen and wait until you have processed and understood before giving an opinion is a really important skill.