Does your child say "I love you"?

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DH is having a hard time with DD not telling him ILY. He's always told her so, and she's merely responded in kind. I think that NTs have a hard enough time with the concept of love, much less someone with AS. However, even though she doesn't feel it, she should at least respond accordingly. You would think that if she would treat people better, they might respond in kind?

Recently, we stopped a bedtime ritual. She would come in for a hug and kiss. However, her father being who he is, wishes for a hug longer than the 1.3 seconds she gives him. It almost always resulted in a fight, with everyone going to bed miserable. But now, she does not even say ILY to him anymore, even when he says it first. I don't know what to do now...

maybe the father should grow up and accept the child's wishes.
forcing physical contact or expression of love from a child can take their confidence to say 'no' in more subversive situations.
respect your child as an equal individual person and not a commodity.

DH has no problem with no physical contact. However, an appreciation and an occasional I Love You would be nice every once in a while. She shows none, even when you point out all the things you've done for her. And she wonders why we don't do more.

dp

Last edited by Triangular_Trees on 24 Oct 2007, 9:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

If he loves her than why does he a) Feel no hug is better than a 1.3 second one and B) feel a need to require her to say I love you.

Neither makes much sense.

Further more why in the world would saying, "we did this, this and this" result in her saying oh, daddy and mommy, I love you. What do you two have against accepting her and LOVING her for what she is. Seems like you care more about having other people see that she loves you than you actually do about having her love you and loving her. If you love her, you'll accept her, not force all kinds of stupid roles on her about how she must act if she loves you, and then refuse expressions of love to her if she doesn't act in that way. If your the kind of parents that really will start arguing with yoru child because she doesn't hug you "long enough" than its no surprise she isn't saying "ILY" back to you - not even an NT would do that when put under such ridiculous obligations. How would YOU feel if you went to hug your father and rather than accepting your hug like a loving father, and appreciating that he was given one, he started an argument with you about the length of the hug you just gave him - would you want to hug him again? I wouldn't.

We do love her for who and what she is. However, we would appreciate a little effort in return! Everything I've read about AS tells you to show/teach the person with AS what would be the appropriate response to something. Is that incorrect? Sorry, but I would not feel very wanted if I didn't receive some kind of acknowledgement of some sort for everything I do either. I don't think he is asking for the moon in this case. But it would be nice, now that we are not imposing the physical contact, to hear at least an I Love You when said to her. Or, not even having to say those words. They could be, Thank You. Or I appreciate you doing this for me. We don't even get that.

its very hard not hearing the I love yous......Our son who's 15 has only recently begun saying it to me...and that's only once in awhile. hey~ i take what i can get....................You can certainly talk to your child about reasons that someone might say I Love you, but there's really no guarantee that you'll hear it in the appropriate context or even at all. I began looking for other ways that my son would say I Love You.......For instance ~ letting me use his blanket when i was sick in bed, making me a cup of coffee, straightening up the living room without being asked..........I'm sure if you look, you'll find ways that your child says I Love you without really saying it.

We do things that are different and one of those is expression of emotion. Love isn't confined to a pre-defined set of behaviors like timed hugs or spontaneous expressions of affection (unprompted "I love yous"). Love, affection and gratitude are all intense emotions and can be very difficult to cultivate and express in autistic people. When you combine that difficulty with an authority figure's demand for a specific expression you'll get resistance, distrust and possibly misplaced expression.
I got a sick feeling in my stomach reading your posts. My parents did the same thing to me. I stopped trusting and have had some heavy, heavy trust and sexual issues due to that. I stopped telling them things in 2nd grade. I stopped trusting them with any emotion. They were so hungry for me to "be like them" that I resisted even more and they got weirder and weirder with their requests.
I had gifts taken away because I didn't hug and kiss "to say thank you". I got yelled at because the volume of my voice was being monitored to gauge my enthusiasm when saying "hello" "hi". My dad counted each time I failed to greet him the way he wanted to be greeted.

I resented and feared them. I panicked every time I heard my dad's car in the drive way or could hear him enter a room.

Years later, I heard stories about my toddler years that have made me think this all stemmed from my resistance to being held by my dad. I was just a baby and yet my dad felt rejected by me. He developed this intense need to know what I was thinking and feeling. Nothing I ever said or did was right.

It's bad enough when you have a natural inability to read social and emotional cues, but it's horrid when your own parents don't accept you for it. Like it's some kind of moral failing on your part.

