Help!- Manipulation or beyond his control?

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Hey WP Members,

I am having a tough day with my 11 yr. old with AS. He is a very intelligent kid and knows how to manipulate at times. My difficulty is knowing when he is trying to manipulate us to give him sympathy or when he truly cannot control what is going on inside his head and body. I feel so inadequate as a mother because I feel that I should know the difference. I used to think that I knew the difference but lately I am doubting myself.

Has anyone else had this problem? Or has anyone read an article or chapter in a book about AS and manipulation in children. I know there is lots of great information out there about AS but I've never seen this issue of manipulation addressed - or is it even part of AS?

Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated! I am really struggling with this!

Jeana

I'm no expert, and I obviously don't know the kid at all, but I can't see a way to make the words "manipulation" and "Asperger's" work in the same sentence. How well does he write? Can he come to WrongPlanet?

Yes, he can type - as a matter of fact he has joined this site also but I only let him read and post on Kid's Crater.

I'm not even sure if he is aware of how much he manipulates but we are starting to deal with this issue, as he is 11 and cannot continue manipulating others!

Jeana

i wrote a very similiar post a few weeks back. the pychologist said my son was manipulating me. that was our first visit. we have our next visit next week. it will be interesting to see how it goes. ever since i started coming to this website. I see my son in a total different light than i did before. he is 9.

My son is also very intelligent and I used to believe him everytime he told me a story about what happened at school or what happened with his brothers. My oldest son would get so mad at me because he said he was lying and why did I always take his side. It was that he always sounded so convincing. I just recently caught him a few lies and now I finally see how he has been controlling the situation and manupliting the outcome.

When I punish him for the behavior he acts like he dont care and he has meltdowns. I know he understands because he is very bright yet he has this I dont care attitude that just confuses me. No matter how I punish him he still does the same behavior like he doesnt get it.

How can someone so bright not get what he is doing is wrong? How can he be so cunning at such a young age? I am mistified daily.

I just continue with the consequences for his actions and hope he will learn good behavior. Some days I wonder if he will ever change.

When he is just around adults he does fine no problems. Get him around a group of kids and watch out something is bound to happen. I try to never leave him alone with other kids because it never turns out good. He doesnt get along with children he thinks they are stupid and he tries to prove that they are.

i deal with this daily

i don't believe anything my stepdaughter says because in between the truth, there is lies, exagerations, manipulations and everything else thrown in.

you catch her in a lie, she changes the story to fit.
she can never be told she's wrong and she things she's intelligent but she's random and clueless most of the times.

it's sad but what can you do

I did that sort of thing when I was little, and catch myself wanting to now if I'm stressed. If the lies are often "anectdote-ish" about something someone said or did maybe she's just lonely. That's what majority of my lies were about. I didn't fit in with people but wanted to SO bad. I'd also lie a lot about actions I didn't feel I could control. My mom never believed anything I would say, which resulted in some abuse from a step father being ignored for years till she walked in on it.

Also focusing on anything I wasn't currently obsessed with was next to impossible, and still is. I had to have a rather calm environment to help me focus on the new topic or have the instructions written to refer to enough times to block out whatever was going on around me. Probably the most common description of me is scatterbrained.

It is disheartening to read some of the responses here... consider - if one doesn't understand what is going on around them, what did our ancestors do? They came up with an explanation that fit their understanding of the world around them. Yet when a child on the spectrum does the same, they are lying and being manipulative? Instead of being accusatory, take the opportunity to learn their perspective. That doesn't mean there aren't lies and attempts to avoid being blamed or the center of attention... but I really think there is a tendency to assume the worst, whether by conditioning, frustration, exhaustion, or an inability to see how peculiar the world is when on the spectrum.


M.

Remember a few things.

First, kids go through phases. All very young children are naturally prone to believe that what they want to be the truth, IS the truth. While 11 would be rather old to still be doing this, you have to consider if he has simply not yet outgrown the phase.

Second, I've come to believe that most AS kids, once they truly understand the difference between reality and fantasy, are inclined to be bluntly truthful. The problem is, they quickly come to view the world's obsession with truth as a bit hypocritical, and that comes from the way they take things literally, and speak literally, while society does not. They get confused and give up, or simply decide everyone really does lie all the time, so why can't they? They start lying because they feel they cannot trust the world, and that lying is the only way to survive. In which case, there is a lot of work to be done, in learning to understand how the child perceives what you say, and re-establishing trust. When you read on the other forums here from adults who admit to being or having been chronic liers, it is this complete distrust and confusion in communicating that started it. Despite having worked really hard at keeping things literal and precise with my 12 year old AS son, we're going through a phase of this right now, where he feels what he has been taught is hypocracy (in his case, its stemming from being told not to say things that aren't nice, even when they are the truth). I'm fortunate that he's communicating it, and we're talking, and he hasn't given up yet, but his frustration is real, and I have to honor that, and prevent it from turning him into someone who believes lies are the only way.