His interrupting me is really getting to me

Post Reply New Topic

I'm an NT mom with a very high functioning 11yo aspie. Ever since he could speak, he has been interrupting me and it really bothers me. Twice in pubic I drew attention when I yelled out or pounded my fists on the table. Other times I just get depressed. Can anyone help me?

Most of the time he is anticipating what I'm saying and starts right in to contradict me. Often I begin my sentence with a clause, and he interrupts before I can say the main part of the sentence. And what I was to say is what what he agrees with, but if I then try to say that he accuses me of lying or changing what I was saying. Ugh! Sometimes I only get a few words out.

Note that I homeschool him, so right now everything depends on me - social training, education, therapy or whatever. I did see a child therapist who diagnosed him, and sent me on the way to understand and accept him but was not much help beyond that. She said that these kids often don't generalize if they have social training classes, so she didn't recommend them. I hope to homeschool him until 9th grade and put him in public school, but he'll be destroyed in school if he interrupts there as he does at home.

I think my son has a very easy life and should tolorate learning that he can't keep interrupting me or anyone else. I just don't know how to get him to understand how infuriating it is.

I have the responsibility to nurture and train this child to adulthood, and possibly beyond, but I have to be able to speak to him in order to do it.

I often suppress my own needs for him. I can't listen to music, I can't concentrate on reading or other things (due to his interruptions), I can't go where I want to go or stay out and "do one more errand" etc. I also TRY to limit my words, avoid idioms, avoid leading up to my main point etc. But I can only take so much supression of myself. I know so many of you have it much worse than I do. But after a while, I just get depressed. Any suggestions as to how to help him understand how interrupting hurts me?

I don't know that I would approach it too heavy-handedly from the point of view that it hurts you. I think I would say it is annoying (rather than hurtful) and that it is the social convention to let someone finish their thought, even if it is boring or irrelevant. (yes, that is probably what your child thinks, like it or not)

I have a seven year old and we are attempting to reduce the scaffolded tolerance for his interruptions. When he interrupts me, I tell him matter of factly that he is interrupting and that he needs to let me finish talking first. He will do so when prompted, he just won't do it on his own, so we are working towards that.

He has heard it enough that he will complain we are interrupting him, when he has not finished a brain dump to me when my husband starts to ask me a question. So, he can recognize when it happens to him, which is a good sign. He just does not really care if he is the one doing it. That will probably take time.

With my own son, it is as though his thoughts have momentum (and as I write, it is with the acknowledgement that he gets this from me.) For him to have a thought and not voice it is equivalent to a train conductor trying to save a baby on the train tracks by braking the train. It is a HUGE thing we are asking, to ask him to stop voicing every single thought the minute it forms in his head.

Sometimes, getting the perspective of how hard something is for my son makes it easier for me to accommodate him. I'm with you on how incredibly irritating it is to be in the middle of a conversation and suddenly have your child break in with the latest moves from his favorite video game. Can you ask him to write down his thoughts instead? DS is always afraid he will forget what he was going to say (and that does happen.) Maybe give him a little notebook and say, "If I am talking, you have to write down what you want to say and wait until I stop talking to say it."

Interrupting is the number 1 social skill my 11 year old son struggles with. We have seen slow progress in this area, but it is very slow. His mode of interrupting is more that it doesn't matter what conversation is happening around him, whatever tangent he wants to go on he will try to talk over everyone to start it. He is constantly interrupting me when I am having a conversation with just about anyone. I don't let him get away with it and make him wait, but he still wants to do it all the time. Or if he is learning something new, he wants to ask a million questions and interrupt with what he knows about that subject without first allowing the person to present the topic. For example, we went to science museum last week. In the astronomy area, they had a man who periodically would give a small presentation about each of the planets and then concluded with the MARS rover on the screen. The presentation wasn't long, only about 10 minutes, but I had to stand behind my son and constantly remind him in his ear not to start talking because he was dying to start having a personal conversation with this man. To my son, he might as well be the only person in the room and this man was there to just talk to him. He does the same thing when teachers ask questions, it drives him crazy not to answer everything and dominate the lesson. When we talk about it, he says he knows he can't answer everything, but he just can't control it.

My son got a diagnosis through the school at the end of his 2nd grade year. Decreasing classroom interrupting has been the one goal we have had each year that he has never fully met. While he does show improvement, he has never 100% met his goals in this area, so we tweak it a bit and add it to the next year. I think one reason he may show more improvement at school than I see elsewhere is because the normal, everyday school stuff he finds boring. My best case scenario is that my son will one day learn to be quiet during a lecture, but will most likely be the annoying classmate that keeps everyone there forever asking a million questions when everyone else wishes he would do it after class.

