Why do people here think NT kids have no innocence?

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I have noticed that a lot of people on WP seem to think that NT kids have no innocence, and won't believe any lies their parents tell them, and are clever enough to suss everything out by the age of 3. In some earlier threads (dated back years ago), they were even saying that NT kids don't believe in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, and that they just fake pretending. Personally I don't believe that happens to all the NT kids. I believed in Santa right up until I was about 9, and so did my NT brother. And my NT cousin used to get so excited on Christmas eve, and when he was about 6 he kept talking about Father Christmas, and I was 13 then and thought he was so sweet that I played along. Also about 3 weeks before Christmas last year, a mum came into a charity shop with a little boy who looked about 5, and the little boy was crying because she was giving some of his old toys away. So I heard his mum say to him, ''listen darling, Father Christmas will bring you a whole load of new toys, I promise. But if you carry on crying for your old baby toys, he might change his mind.'' I saw the little boy's eyes grow wide, and he stopped crying immediately, and that's probably what I would have done if I was that age, even as an Aspie.

I thought it was a normal thing for small kids to believe in magical fantasies. And also kids believe in other lies too, like ''if you make a face and the wind changes, your face will stay like that''. I believed it for a bit, until I got to about 11. And other kids did too, I remember when I was about 7, a girl in my class made silly faces at a couple of boys, and a teacher came up to her and said, ''I wouldn't do that if I were you, sweetie. If the wind changed, you could be stuck like that forever, and you don't want to be, do you?'' And this girl never made faces since. It's just a good way to teach small children social skills, because even NT kids need to learn politeness and other important skills like that.

But according to people on the spectrum, NT kids have no naivety or innocence, like they are little adults.

I do not think that.

I think all kids tend to be naive and innocent, may they be NTs or not.

I've met (NT) kids that believed that Santa Claus existed up until the age of 10, while I stopped believing in Santa at the age of 5.
And still, those kids now have grown up and are far more mature than I do.

I didn't mean everyone here thinks like that, but some people seem to.

Being sheltered, innocent and socially awkward aren't traits exclusive to Aspies.

When we talk about NT's we typically think of jock stereotypes.

I don't see children as particularly innocent because all children (and I'm not excluding the child I was in that) have the capacity for cruelty and deceit, and for NTs you can add manipulation. How much they do that and how much they will have innate naivety and innocence depends entirely on the child, whether NT or Aspie.

Speaking of children believing lies... I saw an interesting albeit very small experiment on a show some months or so ago. A man walked a group of children into a room (the children were taken in there one by one). He told the child to sit down and that he had to go out for a few minutes and that the child was not to turn around and look at what was behind them. The children were recorded by a camera that showed that almost every single child did turn around. When he returned, he asked them if they had turned and they all said no. They were either in daycare or very early school age BTW.
He then showed their reply to their parents and asked them if their child told the truth. Every one of the children's parents believed their child was telling the truth.
Some parents eat up the lies of their offspring as much as the other way around.

As far as santa, the toothfairy, the easter bunny, whatever go, I never believed in any of that at any age. We went to a Chrostmas party when I was 3 and a half, and there was a santa there. I knew very well that it was a man dressed up in those clothes and there was no real thing. I was afraid of him, because he was a big loud man I didn't know, so I hid behind the door (and was the only child that didn't get anything). We didn't go there again lol. 3 years later I wanted a particular toy very much and my mother told me I should write santa and tell him. Of course I knew as well at 6 as I did at 3 that there is no such thing, but I wrote the letter anyway in an attempt to emphasize to my parents how much I really wanted that toy, sinec I was very well aware that they were the ones getting me my pressies.
There were some things I was tricked to believe as I have already described here:
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postxf212796-0-30.html
I did believe in a small people living in the walls though (I was what 3-5) but that was something I managed to come up with on my own.

When I was 6 played with a 3 year old NT girl a lot. She once said that if you make faces you can get stuck like that. I just laughed at her and thought she was so dumb to believe in anything like that.
When I was 6, for some reason I called the girl mentioned above 'dompap' which is the name of a bird here (Eurasian bullfinch), but the first 3 letters are pronounced like 'dum' which means dumb, so I knew she would think I called her dumb, which i kinda did because for some reason right then it was my opinion that she was. I don't recall what lead me to be annoyed at her. She was about to start crying. We were in my home and I was afraid my mother would hear and come to check. I hadn't really said anything negative, but I assumed she would understand the 'dom' part and get angry at me, so I hurried to tell the girl that "it is the name of a bird, I promise!" I told her to avoid getting in trouble with my mother. Maybe, similarly, that 7 year old girl Joe90 mentioned didn't believe her face would stay like that, but understood she was in bad standing with the teacher for making faces, and that's why she stopped?

My mom also used the 'your face will freeze like that' and we believed her. Yeah, little NTs can be so cute. They are so impressionable. As are little aspies. Just remember that Dr. Attwood says that Aspie kids are like three years behind their NT peers. So, little NTs at age six have at least some of the social skills that Aspie nine year olds have. But that does not make them wise kids. I told a bunch of five year olds that I am 99 (I am in reality 29) and they fell for it. They are just little people who need to be protected as much as any other child.

