Inappropriate behaviour towards adults

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How do you effectively teach your kids to not invade other people's personal space and, like in my son's case, not TOUCH adults inappropriately?

When I picked up my son, age 6, from school yesterday, his teacher walked past and he tried to pinch her butt I told him he musn't do that and he looked very suprised and said "but it's funny!" and I got the feeling he didn't think I was right about it being inappropriate.

(He is very innocent and he has no idea there is a sexual dimension to pinching people's butts)

I often find he ignores my instructions when he thinks I am wrong, he doesn't accept my authority in any way, it has to make sense and be "justified" in his mind for him to do what I tell him.

When I was that age (I grew up in the 1960's and 1970), and where I lived (PA Dutch country). I would have gotten the royal spanking of my life. Believe it or not, some people around here still do that.

I really don't have an answer. Maybe a talk with his pediatrician or the school psychologist might have an answer.

Believe it or not, this is part of (I know I keep beating this drum) pragmatics: knowing your audience is a part of pragmatic speech, and one DS struggles with. He doesn't see the difference between how he is treated and how he's supposed to treat others - and one of the reasons this is improving is simply because he is older now - we REALLY struggled when he was a preschooler.

We had a similar problem: DS couldn't understand why I or DH could give him a friendly swat on the rear, and he couldn't do that to me, girls in his preschool, or the rest of the world (we finally banned swats on the rear, period. I couldn't come up with another way.)

Ask your son where he learned to pinch people on the butt. Try having THAT person explain that they were wrong and it isn't appropriate (for the time being, that may be the best option.)

I also think the teacher needs to tell him she does not like it when he does that and she does NOT think its funny. This probably wont help him generalize that he shouldnt touch peoples butts it will let him know that it bothers her. She needs to be firm but not hysterical.

Yes, that person would be me as I have jokingly pinched his and his little brothers butts when they were smaller when they misbehaved... Damn I regret it now!

I see he does other things too that are direct copies of what I do to him, like I kiss his forehead, so he kisses my forehead (which is sweet I guess but it is a little odd) and then he follows with a "was that nice of me?". I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to kiss his teacher's forehead too.

Idd, the solution might be to not do anything to him that I don't want him doing to others...

LOL, yes, story of my life...I am pretty sure I set off our six-year struggle with hitting because I once swatted him lightly when he tried to push past me through the door to get outside. Of course, for me it was a light swat one time, for him it became a no-holds-barred haul-back swing that we struggled with for years.

Tell him you've learned that butt-pinching isn't polite and YOU aren't going to do it any more, and that you expect him to follow the rule, now; he's little and that will work for the time being. You can't police every single thing you do - but sometimes following things up with some kind of "rule" helps.

At some point, he will be able to generalize things better and he will also learn that you probably have at least some idea when it comes to social gaffes.

This reminds me of the time I was in Kindergarten. I had more issues with the pragmatics then I do now. I would try to be the disciplinarian to the other children when this wasn't my role to play. Only certain adults were allowed to be the disciplinarian, not me as a child. The school of hard knocks taught me I could not do that.

That is a very, very common pragmatics issue and one that many kids I know on the spectrum struggle with. In fact, a friend of mine just was awarded an aide for her son in High School expressly for this reason (High school kids take the school of hard knocks much more literally than kindergarteners.)

Yes momsparky, they most indeed do!! !

Well then maybe offer some explanation, just from personal experiance I've had sort of the same issue except I don't think I ever tried pinching anyones butt. However I have a hard time doing something or not doing something just 'because' if there is no reason. And well a young child is obviously going to be less aware of some of the reasons than an adult. like at this age I can rationalize why pinching someones butt as they walk by would be inappropriate so I don't need someone to explain it. But that age I imagine I would have at least needed to know 'people don't like it if you do that.' or 'its mean to pinch people, and not funny for them.' for it to click in my mind to avoid doing that.

I mean think of if someone for instance demanded that you don't step on the cracks in the sidewalk....what would your reaction be. Point being a lot of times sayings something like 'don't do that' but with no real reason is confusing to someone with autism because it really does not occur to them why they shouldn't so having some sort of reason or rationale usually helps.

This would be a good time for a social story about what touches are ok when. Like its OK to hug someone when they indicate to you they are willing to be hugged. Running up behind someone and hugging them would be unexpected and would NOT be ok.

I'm the same way.

My parents found me a pretty easy kid to handle because they always explained the reason why whenever they gave me a command.

In contrast, my teachers found me very difficult - they wanted me to obey without questioning, and would refuse to give me any explanation or would give me something that didn't make sense (it wasn't that I couldn't comprehend - even now that I'm an adult and have worked with kids many of their rules make no sense to me).

Yes I agree, it may have got an awkward, embarrassed laugh the first time and he is continuing to do it to get the same reaction. My daughter will keep repeating things if she thinks people find it funny. She doesnt understand that it can be funny once and then very annoying after 12 times. She doesnt see why its not equally funny every time. I think if the teacher tells him she doesnt like it, and reinforces that every time he does it, it might change his view?

Yes my son does that exactly, plus he seems to not notice if it's a "it's funny" type laugh or a "it's embarrassing and I feel awkward" type laugh. In fact I don't think he knows the second type exists. So he says "but she laughed" and I have no idea how to explain it in a way that he can understand

Well, I can tell you this since I'm an aspie of 15.5 years

I find no logical basis for 3/4 of the things that neurotypicals find "inappropriate" to think they are so. When we don't understand why something is inappropriate or offensive, we tend to ignore the instruction regarding those things. I don't anymore since I really don't care to offend people, but I honestly think that NTs are too sensitive in regards of what they consider offensive and not offensive. So basically, what I'm saying is "Aspie no find logic in what you're saying, aspie doesn't give a f*ck." I've seen quite a few aspies act like that.

If there wasn't a sexual element to pinching someone's butt, then honestly I wouldn't think that that kind of joking was inappropriate anyway.

But that's just my take on the whole thing.

Wolfmaster, there are certain things that I do not understand about your reasoning.

1. You state you find no logical basis for 3/4 of the things that neurotypicals find "inappropriate." Is this correct? This is what I think. I don't see the logical basis for what a lot of them do either. Just because you find no logical basis does not mean one doesn't exist. Can you accept that as true? How do you know that your underlying assumptions and your premises that lead to your conclusions are not flawed?

2. How do you know that all of what they say are inappropriate are based upon reasoning or rationality?

3. How do you derive that all aspies are this or all NTs are that? What is your logical basis for this? Isn't this called a Hasty Generalization?