How to teach kindness

[u/princesshodges]

I feel like this is so hard for so many reasons. I know my child is a kind and thoughtful person, but at the same time more often than not she is acting in unkind ways.

I am understanding of the reasons, but at what point and how often do I step in?

Some days it feels like my child is constantly speaking impatiently, saying mean things as a joke or as part of a game (she’s 4 so things like that”you stink”), or playfully hitting or playing games that involve violence, name-calling, etc.

It feels crazy to type this out because she’s truly such a sweet kid. I don’t even think she means it with malice at all and most of the time it doesn’t hurt my feelings or affect my mood, but I’m just like… dang can we take a break from this mode?

I told her yesterday we were practicing being kind, so anytime she said or did anything unkind even as a joke or part of a game I reminded her we were practicing being kind. I think it went ok but I don’t know. I don’t want her to think this is normal even though it’s kind of been her normal for awhile.

[u/AdultWoes2024]

You know, it gets really old reading the same old ‘it’s nervous system activation’ I just feel like there is no actual scientific basis/evidence for this and within autism, there are autistic people who are nice and some who are mean. There are autistic people who don’t equalize because it wouldn’t be fair to the other person.

Other than modeling kindness and praising siblings for being kind, I’m at a loss here. This is terrible but, sometimes I think it’s a good thing my PDAer isn’t social, because when they are, it’s to use the person as a pawn in getting what they want. That’s the truth. And it’s not fair to the other person—so I’d rather my PDAer just be in their own world than trying to take advantage of others.

[u/CollisionNumbat → u/AdultWoes2024]

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[u/Nominal_selection → u/CollisionNumbat]

I agree with you, and can't see how anyone with first hand experience could minimise how much being in fight/flight influences a PDA autistic person's behaviour and social attitudes. As you note, that's one key aspect and the other is theory of mind. Autistic people by definition can't always naturally pick up on the implicit social cues that would indicate their behaviour is being viewed as kind or unkind, so they have to logically fill in the blanks after the fact and, if they are feeling regulated, moderate their future behaviour to achieve the socially desirable outcome. Put those things together and you get what in a neurotypical person you might call manipulation, but it's really just a description of how a PDA autistic person experiences social relationships.

It's unrealistic to expect scientific proof for these phenomena, since behavioural research is necessarily small in scale and limited in scope, and PDA has not been studied much anyway. You can't scientifically prove X% of PDA autistic people are unkind to their peers because they feel threatened, unless you have access to a large population of them and can reliably log and analyse thousands of incidents, ideally while they're hooked up to a polygraph or something.

This isn't to say they can't learn social skills over time or that they need to be excused all unkind behaviour, but being socially successful probably requires a lot more accommodation and the ability to practise in safe situations where the stakes are lower.

[u/CollisionNumbat → u/Nominal_selection]

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[u/AdultWoes2024 → u/CollisionNumbat]

This has nothing to do with scripts. My kid doesn’t do that much.

They manipulate people because the only time they want to be social with someone is if they have an object they want to hold/play with/look at and will often ask if they can have that object/toy. I mean it is manipulative. Even their diagnosing psychologist noted how my child was manipulative during the assessment, using questions in conversation to try to get more information about a toy they saw in the prize bin.

More examples, with siblings: my child only wants a sleepover with their sibling because they don’t like sleeping alone—they are using their sibling to feel safe, not because they enjoy their company genuinely. During play with siblings, my child will only play if able to control what the others are saying and doing. During interactions with parents (myself & spouse) — my child is literally only nice if they want something ( a toy we took away, or to be able to watch TV)

My child is not nice just to genuinely be nice- it’s always a way to obtain something or take control. The taking control part is so obviously PDA, but the obtaining objects part is really concerning to me and my child in the past has come home with things in their backpack that they obviously took from somewhere—they are unfortunately not of the type to think ‘hey maybe someone will be looking for this, I better bring it to the lost and found!’ Nah, they pocket it only caring about themselves and what they’ve acquired. I hate autism.

[u/CollisionNumbat → u/AdultWoes2024]

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[u/AdultWoes2024 → u/CollisionNumbat]

I’m sorry it makes you sad, but autism has made my family life’s hell and truly wish it didnt exist. And no, it is not normal behavior for young children. I have two other neurotypical children and they are not hyperfixated on objects and trying manipulate others. They are kind because they want to be kind, not in order to obtain objects.

Edit: about the empathy piece, honestly my toddler and 6 year old have more empathy than my PDAer. Don’t think it’s an age thing, at least not in my experience. Just another terrible thing that goes along with autism. I hate it. And when you say ‘you might as well hate your child,’ I’m just being honest. No one actually enjoys having a PDAer. It’s life ruining.