Adolus Huxley was right

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yes, i understand the rule here. But it's the moral implication that bothers me. I would much rather wait until the child has cooled off and started to realise he overreacted and felt truly sorry . Then he would apologise , mean it, and understand what an apology truly is. It means realising you did something wrong that hurt someone else's feelings, and wanting to repair that.
i could never be friends with someone i was forced to apologise to.
i'll use an example for our NT friends who seem to understand what a rule is but not why it should be questionned.

a coworker steals your work, gives it to the boss under his name, gets praised for it. you go insane and insult him publicly, calling him a thief and a liar, but you have no proof to back it up and end up looking like a loser. your boss asks both of you to his office and demands you apologise for your strange behaviour to ensure future pleasant atmosphere for everybody.
you do it, because it's "The Rule".
how do you feel? are you closer to your coworker? do you feel you've learnt a valuable lesson?

there's always two sides to a story. if your child was offended by something, he might not realise the person didn't mean it the way he saw it. forcing him to apologise when he feels he has been wronged will only make him more resentful.
talking about what happened is always the best solution in my opinion. if your adult friend is shocked by the absence of apology, he will get over it. if the situation is better explained, he might even apologise himself, seeing he didn't realise he had hurt the child's feelings. if the child is the first offender....well i don't see it happening on purpose with an AS child, but IF it was the case, you can't make the child apologise until he feels sorry , so talking is still the best solution.
in every fight there is usually either a true desire to hurt someone from one party, or a misunderstanding. What truly happened has to be understood by both parties involved. then is decided who the apology must come from, if there is a desire to maintain the relationship. i don't see how being a child takes that right away from you.

thats rather condescending =/ while thats common on the gen discussion forum, i guess ive learned to expect better in the parenting forum where people who are raising other people are expected to be adult and mature.



"two wrongs dont make a right"
i myself would never go down this path because i understand that it is not ok to humiliate someone else in public, especially in front of their coworkers/employees/customers, regardless of whether they slighted you first. i would hope someone who did go down this path would learn that very valuable lesson by being forced to apologize. they should also learn that this is a form of harrassment against the other employee and their employer could not allow it.



i know for myself, i dont force apology without conversation. i think ive been pretty clear on the discussion that takes place to get a child to the point of apology. but i will disagree with you that you cant make a child apologize until they feel sorry. you CAN, and sometimes you HAVE TO. it depends on the situation, who is involved, where it happened, what happened. there will be times where the offender never reaches a place of remorse, but that doesnt mean an aplogy is unnecessary. sometimes whether you personally feel you were in the wrong or in the right, it is still the correct thing to do to apologize, thats what i talked about previously in regards to apologizing for unintended consequences, whether you regret your actions/words or not.

im not sure what rights could possibly be taken away from a child by being made to apologize. the right to hurt others and not say im sorry? in my house, that isnt a right at all, not for children or adults.

ediself, this shows that the NT neurology and the AS neurology is completely different. This is my theory. I don't know if this applies to all NTs or not. I think some NTs care more about the social relationship then about getting at the truth. Their main goal is to avoid arguments.

This is what the males of my family tell me. They tell me that I'm always supposed to tell my wife she is right. Their goal is to avoid the arguments and the stress of them. In addition, they're trying to preserve the social harmony.

I think I may be a step closer to how some NTs think.

Some NTs are trying to preserve the social structure of their groups or what they call their social networks. It is about social cohesion. In this social world there are some who are above others. I think azurecrayon is trying to teach her child how to respond to those who are higher or lower than you in this social hierarchy. I think in azurecrayon's mind it doesn't matter who is right and who is wrong or if all or partially right or wrong. She is trying to preserve the social hierarchy of her relationships and anything that wounds a relationship she is trying to fix. It does not matter if the offending party feels remorse or not.

I think if we are going to deal with some NTs especially in the work enviroment we have to learn how these hierarchies work. Some of it may seem illogical to us but in a social relationship network it may be very logical.

If I'm wrong please feel free correct.

How is this condescending? I do not understand.





This is what I'm not understanding. How do they learn anything by being forced to apologize? I don't get it.





I've always taken that an apology was an implicit admission of guilt. Will you do me a favor please? Will you list the purposes of apologies?



