DS doesn't like other children, and only talks to adults. Is this weird?

[Dottoressa]

I think it probably is weird, but am I the only one who has a child who insists on collaring every available adult so he can hold a monologue on the internal workings of the pipe-organ (or whatever his latest obsession is)?

He is 6.5 and has never liked other children - he seems to find them threatening (not least because they probably tell him to stop banging on about pipe organs). He doesn't share any of their interests (football, rugby, Star Wars and so on), and thinks they're all silly and pointless.

Adults do tend to be very tolerant and kind, which gives him an audience. Anyone else have any experience of this?

I was like this. Back in the bad old days my mother was asked to remove me from playschool because I tried to be the teacher and went and sat with the adults and conversed with them and didn't identify at all with the children.

I had two much older sisters and considered myself one of them. I stayed with my sister at Liverpool University when I was four and felt that was quite my patch. I can still remember every detail.

I grew out of it - eventually - but I'm still rather intolerant of 'blah' company. Make that very intolerant, actually.

I think I was a bit like this. I use to consciously 'pretend' to be a child and do child-like things to fit in, from about the age of 5. I think I got away with it because I did have quite a few friends. I like children a lot more now I am grown up.

Interesting, Fircone.

Maybe I was like this as well - I did end up marrying someone older than my parents . I'm not good with 'blah' company (to steal your lovely expression) either...

it isn't weird at all maybe he finds their company a little boring and would rather spend his time with people who are intelligent?

Boffin - yes, I like children now more than I did when I was a child!

MrsM - I like your interpretation of his weirdness!!

Your OP describes my 4 yr old DS to a tee.

He is in the process of being diagnosed with aspergers (a form of autism).

Have a look here and check nothing else rings a bell.

As others have said it may simply be a behaviour he grows out of, but thought would share some info just in case.

Yes, he might well have something like this but then most university staff have, frankly. Looks like it will be Oxbridge for him then.

yes very clever types

PS Tell him that in my opinion it was Shudi pioneering the Venetian Swell on the harspichord in 1769 that had the biggest impact on the development of the modern day pianoforte, not to mention organ development. Does he have a view on this?

lol i don't thinkit's weirdness at all, maybe it's normal and other people are strange?

It is unusual but the real issue is whether or not he is bothered by it. If he's perfectly happy, it doesn't really matter if he hasn't got friends his own age. It may matter more as he gets older, though.

Obsessions are not unusual in children, but the nature of your DS's obsessions are. He is very unlikely to find even many adults who are interested in the same things as him!

Ds1 was like this for a very long time but less so now, at least in the school playground (though still tends to play with older children). In P1 he used to spend all his break times walking around the school campus with whichever teacher (inc the headmaster) was on duty discussing the ways of the world (and pointing out naughty children for the teacher to blow their whistle at; for a while he had his own whistle too until I managed to "lose" it).

DS1 is like this. He's 6, never really had many friends and is much more confident and comfortable with adult company than childrens. He will play with his 4 year old brother for hours on end but struggles with children at school and only really has a couple of children in his class he's very friendly with.

His interests are quite grown up aswell, he loves natural history, geography, that kind of thing. He reads very well so will happily sit and devour an encyclopaedia.
I don't worry much about him because he seems quite happy and relaxed. I've always just accepted he's a bit different.

Looking back I was a bit the same I think.

I'm trying to guess from the tone of your post Dottoressa whether you're at all worried about your ds? (Or whether on the other hand you just think this is an amusing quirky thing.)

I think in your position I would be a bit worried - and actually, were it not that my ds has a younger sister who has built bridges between him and the idea of 'other children' (ie, has made him understand and appreciate that other children are worth engaging with), we would be in your position, I think.

The thing that is worrying is the apparent blanketness of not liking other children - children vary, and not all of them are into the obvious things: you do get some nice imaginative eccentric ones (those were my friends when I was little, and they're who my ds chooses for friends now). So it's almost as if your ds has decided to block a whole option out of his life, without really seeing what it is he's blocking. (Which sounds more like fear or anxiety than a positive choice - as you say, a sense of being threatened.)

