he insists I know his thoughts

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My son gets so mad at me for things he thinks he said, but didn't. I can't convince him that he never told me. I saw on another thread that some autistics assume we know what they are thinking. How can we address this?

I told my daughter that if her lips were not moving, I did not know what she was thinking. I think because that has a visual component to it, it helped her remember.

This was a gradual process for us. I hadn't realized until reading the above mentioned thread that it was b/c he could hear himself think. He gets it now, but I still have to remind him I can't "hack his brain." It makes him giggle, and defuses things quickly so he can calm down and realize what is going on.

I would definitely have told him something along the lines of what In This Together said, if I had realized what was going on when it was a much bigger problem. I just kept telling him I was not a mind reader and that he needed to use words and language for me to know hat he was thinking.

This is kind of funny, because with my oldest, I had to tell him over and over if his lips were moving that he was talking, not thinking. He used to think out loud--literally.

My son also has this (though he understands the concept, he just has difficulty telling when we can and cannot tell what he's thinking.) It's a natural part of TOM if you think about it - if you can't tell what other people are thinking, how can you tell if they know what you know?

I think the logic goes something like this: DS knows that we know many things about what he's thinking before he expresses them. He doesn't realize that we know this because he's giving off cues with his facial expressions and body language (or, in his case, he is only partially aware.) Therefore, in his head - people know what he's thinking ALL the time, because we can guess some of the time.

Even though DS now knows this logic isn't accurate, he can't really tell what is being expressed through body language and what isn't. In addition, he assumes we have the same kind of memory he does, and that our minds will jump to the same conclusions as his - so, he will look at a bug and remember something from a movie he's seen and start talking about it without realizing we didn't make the same connection, so there will be all kinds of gaps in the information.

I believe I had this one, too, as a kid - sadly, I don't remember how I learned to compensate. InThisTogether's idea is a good one...but we're still looking for a strategy that works for us.

Yes, it is funny, because I tried it on the recommendation of a friend who did the exact same thing with her daughter as you are saying with your son. For her, she said "if your lips are moving, I know what you are thinking" so we reasoned maybe the opposite would work.

And it did!

yep! My son INSISTS he answers me when he didn't say a word. I then ask him why would I be saying he didn't answer me if he did?

Yeah, there's our problem. My son then replies that I lie.
(Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!)

If this is an autistic thing, then my Husband is on the spectrum too. He does this all the time, assumes he said things that he never said or assumes I should just know what he thinks. (honestly i wouldn't be surprised if he was)

But I think it is also one of those things that people who are close do to each other. You spend so much time with one another, you assume that the other knows things.

I've got nothing else to add, but good luck. Your post made me smile. I'll try and keep a sense of humor about it if my son starts doign this too.

I think a lot of people are prone to THINK something, THINK ABOUT saying something, and then remember it as if they had said it. I'm bad about that. Daddy was too. You had to check to make sure he'd done things; sometimes he thought about doing them so vividly it was as if they were done.

He also had a great talent for daydreaming, and I also inherited it. To this day, I can "see" the orchard we "planted" sitting at teh kitchen table drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Someday I really will look out that window and really see a real orchard...

But that doesn't help you with your kids. I don't know what to do. That is a problem I have never solved.

This thread explains why aspie kids often have difficult relationships with the adults in their lives. On one hand:

On the other hand:
Can you imagine how unpleasant and frustrating this is?! People in your live "magically" change the ability to read your mind, on their own whim, with no advance notice to you. So you never know exactly when you have verbalize everything down to the last drop, and when people will "just know". No wonder adult aspies have view their childhoods as being nothing short of horrible, myself including. This isn't a knock anyone's parenting; it's hard for NTs to adapt to aspies' thinking style, just as it's hard for aspies to adapt to NTs' thinking style. But this doesn't make an aspie's childhood any less unpleasant.

This brings back a somewhat funny memory (in retrospect); I was about 5 at the time. I was sick in bed, and wanted my plastic stacking pyramid toy that I left sitting on top of the radiator on the other side of the room. (The condo building my family lived in at the time was old enough to have radiators.) I called over my older sister. This dialog transpired. I'm sure you'll have a good laugh, like I do now.
Legend: spoken words are in "quotes", emotions and actions are in (parentheses), and thoughts are in [brackets].

