8 yo thinks toys can identify him

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H e put a mechanical monkey on my lap and interprets that it doesn't react the same to me as it does to him- because he is the owner. My wife and I have become frustrated and tell him" knock off the nonsense". I feel really bad because I think he really believes what he is saying. We feel we should be taking a different approach. He constantly says "I'm sorry" and I feel his ego is suffering- Please help!! Paul

I think it's awesome for kids that age to have a great imagination. Perhaps "go with it" and encourage him to tell stories.

I don't see how it is hurting anyone, so perhaps you needn't DO anything.

I agree with the above poster. It shows imagination which is to be encouraged and kids that age NT and neural diverse believe all sorts of things. When I was little I thought there were people inside the radio. I have AS. My brother who is NT had an imaginary friend when he was little who went everywhere with him.

I did that sort of thing a bit as a child, but my parents were total wet blankets about it... taking a "stop that childish nonsense" approach.
I found that unpleasant, jarring and mean of them.

I would advise playing along with your child's imaginative game at least a bit.
It might mean a lot more to him than you realise.

It's just childhood overimaginativeness.

You got a lot of good feedback in this thread here http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt232346.html about a very similar issue.

You are so right "Who Am I" I didn't realize what a similar thing this is . I guess Caleb just wants to believe there is magic and we just need to accept it. I really didn't intend to waste anyone's time. Thank you, everyone. Paul

You didn't waste anyone's time. You were concerned about your son and needed reassurance.

I guess my concern is that( after working 30 years on a psychiatric floor) that he is verbalizing delusional thought. I fear that he may be schizophrenic and have been since his diagnosis of aspergers. He really does not show other symptoms, I'm just hyper-vigilant. Schizophrenia is so much more debilitating than aspergers and is really a sad condition for any individual to tolerate.
My head is just spinning since school ended (I'm retired and in charge of Caleb 'til his mom gets home) and didn't realize I (almost) double posted. I have so much respect for people on this forum that I go here fairly often to discuss various problems that have arisen. Always have gotten superb responses. Thank you all!! !! Paul

I think this happens in a lot of kids (I know I did it as a child.) Some of it was that I needed friends and didn't have any, so my "things" became my friends. Some of it was that I couldn't communicate when I was playing and when I wasn't - nor could I communicate that I wanted people to play with me (so adults' insistence that things were not alive made me upset, which I interpreted as rejection of my play world - not that I could have expressed this or even really understood it at the time.)

DS also has (or had, we haven't seen this in a while) anxieties over his toys, that they will miss him if he's gone, that they feel rejected when he chooses one over another. I think it is that he has some sort of awareness of these things in people, but it's too hard to manage, so it helps him learn about it.

My son is seven and very subject to magical thinking and he personifies inanimate object. IMO this is developmental delay and the imagination that goes with it, not a delusion.

I would not worry, so. I know you are being hyper-vigilante regarding schizophrenia, but you are going to freak yourself out all the time, if you keep looking for signs.

I don't think it's healthy for adults to pathologise children using adult criteria, simply because they behave like children.

I recently went thru a schizophrenic scare with my almost 12 year old son. His counselor thought he for sure was, but his psychiatrist said that kids on the autism spectrum have to be granted more leeway in their magical thinking, because their brains are wired differently and sometimes they get stressed out to the point that they hear voices and people can suspect that they might be developing schizophrenia. My son was actually having visual and auditory hallucinations. It all stopped when his medication was changed.

He still will talk about his stuffed animals and other toys as if they are real. All his life I've gone along with him enough to not upset him but I haven't tried to make it more than it already was, if that makes sense. He'll ask about his stuffed dog, "Do you think Bowser wants to sleep on his side or on his back?" and I'll say "well I haven't seen other dogs sleep on his back so I don't think that's comfortable for dogs, so maybe just on his side." Occasionally when he's feeling more stressed I'll ask if he wants to hold or lay with one of his stuffed animals, like Perry his finger puppet stuffed parrot or Inchy his beanie baby inchworm. I'll say maybe they can help you feel better...

What I've noticed as he's gotten older is that he is not afraid to have these sorts of play sessions in front of me and including me, and that it seems like it's extra special now that he's getting older and has tough 12 year old boys as friends. It's like a safe way he can revert to needing care and comfort. I'm glad I never made him feel bad or weird about it.

For what it's worth, I know for sure that my stuffed animals (and his) are not real, but I sure feel tender hearted toward them, and I'm 46!

As for actually developing schizophrenia, the psychiatrist made sure I know that he could be autistic AND schizophrenic, but that there is no point in worrying now until things progress, as it's very rare to show up this young. And your son is even younger. Other early symptoms are covered in this article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2930984/

I've read a bunch about it and talked to other counselors and what I've found out is that as it actually develops, most people will know that they are not supposed to admit to the hallucinations. They feel very defensive about them and know they will be considered crazy. I would think that this would mean you'd not want to discourage your son now from talking to you about his magical thinking, because you won't want him to start hiding it from you. You'll want to be able to keep an eye on how it develops. I highly doubt your son is developing schizophrenia, but I think the best way to be prepared is to not damage your relationship by making him feel he needs to hide things from you. If he is developing it, you can't make it go away by telling him the things he's experiencing are not real, but you can make him clam up about them as much as he's able, and that will make it more challenging for you.

I pretended that my stuffed animals and toys were real all the time when I was a child, and still do, to a certain extent. When I was young, they were pretty much my only friends. When I was 14, I had a small collection of die cast Cars who were also my friends - I even took them up to my loft bed and they comforted me when I was depressed or scared. I've never really had any "real" friends, so my Cars and stuffed animals make a good substitute, even though there are those who would disagree.