Do you have problems interacting with children?

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I don't know about others but I have difficulty interacting with children (including my own and autistic children). Their worlds are often based on the nuances of make believe and non logical rules.

I think it damages my parenting skills.

I don't. I just would rather not.

To be honest this was more aimed at the parents of the forum, although i know that autistic parents are a tiny minority.

choosing not to becomes rather unavoidable when you have ones of your own. Then you mingle with other parents and you invariably end up having to acknowledge their children.

I don't really care about interacting with children, but most children like me.
While most older people and peers consider me crazy or stupid, children usually think I'm very funny, nice and very intelligent. When I talk to them about my intests they can hear me talking for hours and hours, despite the difficulty of my language.
Kinda ironic, since I prefear older people, because they're easier to understand.

I have trouble interacting with children once they get past toddler stage. I don't know what to say to them, so I talk to them like they're either pupils in a classroom or little adults. NT children find me boring and/or scary. My son has PDD-NOS and is 4, so he's very unpredictable. I also think he has ADHD--emphasis on the H.

As a parent, I have tried to make child-rearing a special interest, but it's not that interesting to me. Which stinks, because I love my boy. He's like my heart walking around.

I don't know how to talk to them without them getting confused. I am afraid of saying the wrong things to them that would upset the parents because you don't know what they don't want their kids to know about or hear about. I try and keep things simple when I talk to kids. I don't understand the concept of talking to them like adults. I can imagine talking to one like I would to anyone else and it's just them getting all confused because they don't know what this or that is so they end up asking what is this or that. Like how do you talk to a two year old about stuff? I sure can't talk to my son like I do with my parents or my husband.

I do say things to him like "Don't touch momma's hair." "Let's give you a bath" "Let's get you a new diaper" "Time for a nap" "Do you want food" "Let's get you food" "keep the water in the tub" "Don't pour the water out of the tub, you're getting it on the floor." I don't say much to my son but he still already knows a lot at his age. He knows the names of the sports, the animals, he knows the word stuck. he knows what juice is or milk and knows what it means to leave and what go is. He even knows to go in his car seat but I still have to help him in it.

I think I would do better with older kids because they have more understanding and more vocabulary and more knowledge and can understand when you tell them things. I feel safer with my own because I am the parent and I don't have to worry about telling him the wrong things. Maybe the only thing I have to worry about I being careful what I say because he could repeat it to others since children don't have a good social filter. I once said my son's new toy was a peace of junk (because it was cheap and it easily falls apart and won't stay together) and mom told me I have to be careful what I say around him when his words get more clear and when he is older because he could say to my husband's family, "this toys is a piece of junk. Mom says so." They got him the toy for his birthday and it was only ten bucks. Apparently I do the same sort of thing too according to everyone around me. People also have to be careful what they say around me because I tend to repeat things I hear taking it as a fact. I didn't know it was an insult to say such a thing about a toy so good thing Mom told me or I may have said it to them. telling them what they got my son was a piece of junk and not mean it in a hurtful way. I was just being honest to let them know how poor quality the toy is and how my son keeps taking it apart. Dad talked like that all the time when I was a kid and I never took offense to it. he say that about anything he thought was cheap and he said it about our stuff too and it upset none of us. If it did for my brothers, I was never aware of it. But he doesn't have a good social filter either. Just an aspie trait he has.

I love kids. I get along with them way better than adults.

I find it hard to understand people who don't like kids. You were all kids yourself. I can see not getting along with NT kids if you're AS, but that's not a child-adult thing, it's an AS-NT thing. Chances are you had trouble relating to NT kids when you actually were that age, too.

It seems though that a lot of people are prejudiced against children. Which makes no sense to me. I mean, prejudice is bad anyway, but how can you be prejudiced against something you used to be, and not hate yourself as well?

I like kids, because they are usually less judgemental than adults

I get along with my kids great and other kids, I prefer children and old people..

Lets face it kids often wear their emotions on their sleeves, you know if they are happy, sad, bored.. I am just a big kid myself so they kind of get me ... I often walk into my daughters room and push stuff over, tell her to clean it up and then leave.. I think that really funny, she just calls me immature and a dick.. in a nice way...
Our son is 19 and our daughter is 16, they have both been told by their peers that we are the coolist parents ever and they wish their parents were like us.. trust me our kids have made mistakes and we are not push over parents by any means, but the rules and guidelines have never changed, we can and do talk about anything within our home walls, nothing is taboo.
Dealing with my kids seems easy for me as they are part of me, they will always be part of me...

Stu

no. i do not interact with children.

I often find it difficult to adjust my body language and verbal language to suit a child's level of maturity and level of intelligence. I don't usually speak baby talk nor do I molly coddle them, but I try to make my language more simple and direct (which is is hard). It also depends on the child, too.

Incidentally, I hate baby-talk. It can really mess up a child's learning.

kids seem to gravitate towards me for some reason, but i find it easy to interact with them because im still interested in playing and nonsense, it amuses me.

I'm not very good with interacting with small children either, but I think I would be with my own because I was OK with interacting with my little cousins but not children I didn't know very well. I was OK interacting with other children when I was a little one myself. But now I kind of feel like a bloke; just look at a baby and grunt (not horribly, just awkwardly). I've seen some teenage boys or men doing that to other people's babies/toddlers LOL.

I remember when I was 16-17, I did work experience at a nursery, working with 2, 3 and 4-year-olds, and I didn't do too well. I was kind enough, but I kind of felt shy with them, even though I knew they wouldn't judge me. I don't think I am good with adjusting my tone of voice to the level of a small child. It just made me feel awkward.

Same for me. I'm pretty okay with toddlers, and even 'get' them more often than not. But after they start talking I have no idea how to deal with them. I never even know what to say to adults; with children that problem is way way worse and I don't understand them at all. I have no idea how to act or what to say, I'm as far from a natural as they come, and being around children exhaust me. It drains me even more than adults do, and I find interaction generally exhausting, even short ones. I am so uncomfortable around children that even the shortest interaction can leave me sweating!

Strangely I also had work experience in a daycare, with children aged 3-6, when I was 14. It went pretty well actually, and some of the children really seemed to like me. I liked them but I felt like I was playing a role and couldn't relax.
It seems that at least some children who gets to know me like me even if they think I'm weird, while children who don't know me or don't know me well, find me strange and either laugh at me or seem scared.

I find it much, much easier dealing with kids as they are direct, honest and you don't need to 'read' them at all. They are also drawn to me like a magnet likely because I'm very child-like myself. Probably the single biggest reason I 'get' children is because I have an exceptionally good long term memory and remember being in pre-school like it was last year. I can even remember the smell of the classroom and the color of the doorknobs (and the crazy black 80's hair my teachers had!)

interacting with children is seriously dangerous. to speak to a little kid automatically makes their parents scope you out for possible pedophillic tendencies, and once that happens, one has a serious amount of explaining to do. people will convict you on mere suspicion.. i have never had that happen to me but i have seen it happen to another person i knew

i never talk to children because their parents always worry about the motives behind unmarried adult males talking to their kids. people are hysterical about it and it is absolutely mandatory in my mind to have nothing to do with children.. i avoid children like the plague, and even if one came to me to for help i ,,,,,, well maybe i would listen and take them straight home or to the closest police station if they stated they were in danger, but i would not involve myself with them any more than that.

the world is beserk with paranoia.
i keep well away from them.