Is this lying or struggling to make the connections?

[Allonsy]

Sorry for another thread but im feeling rather stressed this morning. Yesterday was ds1's (almost 7) school nativity play, i collected him after the afternoon one he looked quite unhappy through the classroom window, i watched him getting changed and he was stretching his face and walking high on tiptoes, i thought maybe it didnt go great. When he came out he said it was fine but boring. He was due to go for the evening one 3 hours later. Within 30mins of getting home he said he didnt want to go back, he said he was tired, then he had a sore tummy which he 10 mins later said was a lie. Then he said he hated the end all the clapping was scary, the actions were too hard, the singing was boring (everything is boring to him) he cried and screamed and shouted and stamped for 2 hours, eventully i bribed him with his fave dinner he said he felt sick didnt want it etc but then he ate it all and seemed totally fine, went back to school happily and came home happy saying it went fine.

Fast forward to this morning - eating his breakfast he said i enjoyed my concert mum, i said thats good so it wasnt scary after all, he said no that was a lie? asked him why he lied to me and he said he didnt know (smirking) i said thats not good enough i dont like being lied to and his tantrum was all for nothing, he started crying and saying he dosnt know the answer. This went on some time whenever hes questioned he dosnt know the answer, he kept shrugging his shoulders saying 'i just did lie' and i admit getting quite annoyed as this keeps happening. I asked him to tell me what a lie means, he said he didnt know so i said 'if i say the sky is green is that a lie?' he said 'yes' so he does know! I told him after school we will talk about it and how lying is not on, he said 'ok but i dont think i know the answers'.

Does this sound like hes playing me or struggling with understanding because i just dont know anymore, dh thinks hes playing me with all these little lies and i need to come down hard on it?

I think he maybe just doesn't have the language to explain what an abstract thing like a lie is. It's a very hard concept to explain for a NT 6 yo let alone one with SN. He would find it a lot easier to answer yes/no to a list of examples. Eg The sky is blue. The clapping was scary.

The reason why he lied is probably also very difficult for him to put into words. I don't think he's 'playing you' on this. He has found out how to lie! That could be seen as a developmental milestone reached and cause for celebration! Obviously continue discussing why lies are wrong, but if he is on the autism spectrum it can be difficult to understand the difference between white lies, 'yes, you look nice in that dress' and black lies.

Thanks, its all so confusing, it feels like if its not one thing its another its never ending. I think your right and that he just dosnt 'get' what he says most of the time, dh thinks i excuse him to often and put it down to 'his issues' but then ive read so much, its hard to see anything else ifykwim. I keep thinking that if he wad intending to just have me on then why why he of said it in the first place, he was practically begging me to not go back to school and even though it was all fine there must of been some reason for that in the first place. Im wondering if perhaps the clapping did bother him first time but not the second time so the thinks he must of told a lie, although if so im not sure why it would only bother him once, boggled...

From what you say it sounds to me that he has a more literal understanding of a lie to be: 'something that is not true'. If he has difficulties with social communication then he perhaps can't grasp that a lie is an 'untruth with a motivation behind it'.

It is often astonishing what children with social communication difficulties struggle with. E.g. last night we all had to return to our own beds after having guests over for the past 2 days. I was explaining this to my dd2 (age 7 under assessment for ASD). I told her I was going back to my own bed but she imagined I was going to sleep in a single bed somewhere. I told her I was going back to my own (ie normal double which I share with DH) bed but she could not grasp that my bed was my own, because I share it with Daddy!

Hard sometimes to grasp what the world is like for the more literal among us.

Handy xxx

My first thought is that going back to school in the evening is a bit out of the ordinary, together with the fact this time of year is tricky because of the routine change, general excitement and big shows. Maybe all that is a bit overwhelming and he can't really explain it properly, hence the contradictory statements?

Also It mIght have only bothered him the once because he knew what to expect the second time? I agree with the other posters, I think he's just starting it figure out what lying is but hasn't quite got it yet.

That does make sense handywomen, ds is very much like that he has a strange way of thinking and i get many 'eh' moments before realising although not 100% literal hes is far more than i expect.

I suppose the fact his is managing to tell lies at all is a positive step, perhaps even away from the worry of ASD, or perhaps not because his understanding of them is poor and hes generally not very good at it.

I had told ds this morning when he came in from school we would be discussing behaviour and about lies so when i picked him up the first thing he asked was when are we having our chat, then every 2 mins once we got into the house while i was getting organised. So had a bit of a chat not sure how much was going in and he kept asking if we were finished talking because it was boring (im beginning to hate that word) i asked him lots about school, i he was happy etc and he seems to be he very hard to get information out of and i suspect most of the time he gives the answers he thinks i want. He was saying one second 'x' and 'y' dont want to play with me anymore, then in the next breath saying he was playing with 'x' and 'y' at such and such game. Then he said they were playing 'tardis' but didnt know what that involved and then said that 'x' kept running away but he was still playing. He told me that 'y' now talks like him (ds has a stammer) and they are the same now, i asked him if he thought this girl could be being a bit silly and copying him but he said no she does it now too. I know this girl dosnt have a stammer so can only presume she was mocking him and he couldnt even see it :( he did say school dosnt worry him and that he never plays alone he just finds someone else but when i ask what they played hes 'forgot'

Allonsy your ds1 sounds rather like my dd2. My dd is extremely vague about school. She always 'forgets' what happened in class and never has anything positive to say about friends (and I do mean never). She comes back with daily reports about how 'X did such and such and it's not fair' but you know there was a whole other story that probably involved dd2 being inflexible...... I dont know your history do you have referrals or input in place? I would start writing a diary documenting your concerns. Nothing else to add apart from a honk from me.

Yep ds 'forgets' everything its his go to excuse even for - why did you not flush the toilet? 'i forgot' how can you forget when theres two massive visual pictures that you cant miss? what did you just say that? ' i dunno i just forgotten' forgotten what?? and so on, 'i forgot' and 'its boring' are his stock responses. Wont go into it because ive had many threads and people will be sick of reading about it but we are awaiting referal for assessment at my requst, no input in place other than speech therapy for dysfluency. I keep meaning to start a diary but dont really know what i should be writing down?

Anything that doesn't seem quite right. Interaction, with you, with peers, any groups he is part of. His understanding of events, language, social conventions, birthdays, family events, any behaviour. Think about meltdowns, what triggers them. How transitions between tasks are coped with. Anything!

hw xxx

My ds is dx ASD in secondary school so much older but he can lie and at 6 he could as Wellbutrin I think sometimes it's more down to having a different perspective on things but all the same I know he can lie! He is still not sure what a lie is though eg if i get some information or comment wrong he will say I lied even though I have explained it a million times.

Thanks will start one tomorrow, will be helpful that hes off school for 2 weeks as of fri for the holidays.

Flowwithit - ds does that with us at the moment, if i get something wrong he will accuse me of lying and being naughty, as well as if i use a different word for something he will say nooo thats wrong muuum! all accusing like.