Do you let your kids line stuff up?

Post Reply New Topic

When our daughter was small she didn't play like other little girls, she would line up her dinosaurs, her rubber zoo animals and her polly pockets, when she got a new one she would line the others up and introduce the new one to all the others, then put them all away. When we came home from shopping we would usually find her lining up all her rubber animals even without a new one, she found it restful to do so, a time to unwind. We never stopped it and she eventually grew out of it. Although I think I remember hearing that she lines things up on her desk at college now.
Our son would line up his cars and we used this oppertunity to teach him to count and his colours.
He found counting fasinating and would line them up time and again and tell me how many cars he had, how many Thomas trains he had. he used to play with the Thomas trains, he would play with the cars sometimes but not untill the age of four nearly five. I never listened to people telling me my child should or should not be doing things, I would try and work around them, what they wanted to do. They would get stressed otherwise. I think good parents know what is best for their child and they should do so. Dr etc can go and rethink their knowledge.

Honestly, I don't see the harm in letting your child line things up. It sure beats throwing them across the room. If it concerns you, try redirecting that tendency to other task that would warrent lining things up. My daughter still lines things up at 11 years old and it has never affected her in a negative way. She's actually pretty organized at times, which is nice when I need to find something in her room.

Everyone lines something up at some time in their lifetime. I'm a full grown woman, I don't have Asperger's as far as I know, and I even line things up! Heck, I seperate my M&M's by color and line them up in even columns and rows before I eat them. And then, when I do get around to eatting them, I eat them in a certian color order after eatting the extra ones that don't fit in my pretty little pattern. Why? Because it's fun to do... and I guess I have a few strange habits too.

My son began doing this at age one and is still doing it at age 21. Frankly it's the least troublesome of his Aspie traits. As long as he doesn't try to share it with NT's and freak them out and scare them off it's not a problem. What is a problem is the numbers of toys he buys in terms of expense and storage space. He's now living with SIL and BIL on the other coast and has left cartons and cartons of toys here and I worry he's filling their house with more.

I really think you have to prioritize which obsessions need to be kept in check to avoid problems and which can be freely indulged. If you deny too many needs you end up needlessly frustrating the person. We all need our stress relievers.

Yes I do. As long as Vlad is not hurting anyone he can do what he wants. It is his nature to line things up and obsess over Star Wars at this moment so I allow it.

As an adult with Aspergers who still lines things up, I am astounded that some parents would actually consider STOPPING their Aspie kids from lining up their toys and belongings.

Come on people, let's lighten up and let kids be kids. Lining toys up is perfectly harmless and as a recent poster pointed out, one of the least harmful Aspie traits. In fact, the only harm I can see in it is if the child has a big tantrum if any of their items are moved even slightly out of line.

I never liked playing pretend games but liked dressing and undressing my dolls, lining them up and putting them in different poses. I also liked toy cars and blocks and used to make a lot of robots and houses with blocks. Lining up toys is calming and so I don't see why it would be a problem.

Instead of micro-managing a child's life, it's better to back off a bit and let them be themselves. Nobody likes being micro-managed, especially not people with Aspergers.

I can't imagine trying to stop my son from lining up his cars. Problem we have is his favorite place to line them up is the couch and when somebody wants to sit down he is not thrilled about us moving them. I try to redirect if he freaks out about people moving them when they need to be moved but I let him line them up. It's nice to have him occupy himself for a while.

Snapdragon, do you think your son would move his cars himself if he was asked? I think a lot of aspie people would object if others shifted their stuff around. Or could the people sit forward a bit on the couch? (That's if he's lining them up on the top part of the couch or the armrests - if he's lining them up on the cushions, I can see where that would be a much harder issue to combat).

You could also explain to your visitors that your son likes lining up his cars and to be a little careful as they sit on the sofa. If they're good friends, they will understand. Then again, I suppose your son might get panicky if he even thinks a car or two will be knocked off the sofa so I don't know if this will be a practicable solution for you or not.

Another possibility is to take a couple of photos of the cars lined up on the sofa and when they are removed, put them in a little box and tape a picture of the photo on the outside of the box or put it inside with the cars. Then your son will know what order to put them in. (Then again, we often have a photographic memory so this might not be needed).

I get mad when parents are worried about what others will think. Teaching him to mimic NT play won't make him not line things up nor make him enjoy what he mimics (I know first hand). I'm also ot a fan of behavioral therapists. IMO they treat humans like dogs. "Do this and I'll reward you." When we grow up, we are intelligent enough to find ways to fit in to the extent that we want to (not everyone is as successful as others). It is stressful to try to act NT when we aren't. It makes me so tired to sit in a group of people and try to make small talk. I need two days to myself to recover. On a parent site that I hated because the parents really believe that getting their kids to act as "typical" as possible was the best treatment, there is one low functioning aspie who posts--she can't speak, but she is very intelligent. She said that lining up cars is PLAYING with them and the same sort of imaginary stuff is going on in the brain of the child as the NT c hild who acts out the cars driving and crashing, etc. I don't know if this is true of every child, but my advice is to find an autism expert and dump the behavioralist. That sort of micromanaging of my behavior would drive me out of the house at 18, and would not foster a good relationship between me and whoever was trying to change who I am "for your own good." Of course, I'm just one aspie, but that's my point of view.

Yes, a lot of this expensive therapy is just a waste of time and money. If kids line up toys, it's hardly the end of the world but the way some people carry on, one would think that it is.

Geez! I used to help my ds line things up. I thought it was cute. Plus I also enjoy lining things up. Ds did it according to color, while I prefer size, but that's ok. I let him do all sort of self-stimming behavior as long as it's not hurting him or anyone else, or not too loud. WHat's the harm?

My son (4 now) will wake up and run downstairs before we get out of bed some mornings. When he does this, I usually wake up and follow him, a few minutes behind, just to make sure he hasn't gotten into anything.

I came downstairs one morning maybe 6 months ago, to find that he'd taken all of his refrigerator magnet letters off of the fridge, and had arranged them in alphabetical order on the tiles of the kitchen floor, exactly 1 letter per tile. I laughed. It's just so him.

He does this every once in a while. I've found that he knows exactly which tile to put "A" on so that the "Z" goes on the last tile before the wall.

Is it odd? Sure. But he loves it. Why stop him? At least I've finally gotten him to put the letters back on the fridge when he's done.