What you just said is completely false. No, ediself and I are trying to understand the logic of why the child must be forced to apologize whether they feel remorse or not and whether they actually did the deed or not. Isn't the idea to get the facts of the case and to establish what the truth is, punish all guilty parties, get them to feel remorse, and understand their is a reaction to every action.

i think you are getting closer.

i do agree that a lot of the time, its not about getting to the truth. it is not as simple as avoiding arguments and preserving the social harmony, tho. its about PEOPLE. its about viewing people as more important than facts. hence the idea that you apologize because its the right thing to do, whether you are remorseful or not.

i dont think hierarchy works into it much, except in the case of naturally hierarchical relationships like employer:employee or military hierarchy. in these types of relationships, yes you may apologize to preserve the structure, particularly if you are on the lower end of the hierarchy. there is definitely logic in maintaining the structure (its not a strictly social structure tho), or else you may find yourself out of a job.

i understand that its a different case with autistic neurology. 40% of my house is autistic, so i am familiar with some of the thinking patterns there even if they arent the way my brain works. and for people with that neurology, facts and truths may be paramount and the driving force. i wont say that one way is right and the other is wrong, however being who i am, i want to teach my children, both nt and asd, that people matter over facts, whether thats how their minds naturally work or not.

on a similar topic, i talk with my so sometimes about social responsibility, which is just a global application of consideration for others. its putting your grocery cart in the return stall instead of leaving it sitting behind someone else's car. its picking up the trash that fell out of your car instead of leaving it to blow onto your neighbors lawn. this is a valuable concept for children to learn, especially if they are going to live on a planet with 7 billion other people. even the little things we do can affect others around us, and our lives will be a lot easier, asd or not, if we try to live in harmony with those 7 billion people.



you posted after i started this post, and i think what ive said here covers most of your questions but wanted to address these two things.

the general accepted purpose of an apology is to repair relationships. its not to attribute blame, its not to punish the guilty, its not to force someone to feel remorse. its to repair the relationship between two parties that was caused harm by one party. usually, guilt/blame is assumed in the apology, and remorse is also usually implied, but neither are actually necessary.

hmmm maybe we found the cause of discourse? a difference in the perceived purpose of the apology?

First, I want to say this is awesome. We're creating a bridge to both of our worlds. That is what I want. I want to create a bridge to the undiscovered country like in star trek. I have come to a realization and that is I must do onto others as I would have them do onto me. This is what I'm attempting to do. I want you to understand me so I need to understand you. I'm not doing this for myself. I'm doing this for all ASD children and all ASDs out there. I"m doing this for NTs as well. Before we can be accepted we have to accept you for your neurology as well. This is to the aspartners on delphi.com. I am the first aspie to do this but I believe it must be done for the sake of all of us(NT and AS). I am validating your feelings. This may get me shunned by my fellow aspies but I must do this for all of us. I want to help realize MLKJr's dream.

Therein lies where we differ. The facts to us are more important even though people are important. We have a high sense of justice and we want to ensure fairness to all or at least I do.



I am beginning to understand. This why I think things that should've went a certain way did not. I've always wondered why. Now I am beginning to know why. azurecrayon, please teach your children these things and get really detailed with them on it. I want to try to understand as well. I want to help build bridges so we can get the help we need and your children can have an excellent future.



I think you need to and explain the reasoning behind things. Use their neurology by putting things into factual terms. They need it as concrete as possible In addition, teach your children critical thinking skills. They need to learn that as well. I'm beginning to learn that the entire system is based upon people and not facts and truths. This is new territory for me. Maybe I can help you if you help me. Maybe I can provide you data if you provide me data. Maybe we can come up with solutions to the NT-AS divide together. Let's narrow to divide together hand in hand.



I would see this as system based. You would see it as people based. We agree but for different reasons and premises. This is the butterfly affect.





