Swear words according to ds2.

[OneInEight]

ds2 (11 years, AS) has decided that certain words can not be said. This includes all "family words" mum, dad, brother etc and all words relating to "age" baby, child, adult etc. Foolishly, we indulged him for a bit but have fairly quickly realised that whilst we can control what we say we can not control what the rest of the world says. At best saying one of these words results in a grunt but often he will hit out (including I am ashamed to say an absolute stranger - I did not dare look at AIBU for a while!). Any idea's for how we can overcome this?

He is transitioning to a new school not entirely smoothly so his anxiety levels are pretty high at the moment and this seems to be a result of a real fear of not being in control of the situation. The response is almost like a reflex action it is so swift so I am not sure how much conscious control he has over it at the moment.

Thanks Polter - interesting you son does this too. We honestly thought avoidance was the best strategy too but it is causing problems whenever he goes out of the house at the moment. A young baby in a pram was sufficient to send him storming out of a shop the other day although thankfully there was not violence on that occasion and I daren't even suggest taking him to see his cousin's new baby.

Oh heck one as if you dont have enough to deal with !!

I have absolutely no useful advice but am honking and flapping for you.

In our house 'people' and all related words (man, woman, boy, girl etc) are banned because DS says that people don't exist, they're extinct. It only triggers shouting, not violence, so we've been going along with it so far.

How old is your son Borka - it sounds very similar. ds2 says the same thing about words he doesn't like e.g there is no such thing as babies (if he is in a good mood and he see's one when we are out they become "robotic teddy bears"). I guess it is reassuring that other children do it too even if it doesn't solve the problem.

Thanks for the honks Ineed. Hope things have been calm for you at school this week.

He's 5, and does the same sort of thing as your DS's 'robotic teddy bears' - so we have different types of animal instead of people. Yes, one of the best things about MNSN is the reassurance that whataever your DCs are doing, someone else's are doing it too!

Thanks zzzz. It hadn't occurred to me it might be an OCD style problem but given he has other OCD-like behaviour sometimes e.g. closing the curtains whenever he enters a room you may well be right.

DS1 beeps out an awful lot of words. Thankfully, while mummy and daddy have been banned for many years, mum and dad are fine. If we say "almost" he suggests that we correct it to "nearly". When he's at his most controlling, we're not even allowed to say his brother's name.

I'll confess that he's got us rather well trained on some words, but I thikn that we're lucky that English is a very rich language and we can always find alternatives. I do draw a line at adding anything new, though.

And it's a hard one because he will avoid people who don't understand and appreciate his "rules" but gets on a lot better with people who pick up on them and at least acknowledge his feelings about those words. Things like this seem to provide a filter for people he decides he can or can't trust.

And yy to it being an OCD thing. And like yours, 1in8, he detests babies. He doesn't get violent, but he will leave a room with one in or walk away. He considers DS2 to be too babyish, because of his lack of spoken language and the fact that he's still incontinent at 8. We sometimes push the boundaries a little, by showing him pictures of videos of himself as a baby or toddler, but he seems to be ashamed and embarrassed that he was ever like that.

I think for ds2 it is that he can't bear to think of a time when he was dependent on us and not in control and you can't get more dependent than a baby. I have had to hide all the baby photo's so he doesn't rip them up so you are doing well if you can persuade your son to watch the video's.

He dissociates from them, a little, I think. He did tell us to turn them off, after a while and tried to insist that some of the pictures were actually of DS2. He was very uncomfortable with the realisation that he didn't talk very well and had chubby cheeks. (Though having said that, he was asking me about his first words, the other day and he was amused that he was "reading" as a baby - recognising numbers names and logos.)

The videos just gave me a headache. I'd forgotten how much he zipped and bounced around all over the place, when he was a toddler. He was pretty exhausting. How I coped with him while I was pregnant is a total mystery to me!

Most of our photos are digital, so easy to hide and just bring out under supervision.

ds2 has always made a big deal about how much he hates babies and small children , i stupidly didnt even consider it might be something to do with him having AS

It's not just words he's controlling about, btw. I bought some new teaspoons with a JL voucher I got as cashback, this week. They match the lovely soup spoons I got with another voucher I was given. I showed him one and said "isn't it lovely and smart and shiny?" and he turned his head away.

V interesting thread. :-) especially as it's turned to OCD. Ds1 has ASD SPD and OCD. Sometimes it's grad to tell where it's OCD and sometimes SPD, and the ASD means he's more rigid. It's a bad combo!

Just a thought. Closing the curtains when you go until a room could be SPD, or visual stress too.

There are many behaviours attributed to OCD. It's a horrible horrible thing that has hit my ds1 very hard in the past 2 months.

The word thing sounds very OCD, but it also could be obsessional behaviour as part of ASD. Maybe if it is OCD, the compulsion part is hitting out?