To be unsure how to manage situations like this

[makeamincepie]

Yesterday DS was at a light show and he had a glow stick he was waving around and nearly knocked an elderly lady over as he knocked into her walking stick.

A lot of the time he seems oblivious to other people and while he doesn’t shove or push intentionally he has hurt others before just by not ‘seeing’ them.

I am just wondering what to do.

How old is he? And does he acknowledge when he knocks into people and apologise?

How old is he? Sounds quite typical of autism.. any other traits?

None at all. He’s 4 next month. He doesn’t apologise, I try to get him to but he refuses.

So there’s no consequence for his bad behaviour? This isn’t going to end well.

I used to sort of narrate our surroundings to give my kids a heads up of what to look out for. At 4, they don't necessarily understand that other people aren't as steady on their feet and they need a lot of coaching to help them assess their surroundings.

So he's 3?

He's three.

Its your job to teach him. Three year olds are oblivious in this way.

That sounds like an accident and very age appropriate for a 4 year old. Hate to say it and not being mean but it's up to you as the parent to assess his surroundings and make sure he's not waving it around where people could get hurt?

Fairly normal 4yo behaviour.

The elderly lady gets profusely apologised to by you, and the glow stick gets taken away until he also apologises. If he refuses/keeps waving it annoyingly, it gets taken away again and only you get to wave it till he learns the lesson.

Normal at age 4, but you need to be keeping an eye on him

I think some kids do need lots of reminding to watch out for other people.

You need to be keeping an eye on where he is going at that age and guiding him. "watch where you're going there is a lady in front of you be careful you don't bump in to her" if he gets closer you move him away. If he does bump in to someone you apologise to the person sincerely first then to him "oops you bumped into the person, let's say sorry" and don't make a big drama of it to him when he's little.

When you say you try to get him to apologize - he could be confused or overwhelmed or upset or a bit oblivious at that age.

It's more important that you apologize yourself - he's three and wouldn't be out unsupervised.

Think about how you talk to him or model apologies when he's not in a sudden encounter with a stranger - role play it a bit. Show him that apologizing doesn't mean he will be blamed, and that it's a nice thing to do if someone is hurt or inconvenienced.

You wouldn't expect him to spot this kind of risk at three. Give it another three years at least before you worry about this.

He's not old enough to be super aware of his surroundings so you need to do it for him. "There's not enough room for you to do that here, let's find a big space" before he bumps into someone

it’s also typical of being a child. Shall we stop trying to diagnose autism from one bloody sentence

I do try to, I’m not just oblivious myself, but in very busy places it’s hard or if he suddenly moves, or even if I’m not there and he’s with someone else.

I walk with a stick and sometimes young children do get really excited and knock into me. I generally feel it is on me to be aware that they are there too, especially at crowded places, or where the children might be overly excited, though sometimes there's nowhere for me to get out of the way in time.

I'm never cross with the children but I do sometimes get a bit fed up with the adults with them if they aren't watching them or keeping an eye on what they are doing. Generally though accidents happen. I'm not going to sit at home just in case and I don't expect children not to be children either.

I will say though that I'm not elderly, and I might not feel the same in 25 years time!

Exactly this. Narrating loudly also lets people around you know you are in control and actively parenting. Heads off some of the frowns and dirty looks when DS inevitably acts 4

OP. He.might he 4 next month but he is still three.

Does he have any concept of what an apology is?

Have you explained any of this to him in child friendly terms? Why we look out for other people? What an apology is? Why people apologise?

Or are you just interrupting his fun to make him say, "I'm sorry," to a stranger without any concept of what those words mean or why he is saying them? What it means?

As someome else said, at this age, you have to teach them to be aware of other people and their surroundings and model the thinking around this for him so he knows what to do. And he will forget and it will happen again and it will take a long time for him to get it but that's what parenting is.

That wouldn’t have worked yesterday though (narrating) because it was just too busy and loud. And you can’t really do it at eg soft play either can you (or can you?)

@ScarlettSunset thanks for that, the lady seemed really annoyed and gave me a filthy look which made me feel awful!

@GreyCarpet i gave birth to him, I know how old he is to the hour, you don’t have to tell me, but nothing magical will happen next week in terms of development, a child a week off four will not suddenly become aware of his surroundings on becoming four … I was really asking how normal it was. In the last two weeks DS has ran over another child in a toy car, sent a younger child flying when running around and then nearly knocked an elderly lady over so it is on my mind a little bit.

The other thing that’s helpful is to model the behaviour you expect. So if you accidentally bump into someone, even only very gently, make sure you say sorry as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. At three, he’s taking cues on how to be in the world from you.

No, it isn't an autistic trait.

As an actual diagnosed autistic person and having actually done the training to do assessments, the armchair diagnosing on here, as well as the stereotypes about autism regularly trotted out, are wild.

"Does your three year old kid not mind where he's going and isn't considerate of others? Autism, of course?"

Don't be daft. He's THREE.

It wouldn’t occur to me not to - it does worry me he’s not going to be polite and I know people will say that’s on me and I must have gone wrong somewhere, I’m just not sure where really. That’s why I’m posting, to try to work it out.

The old lady giving you a filthy look is nothing. A fall is catastrophic for an elderly person can can change the rest of their life forever. Sorry ,but your post is triggering me. Youre just going to becaware of your surroundings and sons until hes grown out of this stage

Totally typical for his age. Some children do struggle with proprioception but you won't be able to identify this until he's much older. Expecting him to be aware of others and apologise really is a tall order for an excited 3 or 4 year old. None of mine would have managed that and they're all very well behaved and polite teens today.