Also a bit worrying is that he sounds as if he may not genuinely engage with the adults he talks to - more that he uses them as nicely patient listening posts. Which is fine up to a point (and indicates nice adults) but it still means your ds isn't learning about social give and take - which is one of those things that can only be learnt through exposure and experience.

If your ds was mine, I would be trying, however stilted & formal the arrangements it felt, to make him talk to and play with other children - perhaps carefully chosen by you, and with understanding parents, for short periods, and in structured environments - maybe like playing board games. So that at least the idea of other children becomes less "alien".

But if you are really not at all concerned about this, please ignore all the above!

A friend has a four year old who exhibits similar behaviour to the OP's son and he has just been diagnosed with high functioning autism.

Singersgirl - good point. He is not in the slightest bit bothered about whether he has any friends of his own age. He is capable of playing with DD (4.5) when he feels like it, so he is not totally lacking in these skills - I think he just finds other children no fun in general!

You're right about the lack of fellow pipe-organ obsessives. The pipe-organ obsession follows the textile-mill obsession, which was a bit easier in that we could spend endless hours in mills. The old men in mills like nothing better than a small obsessive boy to talk to!!

I've wondered many times about Aspergers, not least because DS's lack of sociability goes together with him being unusually bright - but have rather come to the conclusion that he is just a clever boy, and that this combination makes for obsessions and solitary pursuits!!

DH and I are both former academics, so that may also explain everything.

Boffin - I will mention the Venetian Swell to him...

Bink - thanks for your good question and thoughtful reply. TBH, I'm not sure whether I'm worried or not. Sometimes I am, and sometimes I'm not!

He does indeed use adults as listening posts - he likes them to listen while he regurgitates facts. He isn't very interested in hearing what the adult might have to say in response - though, of course, he doesn't realise that he thereby runs the risk of missing some even more thrilling fact to add to his arsenal of information...

I so clearly remember inviting another child to play when he was three. DS's opener to this poor child was: "Do you know there was a methane gas explosion in 1982. Fortunately, nobody was hurt." (he had read it in a book - he reads things once then regurgitates them word for word...but then so do I, so I can't really grumble about that one!!)

Dottoressa,

welcome to the club. ds1 is 10 now and has always been the same. He doesn't have aspergers or anything else. He just prefers the company of adults. Mind you so did I

Even more shocking was the Scunthorpe Nypro explosion 1974.

I feel a spiritual link with your ds.

My DS2 is like this - I did start a thread recently (he's just turned 5) and am still wondering if he is just an individual or if there is something more to it. His teacher says he is happy at school, and he plays with his older brother and me and DH fine, so I am not too worried. DH and I are not very "blah" either, I am rubbish at small talk and have always been a bit like that myself. Your DC sounds wonderful, bright and I am sure he is destined for great things! Enjoy his individual spirit

You do have to be a bit careful that he doesn't irritate grown ups, or join in inappropriately, though. My dn used to be like this, and her parents thought it was fine, but it was sometimes extremely annoying when she came to sit with the grown ups at parties, or joined in uninvited with adult conversations.

My other brother calls it "Don's Disease" - claiming it is very common among the children of academics!

Thanks for your reply, Dott - entirely understand about the sometimes-worried, sometimes-not - I call it the "now you see it, now you don't" myself.

Seeker's point is one I was thinking of too - that, if you don't give-and-take in conversation, eventually a monologuing child wears out the patience of even the nicest adult, and it's a bit sad when a child can't anticipate that.

Does he do jokes? Developing a sense of humour (which happened around 6 - he's now 9) and the necessary sharing which comes with that has really helped ds (although he is not brilliant at figuring out when jokes are appropriate & when not, which is all consistent with social oddities generally of course). Humour made ds lighten up all round.

Bink - he has just started to do jokes, courtesy of the Beano. I have long felt that he needed to work on his sense of humour!! He takes himself terribly seriously...