I have watched NT mums with their NT kids and when the parent told them to wait and the child would wait patiently always shocked me as my DD still struggles with the interruption challenge. I have never known anything different as l only have the one and know by experience it's almost painful to her and l can feel her presence as she starts gently jump around at trying to hold in what she needs to say. I let the person finish their statement and then when they take a long enough breath just apologize and allow her to speak. Otherwise l have trouble listening as l can sense her reaction. I have tried different tactics but found this works best for now. If l have time to warn her when it might be a business discussion on the phone or a person l word her up that is important she doesn't interrupt. I believe it's a maturity thing that they will get better as they get older. But believe me l have found it very frustrating in past and still do

I had this problem as a child (and so does my daughter actually). I"m not diagnosed with anything, they didn't do that back in the early 80's. If I was a child now, I'd certainly have a dx of some sort.

Here is what my parents did to help me out, because that is really what it is. It was helpful to me to not go through my life interrupting people (I still do occasionally, but it's only because I can't follow the "Flow" and I don't know when it's ok for me to talk, which is different from just talking when you please which is what I did and what my daughter does).

So I was a kid and I interrupted CONSTANTLY. All the time. My parents figured I would outgrow it and largely ignored me which worked well for us. Until I hit the second grade. When I hit the second grade I had a teacher who would. not. tolerate. interruption of anysort and felt that 7 was far too old for this behavior, and she was right. I would constantly blurt, utter, correct, contradict et al. in class.

Now part of the solution had to be that I had to have a DESIRE to correct my own behavior whether I understood the problem with it or not. I understand the problem NOW (I'm 34) but at age 7? No. I didn't get why it was an issue. SO they had to drum up some other reason to make me WANT to comply. So they made the following iron clad rules (consequences to follow)
1) I must always, while at school and in class raise my hand to talk. ALWAYS no exceptions to this rule no matter what the discussion is and no matter what format the discussion is. Even if it was a group of peers, I must raise my hand (yes they informed the teacher of this).
2) If not in class, or if it's a questionable situation like girls scouts/gym class/reading group what have you I may raise my hand OR I may say "MAY I ASK A QUESTION!" or "MAY I MAKE A STATEMENT?" And if the answer was no, I could talk no further. This also applied to the dinner table, and pretty much anytime I was in the house with my family unless cdonversation had already been initiated in which rule 3 could apply.
3) If trying to join a conversation or part of a group conversation that is casual and among peers or among family, I had to wait for a pause of length 2 seconds counted like this (1 mississippi, 2 mississippi) Before saying something. Also, it was required (admittedly this was hard to monitor) that my statement be on topic.

So how did they make me stick to this you ask? First of all, long term, I was told I would be held back in the second grade. I was also told that I would have no friends and at this point in my life, I still wanted friends. Both were true. That teacher would hold me back, she said so on multiple occasions. I lost all my friends eventually anyway, but that is what happens. Short term my parents consitently rewarded the desirable behavior and reprimanded for the bad. If I tried to break one of the rules my parents would hold up one finger. That was my sign to cease and desist. If I ignored, a second finger when up. If we got to three fingers, I went to my room for 15 minutes. Forcibly if that is what it took. At school Sort of the same deal only I was given a math problem to solve for every interruption. Then if I persisted, I was sent to the principals office with an entire sheet of math to do. I could return when it was complete. Now if I didn't interrupt or if I immediately corrected my behavior on the first warning, I wasn't punished. If I did it consistently, I was rewarded.

That is pretty much it. Worked well for me, I was "cured" with in a few months. Waiting for people to take a breath now comes more or less naturally. The more casual a conversation is, the harder it is. The more people there are the harder it is. More than 3 (including myself) and I pretty much throw in the towel and smile and nod. Generally, my brain is so far behind in a conversation like that anyway that it's not worth the embarassment. I think that came with maturity though.

I plan to do this fairly soon with my daughter. Sort of have to tackle one issue at a time, so we've been working on "fairness" and sharing". I think it gets way too confusing to try to tackle two things at a time for them. So we will get to interrupting when we get to it, I think that squealling about not always being first and not being a sore winner/sore loser etc are higher on the list of priorities for us. I think the older the child is the better something like this will work. Like I said they have to WANT to correct the behavior. My daughter is 5. She doesn't want to. Even sending her to her room at this point won't override her desire to speak, nor is her desire for a reward greater than her desire to speak. It'll be way easier when she gets a little older I think.

CWA, i feel your pain on the early 80s; we didn't have anything. I was put in special ed for help and also was suggested and went to a theraputic horseback riding program yet aside from that...

Since i could talk pretty much (well at a regular pace) i have always cut off, interrupted people in conversation.
I never meant anything rude or bad by it, it's almost an impulsive type of lacking. I am 33 and i still do it to this day.
However i really do try and not do it so much, however it is hard at times since i just slip and start talking, especially if it is a topic that is exciting to me or interests me.