I think we did. We have established a bridge to both of our worlds. Let's continue please.

azurecrayon, it was not my intention to be condescending, i really believe what i said...and it seems you are not denying it: the rules come before fairness in your system, i'm not saying i want to deny you the right to say "people come before facts"but i disagree that this is part of what you are explaining.
for me, the truth comes first. the truth is what prevents people from being hurt. being accused of being someone i am not will hurt me a lot more than pretty much anything, that's why i always detail the causes of an argument with my son. it's also people based. not for the "harmony of the relationship" but for the simple recognition of who each person really is.
i know you are somewhat attacking me in your post, but i still want to discuss the matter because i feel it's important ( and because i understand you might feel attacked although i sincerely didn't mean it that way.)
i still don't understand how you can resolve an argument involving your own child with no desire to ensure fairness. i swear i'm not trying to annoy you here, but it just goes well beyond what i can comprehend.
i also want to teach my children that people matter over anything, and that's why getting the facts right is the most important. how can you say you put people above everything and still decide the rule comes before your child feeling understood?
there's something i don't quite understand in all you've said, and with all due respect i think it stems from a contradiction on your part.

i understand that you have to put your feelings aside and negate yourself in a situation where hierarchy is involved, but this is as far from people based as i could think of. it's rules- based.
and it has to be taught to children indeed, but hierarchy doesn't come into play when you're dealing with your own child, you need to teach them this theoretically. explain it to them, example will not work, because they will feel it's just unfair and reject it as a whole, and they will be right about the premices: it IS unfair. so it has to be taught as a foreign subject to apply later.

i understand what you are saying though, just like cubedemon, i can say that we apply the same rules in social situations, but not for the same reasons.And i think you are misguided when you think your reasons are people based. i really mean that, and am not trying to offend you....

I believe there is an ultimate axiom to both of our thought processes. I believe from there our thought processes diverge. If we can find the axiom then we can bridge this misunderstanding.

ediself, I think I have another theory here. The world and life is unfair am I correct or that is what is always said by people? Maybe she is purposely trying not to make things fair for what she considers for certain reasons. The one main reason is I believe is that azurecrayon is trying to show her children how to adapt to this world and expect certain things to be unfair. The assumption we both have is azurecrayon is she is trying to keep fairness in how she raises her children. Am I correct in my assessment azurecrayon?

oh, you might be right about that, but i don't know how much of it is done consciously....it's a good thing to do of course....but it may only work for NT children. An AS child would rebel against the unfairness because they are made this way.
Azurecrayon, if you are doing what cubedemon is saying you are doing, are you aware of it? you probably are, since you said you explain what happened and ask for clarification later....so indeed if the children are used to it, they will know that later, they will get what they need, but that now is the time to apply the rule that society needs to see applied. i still wonder about fairness though. maybe you can teach a child to forget about fairness and just obey?
if it's the case...is it something i agree with? no. i can understand where it comes from, but i don't have that part in me, the part that generates such behaviours.

I don't understand why people want us to fake our emotions. How will it solve anything? It only provides a small time of comfort, but there is no reason. What the people were doing in the table was wrong, and the little boy knew it, but people don't want him to realize it. It's just like our society, and I hate it!

i absolutely try to keep fairness in mind when doing anything with my children. i would never try to teach them unfairness by treating them unfairly. ironically, my autistic SO has told me for years that i try to reason too much with the kids. he responds much more emotionally and less flexibly than i do.

i know we started with one specific instance in the original post, but most of the interactions i talk about in regards to apologies are child-child interactions, not child-adult. honestly, i dont come across nearly as many child-adult apology situations as i do child-child, since i have 3 boys who each have their own distinct personalities. i know you both seem to show a lot of concern for the child being asked to make the apology, but what of the child receiving it? if we give weight to the feelings of the - lets call them the aggressor, the one who committed the act which needs to be apologized for - and dont require them to apologize to the innocent party, then that may respect the initial feelings of the aggressor but what does it do for the innocent? how does that teach THEM any fairness if others are allowed to hurt them and not even apologize? what does it tell that child they are worth?

as for hierarchy, i already said that doesnt really apply in most social or familial situations (unless you are talking parent-child which may very well be hierarchical in nature). a work environment is naturally hierarchical and is not a completely social situation if it involves people of different levels of hierarchy, and can definitely be a rule based system. and yes, sometimes you have to subjugate your own feelings and apologize whether you want to or not, if you want to keep your job. its not fair, but its just the way it is. sometimes you have to suck it up. these situations tho do not involve children, they involve adults who need to be able to realize when their course of action will directly impact their employment, and must accept the consequences.

