Are you childlike?

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I don't know whether this is an AS symptom...I have heard talk of it in the past on this board, but I think it has been a while...and I have read where people said they act older than their age also....

I am 32....When I am my most relaxed, I more-or-less act like a teenager...or even a little kid....(when I am more guarded I shut that part of me off to outsiders, so that it is less apparent..)

For example, in line at the grocery store, I will repeatedly beg Flakey for a dollar and then go press my nose up to the glass of the crane machine...

i also have had a long-time fixation of toys...I make..play with...collect....

My tantrums can be pretty childlike at times....

I speak in sort of a child-like voice...Children are drawn to me and they have insisted that I am not a grownup....

Alot of "adults", in criticising me will call me a "child"...or say I have the "mind of a child"

When I disclose my real age, often people will be shocked. I will be occasionally patronised by people my own age, because they think I am younger than them

etc...etc...etc...

As an ex boyfriend once said...."maybe your childlike ways are more than just an affectation".....(as If I was pretending to be this way)...duh....

It sometimes carries over into my decision-making abilities....alot of stuff that "growups" seem to naturally "get"...just don't sink in for me..or else have taken a really really long time.

Anyone else the same way...or the opposite?

I hesitated, but I finally chose "act younger than my age". Sometimes it also seems to me that I act older than my age, and I have an easier time making friends that are WAY older than me (Im 25 and my best friend is 41). I am very mature in the sense of knowledge and social/global awareness, but very child-like in my many of my activities. I also have a hard time undertaking adult responsabilities (financial autonomy, career decisions, etc).

Im 25 years old and I can play video games all day long when I should be cleaning my apartement. I also play and talk to my cats in a most infantile way. I should also mention that when I was 15 or 16 I was still playing with toys designed for kids... I wont name any as many people would call me "ret*d" instead of "immature".

I've thought a lot about this and while there can be no doubt that I was ahead of my classmates intellectually, I would say that emotionally, I developed normally until about age six and then matured only half as fast as my agemates, i.e. at fourteen I still had the interests of a ten-year-old, at eighteen of a twelve-year-old and at twenty-two of a fourteen-year-old.

Today I try to behave as grown-up as possible, but it doesn't always come naturally. For instance I like skipping down stairs and usually watch TV sitting on the floor with my back reclining against the seat of my easy-chair. My taste in books and movies is also somewhat juvenile, and I still love sweets and comic-books.

I'm ageless (which means I'm all over the place): I can interact with a three years old as if he/she was my peer; the same for any professor as if he/she was the same. I revert to the "level" of my audience innately.

When I'm by myself and relaxed (I'm never "relaxed"), I'm..., ah...I...don't know. I just kind of sit down and stare at stuff, that's "childlike" in a way in that I find wonder in everything; the aforementioned grain of sand, an action figure, a comic book and astronomy textbooks (the pictures and diagrams). I'd "beg" my mother now for a gold coin to play Street Fighter 2 or some such just like I did when I was 10 or so, I find the same enjoyment in such; I sat down at a younger age and "read" astronomy text. I just bought my first skateboard and I just burnt my philosophy collection because it didn't answer anything.

I'm...everything.

I've always been an old soul. I still love things from childhood (I still read childhood books & remember my toys with a grin, I still love disneyland) out of a deep love & appreciation for those things, but I've never acted like a child even when a child.

(plus 2 days ago i also bought, not a skateboard, but an indo board.)

and when i was little i used to hear i was an old soul all the time, but now that i have figured my life out a teensy bit more, i know i seem like an excited 3 year old quite a bit of the time.

In highschool I got told I was way ahead of my time and felt it too, now days I get told I'm like a kid or a puppy by people around me.

I have been told by people, incuding medical professionals that I am backwards for my age.

As for whether it is connected with AS, I think that certainly in some cases difficulty understanding social situations and dealing with emotions could come across as childlike qualities.

In my case, I have mild learning difficulties, so that is probably to blame.

I tend to act like a little kid at times. I remember when in jr high, at a birthday party they were playing spin the bottle... i just wanted to dance and didnt want to kiss any stupid boys yet. I figured what is the hurry? When it comes to social situations i also shut that part down. I can hold my own with older people and kids, but when it comes to others my age i am puzzled at how old they act. I went to a tenth year HS reunion and part of the class did not recognise me. My husband commented on how old everyone there looked; older than me that is. Nobody believes that i am thirty years old. They always guess early twenties. Fine with me. I still love stuffed things and become enchanted with some of the details on them. I find it a blessing to have the mind of a child sometimes.

I take child-like joy and have a child-like wonder in many aspects of my world.

My emotional and even more so, my social development lagged behind my peers, while my logic/reasoning and formal language skills were advanced.

I've also found that I tended (and still tend) to get on with people outside my age group.

People thought of me as extremely mature for a child. But as I got older I never got past being a child, so I am very childlike now at the age of 26. I have a hard time taking on adult responsibility and I still watch cartoons, collect stuffed animals (mostly Hello Kitty & Pandas), and I have retained a sense of childlike wonder that many adults don't have past a certain age.

Even though I am very intelligent (for a human I guess) and am mature in certain aspects of my life, I still think of myself as a 5 year old in a 26 year old's body. My boyfriend gave me a card for my birthday last year that read, "For a Special Girl Who's Five". He thinks it's adorable.

I really find the child-like joy and child-like perspective of aspies appealing.

For instance: When my oldest son was 18, and my youngest was 8, we took a wonderful trip to Disneyworld and stayed in the Animal Kingdom lodge. This was a big splurge for us -- staying in this really nice hotel with all kinds of exotic wildlife literally right outside your window. The youngest son would sit on the balcony for hours, just watching the animals graze. Then, the oldest and youngest son would walk around outside the hotel, trying to spot the various animals and keep a record on the sheet provided by the hotel. They were equally enamored by the experience. It was a lovely bonding experience for the two of them, and I think our NT daughter (who was 13 at the time) felt somewhat left out.

I love this ability to see things in a child-like perspective, and I really feel like NT's are completely missing out when they feel they are too "cool" to experience life in this way.

Kris

Childlike is a very indefinite category. I try to approach any living thing on its level. It is pretty impossible, of course, with insects and crustaceans. I have never interacted with an octopus or a dolphin but it might be an interesting experience. I have kept, at one time or another, a large variety of different animals. Dogs, cats, lizards, tropical fish, a seagull, turtles, a rabbit, rats, mice, hedgehogs, a praying mantis, and at the moment I am involved with a sparrow I raised from a baby chick. I have found some sort of common ground with all of them and rather limited communication with all. Some individuals have been more rewarding than others and I have found birds quite bright and very aware. Contact with any other living thing can be rewarding but people give me the most trouble. If this is childish, so be it.

I act about ten years younger than my actual age. For example, my birthday party last year was Spongebob-themed.

I remember clearly how I used to think when I was six.

I still think that way.

Am I childlike now or was I adult like then?

I don't know but I think that like Danielismyname I'm a bit all over the place.

I'm somewhere between six and six hundred