Were you considered likeable, when you were young?

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I was going through my elementary school report cards recently and noticed that several teachers commented that I was a ?very likeable boy?.

I am curious if others received similar feedback from teachers, when they were younger. Also, I am also a bit curious why a teacher (well, in my case, multiple teachers in different years) would comment on a student?s ?likeability?. It seems odd.

i think its a staple reply that teachers do. I think to adults - kids on the spectrum probably do come across as likeable. But to our peers, we get labelled as weird. This is what i've found anyway, i got on with adults better as a kid, and kids who were younger than me. But those of my actual age, i couldn't relate to them at all, i struggled to interact with them. Which caused problems with bullying.

So as a kid, we could communicate in a very grown up way, in the way we talk and what we talk about. But with out own peers, because there's a difference between what they would find interesting at that age, and the way they communicate at that age - and how we were.

But emotional maturity in the way we relate to others can be more like those who are younger, so we would find it easier to bond and create friendships with them.

Obviously there's always exceptions to the rule.

I remember getting those comments too on report cards. I think they write these things because they feel that if our peers were more mature and wouldn't misunderstand, criticise or lose patience with us so much, we'd have more friends. We would be indeed likeable once they got to know us. NT kids expect immediate gratification all the time - they expect you to jump up right away where we aspies like to evaluate situations and take our time. Did you notice that adults who still need immediate gratification are seen as "immature"? As you get older, you start to wonder exactly who is developmentally delayed. I personally don't like it when people on the spectrum are considered developmentally delayed. I feel it is more suitable to say developmentally different. Just because something isn't typical, doesn't make it wrong. It's all about majority rule.

I didn't have many friends as a young kid and often seemed to be in conflict with my peers. I was often called names or bullied by older or larger kids and I learned to respond with my fists and spent my school years aged 5 to 15 involved in endless brawls and fist fights with other kids, once breaking someone's arm and on another occasion all but killing a bully (he was very lucky to survive). By the time I left the secondary school at age 15 nobody dared lay a hand on me and I had quite a brutal reputation - I also didn't have any friends. It was only then, aged 16 when I went to a technical college in another county where nobody knew me that I managed to get out of all the physical conflict, leave my past behind me and concentrate on my studies. Come to think of it I didn't have any real friends there though, not until my university days several years later. Likeable isn't a word anyone used about me in those formative years. I was just the school weirdo due to being different and the object of endless teasing, name calling and bullying.

It was pretty much like that for me, and I still wish it was the case for today.

yes, I had that on report cards too. Grown ups liked me, kids didn't. I had a temper and especially for girls such as myself who were already seen as weird and tomboy that wasn't acceptable. I grew up in the old days like the OP.

Last edited by alpineglow on 18 May 2014, 5:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I grew up in the 90s and the coolest possible thing at the time was to be a complete idiot for some reason (I think this was the same time president clinton criticized the media for glorification of drug abuse/overdose, so that might have something to do with it). Speaking formally, using big words, being knowledgable on any subject other than sports, and especially social justice and environmentalism were very very unpopular and considered a just reason for bullying in every elementary school I attended. I never had a teacher or peer "like" me in any way, and my mom ended up pulling me out and homeschooling me (thank goodness, she is so wonderful and an aspie like me). Later, and now in fact, I tend to get along better with people older than me.

that's a good point actually. Come to think of it, there were many teachers who DIDN'T like me, but then some that really did. I found that the teachers who got really well with my peers, didn't like me, but the teachers who were disliked by my peers, really liked me. huh.

My mum wanted to homeschool me, and i think if it wasn't for my dad who vetoed the idea, i would've done alot better in the educational system than i did.

I even did my own experiment with my GCSE's. On the mocks i didn't revise, i just took what was in my textbooks and what i was taught in class - i failed.
The actual mocks, i spent the revision week we had, glued to proper revision text books and taught myself all of the subjects, on my own, in my room, everyday. I had a routine chart and a timer too, i passed with flying colours.

I went from predicted D's and E's
to B's and C's

My head of year was very shocked.... i weren't.

I could say I was considered likeable, but mainly because I didn't go out causing problems. In fact I kept to myself, did my work, only spoke when needed and didn't bother anyone. When I think about it, not that much has changed since then.

Yeah, I found that too. My Cookery teacher comes to mind. I remember feeling left out when she would talk away with the other girls and not me. I don't think she meant to deliberately exclude me, we just had nothing in common. Looking back I guess she was a pretty genuine person to give her pupils that kind of time. Yet there were other teachers that I had a good rapport with that other pupils didn't get along with.

I was considered a problem child who couldn't take care of his books, wrote sloppy, didn't get along with the other kids, and always disrupted the class. There were some positive comments in high school, since I went to a "liberal" high school for "gifted underachievers."

In general, I wasn't liked by my teachers--and I didn't especially like my teachers.

I made liberal use of the Columbia Encyclopedia for a long time.

Nearly all my teachers said "very good student" or "excellent student". Many mothers commented on what a sweet boy I was and they would love to adopt me. Unfortunately my peers did not feel the same.

I did find, however, that once I entered college, I suddenly was sort of on top - other students right out of high school tended to retain their...hostility? or whatever you call the way people behave in high school, which I never managed to pick up - for at least the whole first semester of college. They never spoke to professors, didn't answer questions in class, didn't like to demonstrate their knowledge of anything they'd learned, and just sort of looked down their noses at everyone else, and that right there is why no one likes college freshmen. I fit right in with a group of upperclassmen and got along well with my professors, who didn't think I was "weird" for my interest in the material and actually even appreciated my enthusiasm in the subject.

So...I guess my teachers did find me "likeable" enough, in college anyway.

The only real "unlikeable" thing I did in elementary school was endlessly harass this one girl because I liked her and thought she should be my girlfriend, and I even had reasons for why I'm better suited.

Yes. Mostly by elderly people.

@gypsy2522 and @BecauseImArtistic, the experiences you described were pretty much me throughout my own experiences through school.

When I was in primary and secondary, my teachers liked me - oftentimes the ones my peers didn't like - and younger kids liked me and sometimes older kids liked me (usually, quite a bit older), and I didn't fit in or socialize well with my own peers.

When I went to university, 'fitting in' was a breeze in the sense that my professors and teaching assistants were usually more than happy to socialize with me (I really liked going to office hours to ask questions and discuss things in more detail) and the upperclassmen in my more advanced classes were generally sincerely happy to have me in their group.

... Again, I didn't fit in or socialize well with my peers of the same age-group or year-group, but at that point, I really didn't care much at all anymore.