i do believe what i try to teach my children is people based, not rule based. maybe it comes down to the thought processes involved? if i do something that causes hurt to someone else, my thoughts dont go to whether i should apologize, who was wrong or right, where blame lies. i dont consider social rules or expectations. my first and foremost throught is that i HURT someone, that generates genuine remorse which automatically generates an apology. not because i have to, but its just the natural course for me. thats what i try to instill in my kids. as an example, if my son is laying across the walkway, and i come around the corner and trip over him and hurt him in the process, my immediate action is to tell him im sorry, give him a hug and kiss, and see if hes physically ok. after that, i may express to him that laying in the walkway isnt a safe place to be, because people cant see you there and we both could have been very hurt. but thats not part of the apology at all. its to try and prevent further accidents, not to place blame on him for lying somewhere he shouldnt have been.

i think i am also seeing a big discrepancy in not just the purpose of the apology, but in how the purpose is applied, to whom it is applied. to my thinking, the apology is not primarily for the agressor, it is for the innocent party, therefore the innocent party's feelings are the ones that should be primary in consideration. not as important if its an adult, but supremely important if it is another child.

very interesting to get in depth in the differences in perception and belief about something so simple as an apology. keep in mind i cant speak for all non-autistic parents, only for myself and my own actions and beliefs.

oh, ok, we were talking about different things. when it's a child-child fight, and i intervene, i always keep in mind that you can never know who attacked first. sometimes a word is enough to deserve a smack in the face lol. there is no apology for me in this case, i will ask the children ( both, together) what exactly happened, , and if both ended up doing something wrong i will lecture both of them. i just don't ask for the legal apology , because if indeed one of them felt they had hurt the other one for no reason and felt remorse, they would realise it and apologise ( don't be fooled by what people tell you, children feel remorse too!) and would then deserve to be forgiven, by showing they value the friendship. This is all at child level.
But you can't go and decide that for them! imagine you get it wrong and ask the innocent to apologise to the agressor? that's mainly my reason for never doing it, i think.
You don't have to teach your child to apologise when they do something wrong. My son apologises to me all the time. he gets mad, i punish him, he goes to his bedroom fuming, thinks about it and comes later:"muuuum, you're still mad?
-"a little bit but not as much as before..."
-"well i wanted to say i'm sorry..."
big hug follows. that's the apologies i like. there is nothing to like about a forced apology...

as for the hierarchy/employment thing, i understand that of course. i know it's mandatory. doesn't make it right, but it exists.

""i do believe what i try to teach my children is people based, not rule based. maybe it comes down to the thought processes involved? if i do something that causes hurt to someone else, my thoughts dont go to whether i should apologize, who was wrong or right, where blame lies. i dont consider social rules or expectations. my first and foremost throught is that i HURT someone, that generates genuine remorse which automatically generates an apology. not because i have to, but its just the natural course for me. thats what i try to instill in my kids. as an example, if my son is laying across the walkway, and i come around the corner and trip over him and hurt him in the process, my immediate action is to tell him im sorry, give him a hug and kiss, and see if hes physically ok. after that, i may express to him that laying in the walkway isnt a safe place to be, because people cant see you there and we both could have been very hurt. but thats not part of the apology at all. its to try and prevent further accidents, not to place blame on him for lying somewhere he shouldnt have been. ""

i'm exactly like you on this. but it's a totally different process, there is no ambiguity, you tripped him over, your heart skips a beat, you apologise and hug.( i would first check for injuries lol but let's not start on that) it's an instinctive reaction, there is no thinking involved, you were not fighting, you don't resent him for anything.AND you truly are sorry.
Even children will naturally apologise if they truly are sorry. I don't think compassion is something you have to teach

edit: i know you only speak for yourself, i also only speak for myself, we are all different after all!

One good quality you have is excellent patience. I guess some autistics can be emotional. Maybe in a different way. I'm not sure.



We want the child to make the apology but we want it to be geniune. We want the victim to be whole not feel that he or she is whole.



