Oldest always making the younger two upset...

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My AS son (12, almost 13) is always making the younger two kids upset. The younger two are two and one, so this is not a case of them being mean to him or trying to get him in trouble. It does not seem to matter how many times I explain to him to leave them alone unless they will be hurt. Or the proper way to remove them from a situation that they should not be in. It seems he must do it in the way that is surest to make them upset and whiny. Almost like he thrives on the conflict.

The younger two are very clearly not on the spectrum, and I worry that they will grow up thinking that their brother is mean and not like him at all.

Is he going to grow out of this? I swear it seems like he does it specifically to get (negative) attention for himself. When he lived with his father he was largely ignored unless he was "bad" and then he was physically and mentally abused, after which his father would then bribe him with pointless crap to make up for it.

We have had him for two years now, but he is still not very far into healing from that I think. Some days it seems like he is trying to punish us for taking him out of an abusive situation even though he now admits that his father was scary and mean.

I understand that there is a huge age difference, and that older siblings will pick on younger ones, but this seems like over doing it a bit.

Hi MorbidMiss, if it's any help, let me share a bit of my own troubles--or, rather, journey--with my younger two siblings. We are each a year apart; so, one is a year younger than me and the other is two years younger than me. Neither of them are on the spectrum. Also, I'm female.

I barely remember it myself because I was not nearly as old as your son is, but my sibling issues were certainly out of control when my brother and sister were about the same age as your two youngest. I hit them and yelled at them, sometimes with attempt to control them, other times because they simply bothered me (as a result of loud chewing, breathing, and other disgusting + weird things). I do remember I had the most trouble with the youngest child. You said, "Almost like he thrives on the conflict." Yes. Your son may. I sure did.

I also remember going through daily/weekly therapy, both me alone, and me + my siblings altogether. The therapist really tried to get positive interaction going between us three. I remember going there and playing board games, basketball (the hoop was on the door, and it was a small Nerf ball), and some card games like Go Fish. I think a lot of the sessions focused on anger management for me. (Quite possibly the physical exercise even exhausted me.)

You also mentioned your son being mentally and physically abused. I can also relate to this but I have no memories of it. I was also ignored at times (so I'm told) by my father. I can't guarantee these are factors in causing your son's behavior, but it will be something to think about in the healing process.

My memories are fuzzy, and I wish I could tell you more or be more accurate. The youngest sibling was really scared of me for a long time. To reassure you, I "grew out of it," but I'm not sure at what age. Of course every situation is different, so do NOT think this ("this" = anything worse than normal sibling rivalry) will happen to your kids. But it also won't hurt to try preventing it.

I was not diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at the time. Consider it lucky that you already know your son has it; I'm willing to bet that his diagnosis will help you more easily get professional help and advice geared specifically toward your son. Look into sensory issues, anger management, and definitely try to get your children to play friendly together and give them positive reinforcement. Focus on family games and (dare I suggest this) physical activities such as going to the playground.

P.S. You said you son is twelve but "We have had him for two years now"? Not to be intrusive but could you elaborate? What is your relationship to the father? No pressure, please don't feel obligated to answer.

Well for the most part we are lucky, he is not violent so much as he just pesters them until they are very cross. I do not want them to grow up hating him.

He did hurt the two year old once with a "fuzz buster" (little machine that basically shaves fuzz balls off of clothes.) It scrapped the pattern of the screen in front of the blades on to the toddler's leg. The D.H. was ready to ship him to foster care because of that, but we covered it with my oldest's therapist right away and they discussed it at length. He has not done anything that bad since. Primarily. I suspect, because we no longer allow the two to play in the older boy's room. Ever.

We have never used him as a baby sitter. By his age I was watching both of my sisters for extended periods of time, and we never did that to him. But we also had to stop allowing them to play "unsupervised". I used quotations because we never left them alone in the house or in the yard, but we used to let them play while we had our bedroom door closed and after the incident we never did that again.

I feel like he uses the two year old as a target more often because he identifies him as being more like my current husband. Where as the youngest is more "me". To him, probably because of the social handicap, the younger children are not really their own people as much as extensions of the two adults in the house. The truth is they are very much their own people even at one and two. I think that if that managed to sink in he would probably treat them differently.