My mother will still have to remind me at times during phone conversation to wait until she's done (this just happened about 3 times the other night) yet i tried each time. She's also came along way. I mean, in the 80s it was like classic case Autism or nothing. There wasn't a spectrum.
They knew i had lousy social skills, and more, yet they didn't have a spectrum or help at the time. A lot of us i'm guessing got thrown into Special Ed or help classes; whatever it might have been called. At this point i am greatful for even that and the reccommendation by the special ed teacher about Theraputic Horse back riding.

Aann, please know your son means no harm, it's likely he's excited and it's hard for us to control these sorts of things. I know there's a lot more help available out there now.

Thank for all the responses. I showed him some of the postings so he knows he's not the only one who struggles, and I can put some of CWA's plan in place. Interesting is that on his own he started prefacing his questions and statements with, "Can I say something here?" similar to CWA, in casual settings.

Can anyone help us address what happens when I try to teach school subjects? We'll sit down for a grammar lesson, for example, and after I utter the first couple of words of explanation, he'll be making noises like humming. Then he'll interrupt with words, and we waste much time trying to get back to the explanation. Happens every time I have to explain anything. I am responsible to teach him in 8 subjects, but can't explain anything.

We've had this problem since kindergarten and now he's 11. I know his heart is good but there has to be something I can do. He has a wonderful science teacher, and I've tried to put him a once-a-week school which covers all the subjects, but their membership is full. I've been on the waiting list for a year. He is brilliant and can read subject and memorize material on his own, but some things need explanation.

We mostly struggle with math and grammar. For math, he understands concepts immediately and retains well but is very slow in processing/computing the exercises. I don't assign many exercises but sometimes he needs me to help him with multiple-step problems - it always ends in frustration for both of us.

Just had a thought. I had success in a class addressing his irritation with other students who shout "Oooh, oooh" or the like in class. He keeps a tally of incidences on an index card and gets an extra minute of computer time for each two tallys. It made quite a difference - he now stays in the entire class, rather than taking long breaks outside.

Maybe we can translate every time he's "good" when I give an explanation into something he likes. I can't address everything with index cards and extra computer time, but this is such a huge issue for us.

What do you think?

That sounds like vocal stimming to me. He may be bored or overwhelmed by the explanation process. It is hard to say specifically what he is responding to. Generally one stims if one is stressed or under or over stimulated.

He may be afraid//overwhelmed by the interactivity of having to communicate what he understands (and does not understand )so it can be re-explained. Does he respond better to videos? You could try Khan Academy or videotaping yourself. You could also try converting oral communication to written communication and pass notes back and forth if it is an issue with listening and/or verbal expression.

Well, writing it all out is way too much work, taking the place of textbooks. Maybe you are suggesting to just rely on textbooks more. Often I'm trying to introducing the topic covered by the textbook and highlighting things he may miss or misinterpret. That's when he stims. I should rely on the book

I don't have a grammar book. I use the teaching material that go with the class he attends. Maybe I should still attend the class, which covers writing as well, but do grammar w/ a textbook.

For math, as one of you wrote, I can contiinue he current textbook and refer to Khan Academy when he has a question.

The problem remains with helping him with his compositions. The text and the class tell him what to do, and he's come a long way, but writing is hard. He needs correction. I've always done it orally, but maybe I should do it the old fashioned way with a red pen. What do you think?

Thanks so much for helping me think this through!

I would try correcting his compositions the old school way, and then if you notice patterns (which you probably already do) in frequent mistakes maybe prepare handouts (or find pre-made materials) for the main ones so it is not too overwhelming for you. I know this is more work and seems harder, but it will probably end up being a more productive and efficient.

You can always try very small oral presentations every now and then, to see if his tolerance has changed. When it has, you can try building it up to larger amounts.

My son does better this way, too. Too much talking I think makes me sound to my son like Charlie Brown's teacher does to him.

I think you all have really zeroed in on good ideas, and I appreciate you so very much! I'm going to try them and see.
XXOO

Yup, I think you're on the right track.

Think of it this way - have you ever tried to learn a foreign language? You know how you have to struggle harder to translate verbal language than written? It's not that different - one of the way we introduce my son's needs to new teachers is to say that LANGUAGE is a foreign language to him (DS is hyperverbal and talked early, so it is easy to overestimate his ability to understand.)

With writing, you may be dealing with additional dysgraphia issues, which many of our kids have. Many of us have found that pushing our kids to keyboard and write on the computer helps the fine-motor-skills issues as well as the over-erasure perfectionism issues. DS also sometimes storyboards what he wants to write and then writes it.

I also found an online form for writing paragraphs - having the form completely spelled out for him has helped a lot. Here's one version: http://sharepdf.net/view/42348/five-par ... ay-outline I spelled out exactly, using words he knew (in writing) what "topic sentence" etc. meant - and also wrote about appropriate sentence structure.

Basically, my son does well with anything that is explained like a post on Instructables.com. If you can do pictures with it, so much the better.