There are hierarchies depending upon who the players are and what the situation is.



I think it does come down to the thought processes. I do. I want to put in a fix so the problem does not re-ocurr again. I want to try to fix the hole in the system that went wrong. If I knew who was at fault I could try to find out what led up to what went wrong by them and fix it. I'm trying to prevent future mishaps. WE could try to go over all of this so we could fix the problem through step by step analysis. If something goes wrong with me I do not say life is not fair I want to know what went wrong and why it went wrong.



I would've apologized as well to him.I would've wanted to know why he was laying there in the first place after I established he was ok.



I agree with this. This is my thought process. Our processes can intersect sometimes.



I did not know this. You've enlightened me today. The thing is I want to try to fix the aggressor so he doesn't harm anyone else and there is no need to apologize.



I hope we can talk about other things as well. The thing is words have multiple meanings and each meaning can have different usages. Will you please take a look at my blog both of you?
http://ultimatesuperset.blogspot.com
http://ultimatesuperset.blogspot.com/20 ... thers.html
http://ultimatesuperset.blogspot.com/20 ... nings.html



This I agree with very much. Even though we both are ASDs we both still have two distinct personalities. Relationships, no matter what, are complex.

azurecrayon, maybe we could be thinking along the same lines but from coming from different angles. Think of a circle. Maybe we're coming from counter-clockwise and you're coming from clockwise. It is more complicated than that I suspect.

Last edited by cubedemon6073 on 29 Oct 2010, 6:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

agreed on that....
huh, cubedemon, i might read more of your blog, but seeing the depht of the people commenting there, i might never dare to join in for fear of embarrassing myself that is true philosophy in the comments, where are those people from??

One thing that helps me is detailed constructive feedback. Some NTs are very vague.

i wanted to touch on the child remorse thing, because its an important issue. children do feel remorse, yes. thats affected by the personality of the child, but also their neurology.

here is a prime example of a real situation that happened earlier this summer in my house. my two youngest were jumping and playing on the couch, and my 6 yr old laid down on the couch. his 4 yr old asd brother climbed up on the couch and in the spirit of boy rough and tumble, jumped with both knees onto his brothers head his brother immediately started crying because, well, two knees just impacted his head. my youngest stopped playing and had a confused look on his face. it seemed as if he was expecting laughter instead of tears. here they were jumping and laughing and playing, and all of a sudden his brother is crying.

i pulled the youngest aside and we went through the usual simplified analysis.
me - what happened to colbey?
him - i jumped on his head.
me - wow, how would you feel if he jumped on your head?
him - it would hurt.
me - do you think it hurt colbey when you jumped on HIS head?
him - yeah
me - thats sad that hes hurt, do you think he would feel better if you apologized?
him - SORRY! (accompanied by a hug)

there is a real disconnect for my youngest between his actions and what other people experience. for him, the analysis is vital to forming that connection. ive been doing it so long with him, he is starting to form that connection on his own, but it certainly didnt come naturally to him. it still requires prompting for him to stop and form that connection, but we dont often have to have the entire conversation now, unless its a completely new kind of situation that hes never encountered before.

ironically, he just had an observation done by the new school psychologist last week, and this type of thing was noted in the report. he was observed moving through the classroom, nudging and bumping others in his path, never acknowledging or apologizing, and being unaware of how his movements and body impacted others.

is this a theory of mind deficit? perhaps, i cant be sure. what i am positive of is that my youngest is a very loving little boy and he has empathy for others, but the disconnect between his actions and other people mean that that empathy doesnt naturally come out.

for me, that has been the driving force in talking through apologies. to get my child to connect his actions with the hurt of others, and to form that realization that HE is responsible for the tears of someone else.

this has been very different than dealing with apologies from my oldest, who is easily my most empathetic child, but who also would qualify for an oppositional defiant disorder diagnosis. with him, the empathy is there, but the defiance causes him to refuse to apologize or to do so with the contemptuous tone. i do ask for apologies from him without the analysis, because the remorse is there, he just refuses to acknowledge it. if i dont ask for apology at the time, he will often offer one willingly later, after hes had a chance to cool off. he requires time to process when he gets overly emotional.

two very different children, requiring two very different methods.