I'm wondering at this point why exactly your 12-year-old AS son would be so antagonistic toward his younger siblings unprovoked. Which brings me to a question: is there any favoritism happening in your family? Do you require your older son to give in to his siblings' "demands", like giving one of his possessions to the younger siblings, while not requiring the same of him (which you really can't since they're only 1 and 2)? When asking your older son to give in, do you use arguments such as "let them have it, they're little"? As a result, he ends up in a very "sandwiched" position: he's not in charge like you are because he's still a child, and he doesn't have the free reign that he sees his younger siblings have. It's preferential treatment in its purest form, and it's against him! So no wonder he reacts against it in the only "legal" ways he knows.

Do you want your son to treat his siblings better? Stop any preferential treatment you give to the younger kids (even if it's inadvertent), unless it's for important reasons, like feeding or changing the kids. You're already on the right track with not letting them play in your older son's room, but think about other preferential treatments you may be doing, which you may not see as such but your older son certainly does.

This kinds of hits home for me because my parents gave my niece very preferential treatment when she came over. I was 12 at the time, she was 2. They gave her free reign of the house, which included her going in my room and taking home pretty much anything she wished. My parents didn't let me stop her, and even encouraged her to "shop around", although they kept my school stuff safe. I, on the other hand, was "some preteen who always bothers us when his niece [their granddaughter] wants to have fun". I fought back by stuffing everything into my desk drawers and wrapping masking tape around them to make them hard to open, wedging a doorstop under my closer door, and putting burlap tarps over anything that looks remotely interesting to a 2-year-old. Perhaps your 12-year-old is having the same experience with his 1- and 2-year-old siblings?

When we first moved here we had some toys which were lower than his current level given to his brother, but that was almost two years ago now and he treated his little brother better then than he does now.

He does complain about chores a lot, which the toddlers really are not old enough to have them beyond, "Here come help pick up your blocks with Mommy". The funny thing is that both of the younger two like to "sweep" in the kitchen if there is a mess, granted they are not exactly exceptional at it...

He has a place to store his things out of his siblings reach and mostly they are not that interested in his things anyway. (It seems that they believe the kitchen is WAY more fun.)

I really do think it has more to do with his feelings towards the adults, primarily my husband. He feels he is too strict, but the fact is that if we are not strict with him he quickly becomes completely intolerable. (Rude, will not do any school or home "work", despondent, wont eat) When he was getting along with my husband very well (the summer we moved here), he loved his little brother to pieces and was always bragging about how cute he was etc. Then he got caught with matches and lighters in his room along with burnt paper and we had to do something drastic to make him understand how horribly dangerous that was. We chose to take away most of his non-essential possessions because we felt it would make more of an impact than trying to get him to relate to the possibility of death. (We tried actually and he showed no evidence that he really could relate to what we were saying.) It has been back and forth since then.

His biological father would use toys and games as bribes for him to get over the abuse. So he equates getting "stuff" with love and our taking his things away as one of the most horrible things ever. But my husband and I are not very inclined to be ... mindless consumer zombies. And so his take on giving = love is very difficult for us to wrestle with, and in particular it really makes my husband upset because he feels the boy is greedy and not very gracious when he does receive things.

Now that the younger two are old enough to not give in to being bossed around I think that really adds to the problem. He cannot sheep dog them anymore. They will not do as he says and so he gets frustrated and starts to make them annoyed as well. Even for things that should be a simple fix he will make the situation worse instead of just walking away or moving the item out of reach.

For example if the kids are climbing on the chairs in the kitchen and want to get into things, instead of just taking the chair and turning it over so that they cannot use it any longer he will engage in tug of war over the chair until the two year old is screaming and crying. If one of the adults catches them we take the chair and turn it over, the kid gets mad and is over it in less than sixty seconds.

In the beginning my husband would refer to him as his son, never step, the same as our younger boy. Even though my oldest was always very rudely correcting him. Now because of the oldest boy's behavior issues my husband is unsure whether he wants to adopt him if we can get my X's parental rights terminated.

And the oldest will make the younger ones cry several times a week, usually the two year old, but then is completely shocked when they do not go running to meet him at the door anymore when he comes home from school. He cannot seem to grasp why they suddenly do not want hugs or kisses from him.

Hi again MorbidMiss, I just want to make an additional comment. I read your posts. Your son's situations still sound a lot like mine, in almost every aspect, and I've gotten much better since then. I could give more advice and ideas if you'd like, shoot me an e-mail on this site. Maybe I can even ask my parents about their opinions and advice for you and your son.

