Help! Son talking gross.

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My 8 yr old AS son talks gross about almost anything to get a reaction out of other kids.
He thinks he is being funny, but it is hurting him with getting and keeping friends.

One boy that plays with son every so often even tries to tell son that it isn't cool to talk gross, but son keeps talking that way to get a reaction. I have tried to talk with him about it and it does not help at all.

Talking gross and not keeping his hands to himself is his biggest social issues.
He starts Occupational Therapy in a couple of weeks so I hope this helps with him keeping his hands to himself, but I need help on stopping this inappropriate talk.

Any suggestions?

I wish I could give you a suggestion but I'm in the same boat but it is with my 5 yr old son with Autism. He has this thing with 'moon'ing people and talking about butts and poop and other stuff and finds it hilarious and unfortunately my 3 yr old non-autistic son is catching on and is doing the same. He got caught last week at preschool showing off his private parts to another boy and the other boy doing the same. Wish I knew how to handle this, even when I was a kid (long before I even had a dx of AS) I remember doing gross things but never talked about it and all like those two sons of mine do. I've been trying to discourage it a bit but it hasn't helped.

I went through that stage, between the ages six and eight. I'd talk about Pee and Poo and how boys have Penises and girls have Wipe-Wipes. I'd also substitute the word Tail, for Penis so I wouldn't get in trouble. That's all stopped once I've turned nine.

I went through that stage, but it's mostly because the kids I was around were so immature to begin with. I used to hate sex ed classes in school, because none of the kids ever took it seriously. I sat there and began acting really immature as well, sometimes getting yelled at just as the other kids for it. I kind of did just to fit in, you know.

When I was younger, I used to have a tendency to play with kids younger than me. This was a stage, where I was preoccupied with immature children. I guess maybe that's because these children accepted me for who I am, even though my parents didn't like the way I acted, saying I was acting far younger than I should have been. As I grew older, I just began drifting away from friendships completely. It doesn't even phase me these days, nor do I have any hormonal reaction to humans, whether girl or guy.

- Ray M -

I think the behavior you have all been discribing is pretty normal for children....expecally with boys. Anything coming out of the body they seem to find hysterical. I think where the problem is that your son is taking this to the extreme. He will eventually stop, just be patient and keep on disciplining him when he does this. When his friends are over, send them home with a clear message to your son, "the way you are talking is offending your friend, so you can't have anyone over for today.We can try again tomarrow." When you are all that the dinner table, if he starts up, send him away till he can use appropriate conversation. However it is important to let him know that you are glad he is comfortable talking about his body, but there is a time and place and an appropriate way. So if he offends he must apologize and stop, or you will give him consequences, whatever you choose. There are actually books out there you can get to go over with him, maybe when he's had a little bit of education he'll begin to suttle down. The boys I work tend to suttle down on the body parts and sexual talk once we sit down with them and openly go over some stuff in an appropriate setting, I did this with both my children when they were young. But my boys at work do come up with some of the darndist things, like small poop, they call duklits, big ones dukies. Little boys are wierd.

If all you tell him is not to talk gross then maybe that's too vague for him.
You might like to take this into account "I keep six honest serving men, their names are who,what, where, how, why and when".
By that I mean you could perhaps try to include all of them.

I'll call your son Will for the time-being.
Will, [who] I would like you not to talk about [be specific - what exactly is it that's gross?] bodily functions (simplify language) because it makes other people feel bad [why]. Also, please do not talk about bodily functions at the dinner table or when your friends are over. [where]. However, if you really must talk about it, you can at 5:30 [when] in the way that..........[how].
Good luck!

He knows exactly what he's doing - both my boys went through that phase also. The good new is it's just that - a phase. How long it lasts is up to you, and how well you know your son.

With my oldest, it just took a few comments from me about how polite people don't talk about these things in whatever situation it was that is a problem - with company, friends, etc. And then pointed out that until he got it out of his system, we wouldn't be doing that thing anymore.

With my youngest, he was just trying out new words and seeing how mom and dad would react. Getting a clinical response shut him down fast. (he was discussing his amazing body part at breakfast, so at dinner mom and dad had a list of facts that was TMI even for us but mostly went over his head). The last thing your kid usually wants is for you to express an interest in his latest attempts to weird you out.

i went through a thing when i was about 5-6 year old with boys willies.
but the other girls in my class did it aswell.

it wasnt to talk about boys willies, but it was to chase the boys round the playground, and if we caught one, to pull down his pants and laugh at his willy.
i suppose it was becase it is somethign us girls didnt have!!

the only thing i talked about grossly i guess was farting... also if i farted i just had to whiff it about with my hand behind my bum!! i must admit, if ive done an extremeley funny / loud / smelly fart these days (only when alone) i will still whiff it about lol!! and i laugh at it aswell if i hear somebody else fart
couple of weeks ago at weight loss class (rosemary conleys class) during the excersise session, we were doing areobics on mats on the floor, and there was this excersise we did that involved being on our backs and with bended knees. we lift the knees towards our stomachs.... and in that position somebody behind me farted and i sgtarted laughing uncontrollably, then the leader asked me why i was alughing and i said that somebody farted, and then every1 started laughing.... lol
i dunno what it is about farting that is so funny but it just is and always has been!!

Howard Stern anyone? Some little boys never seem to grow up and we have these shock jocks that seem to find an audience by talking gross.

My son does it too - I think it's the repetition that is most annoying. He learned he, or someone, got a reaction and now he keeps wanting that reaction. He complains sometimes that I embarrass him when I have to step in and pull him out of situations that are starting to build towards tantrum. Now I just tell him he doesn't have to worry about me embarrassing him since he does such a good job of that all by himself. And, I told him about that in front of a friend so for some reason he believed me.

He doesn't announce his farts so much anymore.

Next up is the spitting - he suddenly started spitting and won't stop!

There are some good suggestions here and we'll start trying those. Perhaps we could have a 5 p.m. spit-a-thon??

I gotta chime in here...as a kid of about 6-8 years old, I would dig a series of holes on the beach, the holes would be connected to canals. I noticed when I poured a bucket of muddy water in the top one, the water coming out the bottom was clear. I perfected my "creation" several times through-re-engineering and such.

When someone came up to me and asked me what I was building, or what I built, I would tell them it was a sewage treatment plant. After all, I had seen these on the side of the road....they had pools of water sitting around them! polluted water went in, clean water came out! The amazing thing about it was that mine actually "worked" so to say. My mom complained about me telling people that, and told me to stop building them on the beach. I was confused and frustrated a bit. I had seen advertisments on TV and billboards about people dumping polluted water into the Chesapeake Bay, and the we had to "Save the Bay" from pollution. This was basically my way of contributing to the bay's cleanliness! Although water treatment certainly involves much more than just simply runing water through sandy pools, I at least had the basic idea down!