Being tread like a little kid/incompetent

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I'm getting really done with it. People think that because i look younger than my age, they can treat me like a child. I am not a child. I am about to turn 20 years old. Like fore instance at my Horse riding place. it is a therapy horse riding place, but I have also been volunteering. example: last week, the horses went late on the last lesson. so when they came in a quickly started to groom them so they could get in and eat dinner. a girl who is still in highschool looks at me and says in the most "I am talking to a child" voice "Thank you for brushing him for me." and she started to lead him away while I was still brushing him! i get stuff like that all the time.

It even made me feel like not coming, especially after something that happened last week with someone else. My Mom always says maybe it's not as bad as i act like it is, but then she saw today. I feel really humiliated. I sewed my own helmet cover, and I've been wearing it since October about. anyway on of the adult volunteers looked at me and said "Oh! did you make that?" and I feel shy about praise so I just said "Yes." and then my mom came up behind her, and she said to my mom "did she make that?" and my mom said "Yes, why don't you ask her?" and I said "yes I did." and she said i kid you not, "Oh, i didn't know if she *really* made it or if you did."

My mom had no clue what to say, and neither did I. as though I was lying before, and my mother made it. If I say i did something, I did it. I'm not going to lie. Yes, I can sew. This woman doesn't have any clue what the disability that leads me to ride there is. She just assumes because I am a rider and I look young, I must be incompetent, and unable to make things for myself.


I'm tired of this, and sad. how do you guys handle this?

I'm in high school and get talked to like I am in elementary school all the time. I don't expect to talked to like I'm an adult, but I expect people to at least talk to me like I am a teenager. People tend to talk to me in third person a lot ("Bob doesn't pull people's hair" when it's actually Bob talking type of thing). I also get the "we" a lot. ("Do we need to go to the washroom, Mike?", when the person asking is actually asking Mike is HE needs to use the washroom personally). They seem to do it more when I am upset, which is actually about the worst time to do it at. It bothers me.

I just want to be treated like a person. not like a child. I am not an 8 year old. I am not a 14 year old. I agree with you. If nothing at all talk to me like i am a teenager. that's not half as bad as being talked to as though i'm 6.

I used to be subject to a similar kind of treatment, because though I don't think I looked younger than my age as a teenager or in my early 20's, people...men and women both, whether they realize it or not, just seem to have a tendency to treat young women in a very juvenile way sometime, or wrongly estimate them.

How I responded to this depended on the context of the situation. My grandfather was 80 and I figured he would always perceive me as juvenile so I never made it an issue.

People who felt some need to give me "advice", "teach" me something, or "look after" me, usually ended up feeling a little silly I would think, and quickly disappeared when they realized I wasn't as inexperienced, lost, needy, irresponsible, whatever, as they thought I was.

The most difficult to deal with were potential employers, but if I felt they had no confidence in my due to some aspect of my physical appearance, then I did not pursue the position.

One thing you can do is assert yourself a little more in the sense that, when the girl came in to get her horse, you could have said in some outgoing sense, "Hi. I'll have him ready for you in just a few minutes, they came in late."

Being more outgoing can give people the impression you are in charge or know what you are doing, even if you look young.

You can actually use looking young to your advantage on the dating scene. As a lot of men approach their late 20's, they start to panic, try to cling to their youth, and are more than happy to date young looking women.

I always get the "you don't look 26" line. My answer is always something like "when I'm 40, I'll look 30 ..." etc. It always feels like a criticism when someone comments on how I look, it's awful.

I also get treated differently too - in fact I feel as though the treatment I receive from parents/friends/people I don't know hasnt really moved on since I was 16. People tell me to 'grow up' but they treat me like a child, even though personally I don't think I act like a child. So how can I possibly grow up?

Interestingly I feel a good few years older than my age, mentally at least ...

Yes it happens to me a lot too, I just recently got rid of a friend cause she treated me like a idiot, it hasnt happened to me as much lately. It used to happen all the time when I was younger...people would talk to me like I was an idiot and it did get annoying. Its like hello Im in the same college as all of u and Im very far away from home, if I was incompetant I wouldnt be here. Lately its happen less due to me improving my social skills and my outward social apperance. I do have a youthful apperance, I always thought it was because I was asian. Asians tend to look a lot younger then they actually are. Im 22 and I look like Im in my late teens...roughly between 17-19yrs old, guessing that doesnt really help.

Fortunately I don't get this that often - I'd say if anything people assume I'm OLDER or MORE mature than I really am!! I tend to come off as being this unusually smart person with a somewhat witty (but weird) sense of humor to a lot of people, both in and out of the autism spectrum. Whatever age (if any) THAT is supposed to be typical of is probably how I'm treated by a lot of people.

Anywaze Em I'm sorry to hear that people don't think the same of you

I don't necessarily get condescending remarks or conversation, but people are always surprised to find out that I'm at least four or five years older than I look.

One time at work, about two years ago, I opened the loading dock door for a couple of delivery guys for the company, and the first thing out of the first guy's mouth is: "How old are you, fourteen?" I just smiled and told him: "Actually, I'm eighteen." He just looks at his partner and says: "Dude, when this kid's eighty, he's going to look like he's fifty."

I wonder if its something to do with not giving off assertive\confident vibes\attitude. I get the same type of treatment as the OP, and I'm 30 ! I do look 10 years younger, but I get called darl, sweetie etc. which isn't really appropriate for my age.

I'm almost 30. I'm a male with aspergers and for years people have disrespected me and treat me like a child or a 3rd class citizen.

Often when I go to Starbucks and order the employees look down at me and talk to me in a voice that you talk to a child in.

It really hurts my feelings.

Yeah I definitely understand how you feel. It must be really frustrating for you. It's frustrating for me as well. I remember being in high school and sitting with my friends at lunch. They were watching a video of a school fight and I wanted to check it out. At the time I was 16 but I looked 14. I was also short for my age and painfully shy. Anyway, I asked if I could see it and then he said, " You're not allowed to see this, you're only 14". My other friend said, " You're too young to watch this". I felt hurt and insulted. Then they said that they were just kidding. I was still angry at them. In their minds, they knew I looked young for my age and they wanted to treat me as if I was younger than them. I was actually the oldest one in the group so it felt weird and insulting for me. Because of my appearance, they probably thought of me as some innocent pure little girl. Their comment may have been sarcastic but it was still hurtful. Even 14 year olds watch fights and even porn. I wasn't too young to watch that. I even listened to songs with curse words. Even though they joked about me only being 14 despite the fact that I was 16, I felt like I was being treated more like a 5 year old. They were treating me like a child. Very rude of them. So yeah. being treated like a little kid isn't just frustrating but it's also hurtful because you feel reduced to a level of inferiority.

It seems to be a common thing for people like us. It got so bad with my parents, I had to report them to social, just to get my point across,as they were ruining my life.

thats how my family treats me when they remember i am autistic. its their :good: way to treat me.

For me people change the subject around me or talk about limited topics and then get mad whenever I try to correct them.