What you're ignoring is that "appropriate response" is a very subjective thing. What is appropriate to you is a personal feeling and desire. What is appropriate and comfortable for your daughter is totally different. And you know, if you demand for specific responses to your "treatment" then she's not going to see that as love. She's going to take it literally and understand that you're doing "whatever" (feeding, gifting, hugging, etc) specifically to get a response from her.

Really?! ! I'm pretty sure your wrong about that. Perhaps THAT is the problem. Your attitude.

I think teaching when to say thank you, especially in social situations, is right but teaching to say I love you could lead to problems in correct understanding or appreciation of those sentiments in future and difficulty saying them appropriately in relationships.

btw - I don't know the age of this child but could it be just part of normal kid growing up phase?
My daughter (NT) became very difficult, beligerent etc at age 10. My son (NT) decided at age 6 he was too old for hugs and kisses. Neither expressed appreciation until after teenage years when they were old enough to start fending for themselves and I started to leave them to do that. I was expected to cook, clean, buy them things because I was 'mum' and that was 'my job'.

I think if you make an issue of this with your child things will get worse, hopefully your husband and people here on WP can act as release valve instead.

*virtual hug*

Okay, I think something has gotten lost in translation here...

Number one. She is not my daughter. I treat her the way I would like to be treated, and do not demand nor receive hugs or kisses. I am simply not that way.

DH would never, ever hold her or try to make her do ANYTHING against her will. He has never forced her to do anything she didn't want to do (excepting homework and chores).

She is fifteen. And believe me, she has told her father flat out that she hates him. The only reason she stopped is because her aunt (who gets her what she wants) told her she would not get any Christmas presents. She obviously does feel, and I mispoke before. She can't lie, and will tell you straight out if she feels anything. When her therapist asked her how she would feel if her mother or father suddenly passed on, she replied, "Nothing". When asked the same about the cat, she said, "Sad".

Now, I realize that this is a common thing with Aspies, in that they will feel emotion for animals rather than humans, and I don't begrudge that. But to say that she will feel nothing if DH passed on? This man has given this child everything (within reason). Her mother has given her next to nothing. Yet to not acknowledge that is not right. Emotion or no emotion.

I guess this will be it for me. I had hoped to come here looking for help and advice, not get blasted for "abusing" this child. Thank you for everything.

If she's on the spectrum, she can't be expected to behave as if she isn't. That's all it comes down to. How many 15-year-olds can say the word love? Most kids at that age turn off saying they love their parents, when forced the word 'hate' is much easier to say.

Help and advice is "accept her for who she is". You can't really know what's in her head based on those responses. And if the psych is repeating her counselling sessions, then that girl probably, and rightfully distrusts the her too.

I gave the results of what happened in my family because timing hugs and expecting loving words is exactly what screwed up my sense of well-being and trust. It's frightening.

This is dads fault and he needs to grow up, or research AS, but AS or not we need to respect each others boundaries. My husband and I are NT both our kids are NT we all have silly quirks that noone is allowed to fault. My daughter for years would never change in front of me...why not? We are both female, but you know....I just let it go. We get along very well. If dad wants a good relationship with his daughter then he needs to respect her space. Being a parent is not all about him and it's time he realises this.

Ok I missed your posting that the young lady isn't your daughter, I'm assuming step daughter? Yes she needs to be respectful, but where is dads when he demands long hugs from her? Of course she's uncomortable. And you are the one who said dad wanted a longer hug....you did. Regardless of her opinion, good rules are ok to set up. Expecally a good routine. 15 year old girls can be very hard to live with. I know....I had one. Tempermental,moody,emotional,initled....yeah yeah, I've dealt with this. I use to do this with my daughter and son, "How can you ask for that in a more respectful way?" "Whats a more polite way to express disagreement?" They hated this, but geesh, my husband and I are human to. And you may need to tell her a way to be more polite when the situation arises. But understand, she's a young woman, or close to it, and learning to seperate and find her own way can make for a tough road. And most teens wonder why their parents don't do more......part of being a teen. Just wait though, she'll have kids of her own.

Another post of an NT parent being "abused" by their aspie offspring,who is being a normal "teen" and a normal "aspie"...off to look for a curbie-support group to reinforce their dellussion that they are the victem.Tell em again how aspies are the ones who lack "empathy" but NT's are so good at it.

I still get sick to my stomach thinking about this kind of parenting.Sad that you will never "get" what we are talking about.Perhaps it is a malfunction in your brain-wiring?