When/Why did your parents start treating you like an adult?

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My parents treated my like an adult with certain things early and like a child with certain other things for very long.

I was a young teenager when my parents started trusting me pretty much like an adult with most day to day responsibilities and events. They kept treating me like a child when it came to important life decisions or social situations though. It wasn't until I moved out (and abroad) at age 21 that they finally started taking me seriously and treating me like an adult.

Even though I have been living in an apartment by myself for several years now I really don't think my parents think I'm an adult. But I don't think I really act like an adult either. I never learned to drive a car, and I can't afford one anyway so they often have to drive me to appointments. I don't have a salary, I get a disability check each month but of course it's not enough so they give me extra money each week. I don't know how to do things without their help like income taxes and junk. I can buy my own groceries, cook my own meals, do my own chores, chew and swallow my own food (okay maybe I'm not THAT hopeless ) , but I feel I am too dependent on my parents and they're not going to be around forever. My mom said it's okay it will all be taken care of but I really don't know what I'll do...

I guess my parents are still waiting for me to grow up. Since I lack the classic NT signs of maturity, they can't help but react to that. It is so much easier to interact with my son, also AS. I wish they would realise I'm 36, and this is what you get. They also don't really like to believe psychological professionals and think I am just lazy or not trying hard enough. My mom and my 15 yr old son and I were in Chicago, and she treated me as if I had never driven a car before, yelling and adding stress to already stressful Chicago traffic. We haven't spoken since that trip, like 4 months ago.

I think when my mother decided to go out to work as well as my dad we all had to start looking after ourselves a bit better and make our own food. We did ok. I was about 10. But I don't think it was until I turned 30 and had just got a degree that my parents finally thought I had grown up.

I suppose I was eleven or twelve. I was always the smart, quiet, responsible one. My mother has come to me for advice far more times than I have gone to her.

Mom was AS, and ex-military. She first treated me as a subordinate adult, and then as as an equal once I could out-debate her. (She then avoided debate.) Dad was just frustrated with me, but he did eventually invite me to visit him when I was 22. He died suddenly before the invitation date. I had tracked him down and shown up looking more normal than ever before, but it wasn't a good time for a visit.

Everybody started treating me like an adult when I was 14. I know this is VERY unique to say this, but I hated it! I didn't want to grow up. My mind was much younger than 14, and being treated and expected to act like an adult made it feel like too much pressure for me. People even said, ''you're grown up now.'' And I was like, ''no - I'm still a school kid. Let me be a kid for just a few years longer!''

My parents started treating me like an adult the day that my mum picked me up from the Hospital after that dumb blonde had the ambulance take me away, because I'm obsessed with The Kinks. It was that morning when the counselor at the hospital talked to me, than my mum than to the both of us about the things on my mind, that things started to change for the better until last June, though things are getting better again.

They never have and they probably never will. The funny thing is that they expect me to act like an adult but treat me like a child.

Of course, there's also the classic "If you wanted to be treated like an adult, you have to act like an adult." But treating your child like a child will only encourage them to act like a child. If you never get treated like an adult, how can you ever learn to act like one?

My mom keeps telling me that I need to be more independent, but she always stops me when I try.

They never did.
We haven't had any contact since 1999.

Since I got a bachelors degree and moved out...

They took me more seriously when I moved out. Ever since I've learned alot and they've learned to appreciate me more

I always go to my mom with 'adult' problems, such as my taxes, and when my house went into foreclosure, that sort of thing. I make her call people for me sometimes because I get nervous over the phone.

But as a kid my dad was an alcoholic and my mother severely depressed, so I was cooking and cleaning the house by age 7 or 8, watching my siblings for 8 hours a day in the summers when I was 11, and basically being the voice of reason among the family, mostly because I didnt have the emotional hang-ups the rest of them did. I tended to be calm, honest, and practical when everyone else were turning into basket-cases.

My family and others I knew treated me like an adult when I stopped taking my mothers s**t by not speaking to her for 2 years and when I first moved interstate.

Now it's time for me to push for my better half (also an Aspie) to stand up for himself and be treated as he should...like an adult instead of like a child or worse an idiot, he is 8 years younger and still has some maturity issues but people never seem to know where he's at as he isn't the best at communication and I often have to communicate and advocate for him.

Slowly but surely he is getting better.

S

never

Mine haven't yet! (note my age - 45)

I never realized before very recently that I've never been able to talk about certain things with my parents....especially anything personal. I feel like my own parents don't know me very well.