Freaking out about a pair of shoes

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So my mom came by and brought some clothes and a fwe pairs of shoes for the kids. One pair of sandals didnt fit Trevor so much so I figured I would give them to my step son and told Trevor I would get him a pair on friday. He agreed. A few hours later he starts ranting and raving about how I stole his shoes and gave them to my step son. I mean full on flip out yelling screaming, slamming doors attacking children and anything else you can think of. Is this typical? how do you deal with this?

Yep, can be very normal. Perhaps he didn't understand the concept of "Friday" sounds silly but it could be as simple as that. In his mind those shoes were his. You gave his shoes to someone else, sure he appeared to agree with you that he would wait until friday for a new pair of shoes, but he may not have understood exactly what that meant, he may not even have really heard you. My son is 10 and appears to listen to me all the time, he will even agree with me. I think he understands what I have said only to find out, he has no clue what I had been talking about. Do you have a calander? You could write on it and show him (better yet put a picture on it of shoes) he will get his new shoes on Friday, if the other child is old enough to understand take the original shoes back off the child and put them away until Friday as well. Then write a brief story to give to your spectrum child explaining that on Friday you will take him to buy new shoes and the shoes that your mum bought for him will then belong to the other child. If he is anything like my son most things need to be in black and white so that he can review them several times before it sinks in. Good luck (hope that made sense)

I agree. Sounds like a combo of sibling jealousy and miscommunication. There was likely something about the plan for transferring ownership of the shoes that your son didn't understand. So he agreed, without out really comprehending what was going to happen next, and when you gave the shoes to the other boy, he felt confused, jealous, even betrayed...in other words very, very upset. This type of thing happens frequently with my own sons (they are twins which also exacerbates jealousy issues). We find that we have to go very slowly, and explain things repeatedly, and really make sure our sons understand each situation.

Having a sense of control is also very important to my sons. Did you take the shoes away to give to Trevor, or was your son able to physically hand them over himself? Allowing my sons to do things themselves, sometimes after a lot of explaining and negotiating even over what apears to be a very "small" issue", helps them to be able to deal with the change.

He gave them to him hiself which is why I am so confused, since he said I stole his shoes.

My son cannot deal with giving away any of his possessions, whether he uses them, likes them, wants them, or not. No trades; nothing. An unknown third party like Goodwill is OK, as long as he isn't there is witness it, but anything else ... no. We've just accepted this. It's one of his quirks.

They just do that sometimes and you just can't win. When my son was little he decided that I really needed to trade the family van in for a hovercraft. He was really insistent and determined about it and thought I was being completely unreasonable and cruel. Whole screaming, crying WHY??! ! thing. Not fun.

My NT son is like this too. He would not part with any of his possessions, even if they are old clothes/shoes that no longer fit etc.! !!

So I do a clear out of his wardrobe/toy box when he is not there. He rarely misses the stuff, but if I were to ask him, he would come up with some very 'good' reason why he still needs them!! !

I bet if you had said nothing, and just passed them on to your step son, he would not have noticed or cared less!! ! I'd say he got it alright, but just didnt want the step son to have 'his' stuff, pretty normal sibling rivalry, just maybe with AS he wasnt able to manage the jealous fellings so well. xx

That sounds like typical child behavior.

However, some people with ASDs (and NLD) do have issues with time. My ex always used to say "I'll call you later." Later is a concept that I still have difficulty with, because it could be a very short amount of time or a very long one.

thanks for all your input, the next morning he had forgotten the shoes all together

Oh boy...you have to put the shoes in his private spot - somewhere in his room, I guess - then when you have the new shoes, you can give the other ones away. One can't just take and give away without filling the void. You might even have to use the same box. Old shoes out and the new ones in. Only then, can you give the shoes to the other child. All kids are pains in the neck!! .... always fussin' and startin' ...findin' fault where there is none....

How old is your son? My ASP daughter used to do some odd things like this when she was between 2-4 but if she did that at 10, I'd be really concerned.

My daughter "lost her mind" when a neighbor came over and had some tea. Because she regonized the mug as being something I normally drank from, she could not handle the fact thaht someone else was using "mom's" mug.

Glad to hear he's over it. Sometimes they leave us in a whimpering puddle and then they recover and happily skip away while we try to gather ourselves back to together. That's how i feel, anyway