Hurting Feelings

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This forum has been an excellent resource to me recently, so I thought I'd check to see if you could grant me a little more insight. My 12 yo son (AS) was fixing tea for his 5 yo sister this morning. It pleased her so she told him she was going to make him a gift. His response was, "If you are going to make me one of those stupid fabric things, I'm just going to throw it away."

He does well at saying thank you for gifts that he doesn't necessarily like as is the socially accepted standard. He sees this as different because she had not given it to him in reality, but only because she told him she was going to. He said to me exactly what I thought he would. "I wasn't trying to hurt her. I was trying to help her not waste her time and save her the pain of seeing me throw it away." Wasting his time is like a crime against humanity, so he was actually being empathetic and compassionate. It's no wonder he gets so defensive and angry when we accuse him of being mean.

So how do we reconcile between these two worlds? I know it's not fair just because he's different to expect him to bow to the NT arbitrarily chosen standards, but I'd also like to save him from receiving and causing as much heartache as possible. My daughter was crushed and I was initially angry but quickly realized he wasn't intentionally hurting her.

There are many things like this in his life. I thought once I was able to explain that certain things were considered rude, that he would willingly accept my what I used to think was sage advice and we would move on. But that's not so. Sometimes he buys into what I'm telling him and other times, even if he sees my point, just doesn't agree with the cutural norm. I can't say I blame him, even. It does cause real problems though.

For instance, I'm not sure I completely understand his perception, but I think he believes he is an equal partner with my husband and I in his responsibility as a parent to his NT sister. If I start to get onto her, he frequently interrupts me and starts to physically try to force her to do what he thinks is right, which may or may not be the same thing I think is right. I've tried to discuss the roles with him and while we each seem to get each other to a certain extent, he doesn't buy into my need for him to back off sometimes. If I try to use some of the recommended parenting strategies for dealing with siblings, it's not effective because he sees her as the subordinate and himself as a co-managing peer with me.

Any help?

You have several levels here.

Lack of tact. Well, this is kind of an aspie thing, and also very much a 12 year old boy thing. My daughter is younger but for social expectations I will point out the expectation in clear terms and what the consequences might be. This is good for things like tact, or wearing something I think is tacky. She has the choice of whether to take my advice or not. She has to take the consequence. We do a lot of social postmortems.

Siblings (NT or not) love to boss each other around. No junior parenting allowed.

One word I'd like to address is "accuse". "You were rude!" is likely to bring out defensive reactions in anyone, and double in an aspie. If the postmortem went like this:
You: When you told your sister her fabric things were stupid and you'd just throw them away it really hurt her feelings because she likes making them and likes giving them to people she loves.
Kid: I was just trying to save her from wasting time and being hurt when I threw it away.
You: I know you don't really have a use for them, and I know you were thinking of your sister and being honest, but maybe there's a way to say it without hurting her feelings. What could you have said? Let's brainstorm.

That's a postmortem. There's no accusation. He's not "wrong". There's just the fact that he did hurt his sisters feelings and there might be a way to say it without hurting her feelings. If you can tie it to something similar that hurt his feelings and also to a general social principle so much the better. This works the same way for your daughter, nt or not.

You can teach him what to say instead like "Oh that's okay, you don't need to make me a gift. Don't worry about it."

Mom used to tell me all the time what to say instead.

AWESOME! I will try the postmortem. Yes, I thought saying something was rude would be helpful because it actually was what got him to stop leaving his pants unzipped. I explained it was actually rude because it made people uncomfortable that they might accidentally see private parts. He hasn't left them unzipped since. I thought the key was that I realized that I could communicate to him it was rude because he focused on that by saying, "Oh, I didn't know it was rude." But I'm thinking the key is more helping him to see why it was rude.

And BAH, 12 year olds....

And League_Girl, thank you. Having an arsenal of pat answers is always helpful. That's a much kinder way to say what he meant.