autistic children - would yours give a crap if you dropped off the face of the earth?

[HecTheHallsWithBoughsOfHolly]

Himself has been away for 2 weeks.

The kids haven't much talked about him, mentioned missing him, had any deterioration in behaviour that would indicate a problem... I said to my eldest "daddy is coming home today, that's great isn't it?" no answer. "have you missed him?"

reply? "ok." as though he was agreeing to obey an instruction to have missed him.

Made me feel a little sad.

Himself is a dedicated, loving, hand-on father who does as much for our children as I do (if not more!) he's fully involved in every way.

They don't care if we are here or not, as long as their needs are met.

Yet we get cuddles and they enjoy playing with us (on their terms) and they interact well and when we are around, give every impression of loving and needing us - but out of sight out of mind?

hand s - on. plural.

I think you are talking about 'emotional literacy'. It isn't that they don't have emotions regarding you or your DH. It is that they can't convey that in language, and language that refers to emotions is unintelligible to them.

Sucks though

Will google that, thanks.

I know that they love us. Or rather, I choose to believe that things I see, or they say, indicate that

I say "I love you" and get a distracted "ok" back or a bored "I love you too" because they know that is the expected response.

I do - rarely - get a spontaneous cuddle and an I love you! I bloody LOVE those!

I suppose it's the sort of thing that just doesn't matter to them?

I have one with Asperger's and one NT - they don't care if their dad's away either, lol

they're happy enough when he comes back, but because he goes out to work and what have you it doesn't really make any difference to them when he works away

in fact I've forgotten to tell them before (I know bad mummy, lol) and after about three days had a kind of offhand - where's daddy? but no real reaction, lol

so I don't think it's just autism, I think it's just kids tbh, they're ungrateful wee creatures, lol

yes. That's a fair point.

I don't know about caring if we no longer walked on this planet but I do often feel that my son does not love me (in any way). BUT, he goes to a residential school and he phones ME every day at 5.30pm. No-one else, just me (even though he could use his xbox/laptop etc).
I therefore know that he needs me and that I am the one person he knows he can utterly rely on. Occasionally, when he is very upset, he just says again and again, 'I want my mummy' (he's 13.
And I guess that this is 'his' love.

depends on the day and what activity they are engrossed in!

DS3 panics if dh even leaves the house to do his daily PO run.

But if dh were away longer term- doubt it.

It's only in the last few eyars that we have thought ds3 would notice if I were gone as long as there was food though so an improvement.

DS3 is quite loving anyway (has an unusual presentation- loves EVERTYONE!) but ds1 loves us as long as we fit around him and his variant of what the world should be.

We have the opposite problem in that DS has always loved everyone and not known appropriate emotional / social boundaries; so gets overly attached to people.

I think its not uncommon for DC to miss the parent who WOH less as they are simply not around all the time; whereas a SAHP is.

I remember as a child when my DM had to go abroad for a week when her DM was dying. Dsis and I were deeply affected by this and distraught, whereas DDad would often go away for a week at a time with work and we would miss him less although we love both parents very much indeed.