Aspie1: "Can I get my pyramid?"
Sister: "Sure, where is it?"
Aspie1: "It's right there." [Her eyes are facing in the direction of the radiator; she's gotta see my pyramid.]
Sister: (calm) "Where's 'there'?"
Aspie1: (screaming) "It's over there!" [Is she playing some sort of mind game?]
Sister: (still calm) "Where is 'over there'?"
Aspie1: (crying, while pointing to radiator) "It's over there!! !" [Why is she doing this to me? I'm a kind person. I don't deserve this.]
Sister: "'There' can be anywhere. Where are you pointing?"
Aspie1: (crying) "Behind me. To the radiator." [How can 'there' be anywhere? It's on the radiator!]
Sister: (dumbfounded) "You should have told me it was on the radiator. Give me a minute." (Brings pyramid.)
Aspie1: (takes pyramid, smiling happily) "It's warm."
Sister: (smiling back, good-natured mimicry) "'Warm.' You weren't being very warm to me. Enjoy your pyramid." (Walks out.)
Aspie1: [It was nice of her to bring me the toy, but I still don't see how she didn't know where 'there' was; she was looking in that direction.]

I was honestly convinced that my mom could see through walls to know when I was up to something until I was about 10, and that both my parents had magical mind reading powers (and that everyone else had at least a little of the power) until I was about 16. I really used to wonder when I was finally going to get access to the magic. Then one day I realized it was the facial expressions and body language and felt like an idiot for not figuring it out sooner.

"I can't read your mind." Mom used to tell my NT brothers and I this. Unfortunately I took this too literal so I may not recommend you say this.

I think this post should be required reading for anyone who knows someone on the spectrum.

I don't recommend it, either. When you (the OP) figure things out from you son's body language or facial expressions, you're essentially reading his mind as far as he's concerned, even though it's not the mind you're reading. So telling him you "can't read his mind" makes it look like you're lying. Especially when next day, you tell him "I know you're lying; I can see it in your eyes", when you noticed that his eyes are twitching while he was telling you he already brushed his teeth. In this case, not only are you "lying to him", you're also sending a message that it's OK for you to lie but not for him. And there's nothing aspie kids despise more than hypocrisy/double standards.

Consider my scenario with the plastic pyramid toy. My parents frequently told me: "tell me the truth now; I can see in your eyes that you're lying", while my sister had no idea I that "there" meant "on the radiator", even though she was looking right at it. (I now chuckle at the dialog, but 25 years had to pass before I learned to find it funny.)

Perhaps a better way to express it would be: "If you want/need something, you gotta speak up. If you don't say something, people won't always understand you correctly. (And I'm sure he's had plenty of experiences with being misunderstood.)

You're totally right, Aspie1 - and I think this is in large part the reason for a lot of my son's angry and aggressive behavior. We used to describe it like being a tourist in a non-english-speaking country who for some reason had memorized a phrasebook with a perfect accent - you can imagine how people treat anyone who APPEARS to speak just like everyone else, but who doesn't understand the simplest interaction.

Also, don't forget - while it appears that people who talk to you have magical powers and can see what you're thinking, apparently when YOU make the assumption that you can do it, too - everybody gets angry. You are doing what is modeled to you, and people yell at you for that. When I watched DS taking the TOEPL and losing it, it was like being struck by lightning - I still cry when I think about that; I had not understood up to that point what the deficit MEANT.

It doesn't make it any easier to parent an Aspie, because while it's easy to generalize these basic assumptions that get confused, it's nearly impossible to figure out exactly what the specific confused assumptions are in real time (DS doesn't always assume I can read his mind, nor does he always forget to ask for the information he needs - he only does this occasionally, and it's random; I assume for him the misunderstandings appear random, too.) What's more, when we are careful about spelling things out for DS, we often get "I'm not a baby, Mom - don't treat me like I'm stupid!" and he's right - the problem is, I can't tell when he's going to need support and when he isn't.