Also, Aspie1 makes an excellent point. Other than that, I am here to say, "good luck," and I believe you can change him around, you can make him be more accepting of things and tolerable to the family.

- sketches

If he is annoying the young ones you should do something about it, it is not fair to the younger ones. I read it is not good to let the child become out of control and consumed by distress, particularly at such a young age (toddlerhood). A child who experiences a great deal of
stress during baby and toddlerhood, will produce permanently high levels
of stress-fighting hormones, especially the chemical cortisol and have an impact on how the brain develops. The chemical messages sent to the brain in early toddlerhood affect the way the brain becomes wired and so influence how we respond to situations as we become older. So if the younger ones are experiencing repeated stress (crying, whining) it is a bad thing.

Yes we know, and we have tried talking to him about it. We have tried giving him alternative methods of intervening if he gets to them first. He almost never uses them. It is like he prefers to annoy them.

It seems to happen more if he is supposed to be doing his daily chore (washing dishes). Harassing them gives him an excuse to stop. At that point we normally just take the younger two into our room rather than let him continue the behavior. No amount of talking to him about it so far has helped. I am going to bring it up with his therapist again.

The thing is, we cannot possibly treat them exactly the same. There is a ten and eleven year age difference. He is almost a teen, it would not do to treat him as a toddler, although sometimes he acts as if he would like that. Certainly the toddlers are not allowed to walk to the library by themselves while he is. They do not get to go play down the hill at a friends house... In fact they are rarely allowed out of our sight because they like to get into things (like flour/salt/syrup) and make a tremendous mess.

It is not as if they do not ever "get in trouble" though either. They are not perfect, they are one and two after all and get into things and are sometimes ornery. The difference being that instead of being grounded they are forced to take a nap. My husband and I are very inclined to keep things age appropriate. During the newborn phase we are more "attached parenting" and as they get older we move more towards "free range" allowing them more freedom to act independently. But the oldest does not seem to appreciate this. As a twelve year old my parents rarely let me out of their sight, and yet I was supposed to be responsible for my two younger siblings. I had more responsibility than my Aspie, but less freedom!

Meanwhile I just want some harmony in my home where my spouse and all of my children get along!

I don't understand how your 12 year old could possibly be the first one to deal with this. Why aren't you there to watch your little ones and take appropriate action when they misbehave?

Like I said it usually happens when he is supposed to be doing dishes. We live in an small, old wooden house which only has two bedrooms and an open floor plan, ie; our kitchen and living room are one big room. So if they are playing nicely in the living room and he is doing dishes then of course he will see it first if they are trying to climb on the table when my husband and I are in a different room.

We do not close the door or anything and we are listening as well as checking every few minutes, but it really is not fair to the younger two to have to keep them cooped up in our room, and never give them any time to do independent free play. However, that is what we are stuck doing now because letting them interact together is consistently negative. It is as if he does his level best to make sure they will dislike him. He has been picking fights with the two year old (three in Aug) for a year now.

Some days I feel like buying a little XS Tumbleweed Home and having him live in our yard.

This is not a case of neglect by any means, nor are we being "mean" to him or treating him like crap because he has Asperger's. I know a lot of you guys were really abused, and it tends to color your viewpoint, but not every Aspie's parents are jerks.

This is a kid who from age four was BEGGING for siblings. Even when I first remarried he was asking when he would get a new brother or sister. But now that he has them he treats them like toys or pets on the best of days... On the worst he treats them like rubbish. It is frustrating for everyone involved.

He does not have to intervene at all. He could just say, "Hey they are misbehaving!" Our room is right off of the kitchen, not down the hall, not on the other side of the house, RIGHT FREAKING THERE! Would not even have to raise his voice. We have even tried telling him (repeatedly) to just leave them alone and tell us so that we can take care of it and he refuses to do so. Like I said, it is like he enjoys making them mad.

I'm not so worried about your twelve year old as about your little ones. I have two children, only slightly younger than yours, and we would never leave them alone in the living room - or in any room - without my wife or myself watching.

Being able to hear from the next room is not enough. A two year old can do a lot of damage in very little time. The first thing you might hear is the crash of one of your little ones falling off the kitchen counter onto his head!

Honestly, in your position, I'd be grateful that the eldest kept the little ones out of danger when you weren't there, rather than upset that it resulted in a bit of crying. As you said, you're not depending on him for child care. I think you're expecting too much from a 12 year old boy, aspie or otherwise.

