Communicating with Adults: Easier for your AS child?

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I find the E can hold a great conversation with adults - so much that she becomes the "life of the party" so to speak. She is able to express herself with such confidence, especially if the adults are speaking on a subject she is interested in.

Same goes for communicating with children who are younger than E (typically anywhere from 4 - 5 years younger than her age). Younger children flock to her - mainly because her art draws them to her.

Why is it so hard for her peers to relate to her?

I have always had an easy time talking to adults as a child. I was video taped at my parents 4th of july party when I was 4 years old in 1987 and I was totally the life of the party. I never played with any of the kids, but chilled with the adults.

I think at least for me adults were interested in a kid who wanted to be around them and was intelligent, wanted to be a part of adult conversations. However NT peers notice our differences, maby we are a bit behind them in a few ways and since we dont act like them its natural we will be outcasted or have a more difficult time. It was just easier and more fun for me to hang out with the adults and in the movie let the kids play amoungst themselfs I wanted nothing to do with them.

Adults like us because we are able to comprehend and discuss complex topics which most kids our age could not understand, as long as it is interesting to us.

Kids our age don't like us because we lack social skills, we are not able to act exactly like everyone else, and we often outperform them in classes.

[/quote]Why is it so hard for her peers to relate to her?[quote]

Maybe the question should be why can't she relate to them? And why does she have to? She will eventually find some like-minded friends that think like her. My son loves to be in on the adult conversations during family gatherings. He is a very samrt, inquisitve, perceptive kid who is thirsty for knowledge and stimulation of his mind at all times. He has been lucky enough to find another kid who is very similar to him in that they are both highly intelligent, read constantly and like to talk about things like the middle ages and the incas and the aztecs and the presidential candidates...they are only 11. My son looks at many of his peers as sort of dumb, ill-mannered barbarians. He looks at them like "what is wrong with them?"

He is capable of talking about certain popular things some 11 year old boys like but he just is at a different level than a lot of them.

As a Child I found difficulty talking to people my age, I liked talking to adults better, and now as a adult I like talking to those older, and younger then me

As a child, I always got along with adults, and later with children at least 10 years younger than me, but rarely with anyone my own age. This was partly due to a fear of anyone my own age that built up over time.

I've also heard of aspies getting along better with foreigners than fellow "natives", but this sure didn't apply to me when I was actually in Germany, so it probably means any fellow outcast feels a kinship with us.

My son doesn't get along with peers because the interaction with them is more intense. If he's with a peer, they expect him to play turn taking games and the social rules are more complex because they are engaged in activities where someone in the group takes the lead, etc..........Peers flock together in groups.

If he's talking to an adult, it's one-to-one interaction and it's just talking. An adult is much more patient and doesn't reject him as soon as he says or does something that's a little off.

Much younger kids. My son likes them and he has an upper hand on social skills when it comes to them. He escorts them around the playground and makes sure no one pushes down the little kid. He feels important in that job. Little kids like that some big kid is paying them attention.

I think the preference for much younger and much older people, will continue for my son.

As a child, I had a great relationship with adults - especially the elderly, who found my knowledge and vocabulary interesting because I was well beyond my years in both. Funny thing, as I got older, adults no longer appreciated my knowledge and they'd get downright irritated with it.

I also had a way with children and was the babysitter everyone in the neighborhood wanted. Their kids loved me and I was always available on weekends. My peers!? I never understood them and they never understood me. It was like a whole other world where I was a square peg and they were all round - I just didn't fit.

I was that way as a child... I hated being around children, both when I was a child and now, as a young adult...

Amen to all the above posters. As a child, my best friends were in their 70s and 80s. I got excited when my first white hairs appeared. At the last party at my house, a kid I later found was aspie and I found ourselves apart from the party having a wonderful time following topics he liked on the internet. Did you know hermit crabs stridulate?

my daughter and son are both like this. adults seem to enjoy their "precocious nature", and they enjoy bossing little kids around.......although it never seemed to bother son ( not having same-age friends), it does bother my daughter. she's just begun saying that she has no friends. she doesn't want to make any changes to help her make new friends~just wants to lament that she doesn't have any.
(she does, btw, have 2 friends.)