First of all, we are not helicopter parents. If you want to do that with your children, that is your business. However it is not life threatening for our children to play in the next room while our door is open and we are going in and out every few minutes. We do not have a "normal" living room set up. It just holds their toys. Other than the kitchen counters or the stove, which we can see from our bed there is only the table. Generally there is nothing on there that is dangerous, only messy.

Second of all, this post is about my oldest boys failure to interact appropriately with his younger siblings. It is not a place for a perfect stranger to critique my parenting style with my younger children even though that person clearly has no idea what my home is set up like.

I can safely say that it's case of unmet expectations. Your 12-year-old son was an only child, and an aspie to boot, which means his socials skills probably aren't that great. Sure enough, he was lonely for most of his childhood. So no wonder he wanted siblings. But in his mind, they would be more-or-less equal playmates, kind of like friends he may have trouble making. But they when were born, he was in for a "rude awakening", so to speak. They mostly ate, slept, and cried, and even now, they can't play the games with him he wants them to play, because they're only 1 and 2.

Another thing: he was the youngest in the family and at the bottom of the power hierarchy, meaning everyone around him was in charge of him. He was asking for siblings because he wanted at least somebody to not be in charge. Instead, he got another rude awakening. His younger siblings did the opposite: they "upstaged" him by taking massive amounts of your attention (which they need, but still). At times, you were even unable to spend time with him because you needed to feed or change the little kids. Going back to my first post here, it's pretty much why your 12-year-old reacts the way he does.

Again, stop any preferential treatment you give to the younger kids, inadvertent or not. I was very upset with my niece's parents not teaching her the concept of "mine vs. not mine" until she was 5 or so, and worse still, my parents letting her "shop" in my room. Your older son may be sensing similar thing from you. Asking him may or may not help, since he may give you "right" answers, rather than honest answers. Seeing a child psychologist can help, but stay away from the ones who do nothing beyond talking about feelings.

He has a therapist whom he sees once a week. We are not neglectful parents. She has a doctorate in Psychology as well as extensive experience with Asperger's Children. Our younger kids do not "shop" in his room. He has a place for all of his things well out of reach. We do not allow either of the younger two to just snatch things from people, not even the one year old who likes to steal the two year old's food and run away. The twelve year old on the other hand will be mean to the two year old for trying to get his food back from the girl. He just did that last night. I was already following the younger two and he jumped at the boy yelling at him for hurting her. The fact is my daughter, much like myself, is built like a Dwarven Battle Priestess. She is extremely strong and was in no danger of being hurt. His younger brother was just trying to restrain her for long enough to get his apple back! It was an incredibly easy issue to resolve, I gave my younger boy his apple, gave my daughter her own and everything was peaceful. There was no need for screaming or pulling or treating anyone like a terrorist! But with my Aspie everything has to be a huge drama.

I really think that this is more about his identifying the younger boy as an extension of "step dad" instead of an actual person in his own right. That and he cannot herd him like a sheep anymore. Possibly there is a bit of "buyer's remorse" because of the age difference, but that is no one's fault. I never planned to space them that way, but the oldest boy's father did not even want him, much less more children.

It probably went further than that: he probably wanted someone he could boss around, to make up for all the people who could boss him around. That's typical of all children who want younger siblings; they want either a really cool toy, or they want someone lower than them on the totem pole. Of course, real siblings don't actually work that way, but children's expectations are rarely realistic.

I just have little kids and I'm no expert but it sounds to me that maybe he is just trying to be "the big brother" but going about it in the wrong way.Like being a bit bossy.I know my girlfriends NT daughter does the same exact thing to her 2 year old brother and constantly gets in trouble for it.She just continues to do it over and over and drives her mother crazy.I guess it is her personality and she is trying to assert herself and doesn't get that her brother is just a little 2 year old.Or it is more important she assert herself as the boss.

And I ask anyone who questions your parenting this- I have a 16 month old (NT) and a just turned 3 year old (AS) and how can you not give little ones that young preferential treatment? They are just learning and they are babies so of course you don't expect out of them what you would a 12 year old.I watch them constantly but yes I leave the room (gasp) to put clothes in the washer or go to the bathroom.My house is babyproofed but both of mine are climbers and yes there are times when I must go to the bathroom or do something that requires my eyes not to be on them.That is just life.