That's not surprising. Children are very aware of their own age, and they can understand the age of younger children and children a little older than them. Beyond that, people are simply old to a small child. It's not a matter of children being easily duped, it's about them lacking understanding of the concept of age. They can't grasp that many years a divide when they're very young.
Older children will understand that you're not 99, but you will still be old to them, so while they will recognise that your face doesn't look 99, you might as well be as far as they are concerned.

When I was 5, I had a babysitter who was 12 years old. To me she was very old. If she had said that she was 30, I would have bought that, because to me there was no difference. 12... 30... 90... all old! Of course it didn't help matters that she was a serious girl, unlike the other 3 regular babysitters who were 9 and 10.

I was very gullible when I was a child. I thought there was the Star Trek spaceship in the gorge here, I thought Santa Claus, Easter bunny, and the tooth fairy were all real. I thought this pumpkin patch we went to, a little witch actually lived in this tree in the woods because of the sign and Mm told me if I stuck my finger in there, she would cut my finger off and cook it to eat. I also thought if clothes stayed in the dryer too long, they shrink into the size of Barbie clothes, I thought if you left things dripping in the cupboard or fridge, you get a hefflelump and they are so heavy they fall through your floors wrecking your house, I also thought grown ups had eyes at the back of their head and wondered how they could see through all their hair, and for years I thought there was this special chemical they put in public pools that turn color when someone pees.


My mom is lucky I still trusted her with what she told me despite all her lies. I know this can backfire for autistic kids because lie to them once or a few times, they can never trust you again because how do they know you are not lying.

Putting this in perspective... my library building is 100 years old. I had a group of kindergarteners in the other dY and I asked them how old they thought the building was. Their answers? "ten?" "twelve?"

I want to laugh as I think about them.

At that age, I thought that, like, sixteen was the oldest and respectable age. 29? Nah, too old!

I probably would have done that if I was small, but only if I were with other children who also done it.


My parents told me a lot of lies when I was small, but it didn't ruin my trust in them. I found out about the lies gradually as I grew older, and I seemed to find out the lies at the same times as my NT peers. Like I still believed in Santa at the Christmas when I was 8, but within the following year (probably spring or summer) I just found out for myself that he wasn't real, and I handled it very well. I knew I would still get presents because I realised it was my parents all the time.

I also knew about periods by the age of 4, where as some kids didn't even know about any of that until they were taught about it in sex ed. I was brought up in a family where I picked things up as I went through childhood, I didn't have a little talk about ''the birds and the bees'' with my parents.

i cant remember if i believed in father christmas as a kid because i was mute and in my own world alot of the time and very developmently behind, but i remember when i was about 11 my younger (nt) sister believed in him. when she was 8 i remember she cried because there was no money under her pillow when she lost a tooth and she thought something happened to the tooth fairy.

nt kids have more innecent than you think, a lot of autistic people just think all nts are social experts from the day they are born.

even playing is a form of innecence. maybe as/autistic teenagers are more innecent than nt teenagers.

Some people get birds and bees. I got the smelt fish lectures when I was like seven or eight or something. Smelt are small fish, and you must gut them before cooking. Which led to obvious questions about sperm and eggs. Anyway, I was still innocent after that in some areas.

Because they don't. Simple as that.

Never assume someone is innocent. And don't turn a blind eye on people either. It's a good way of getting abused and manipulated by others. Especially NT's, as an AS, with their superior ability for social communications and understanding, they're much better in reading our thoughts than we are in reading theirs. And always be wary of the fact that NT's like to communicate between-the-lines, through expression or actions, something we have trouble recognizing. Be wary if someone does something that is outside of what they usually do to you.

However, I work with a LOT of three and four year olds. And they are still learning the system at that age. Even preteens lack full awareness of their choices. Yes, they may be ahead of AS kids. But they are still kids and are still learning, so they still need guidance. Even though they may not totally innocent, neither are they totally knowledgeable.

That being said, working with three year olds has taught me a lot about human emotions and has made me more of a social being. Rules are more concrete. They have sometimes a lot more simpler emotional reactions. Getting help from coworkers, I learned how to anticipate their emotions and their needs. All kids, aspie or not, need help, love and understanding. Just in different ways at different stages.

So,,,.according to people on the spectrum, a 6-year-old NT child can run a house on their own, being so they are so worldly wise. Why would the law make that illegal then? And why are parents constantly telling their kids not to talk to strangers or accept any sweets from strangers, even at the age of 8? And why do NT kids believe in Santa, and the tooth fairy?

I was watching Supernanny today, and that is very interesting too. Bad parenting can cause the child to misbehave more and not learn manners at the age they should. There's one episode where Jo Frost is telling a 6-year-old girl to ask for a biscuit properly, but the little girl looked at her blankly then looked at the floor, as though she really didn't know how to ask properly for a biscuit, then she had a tantrum on the floor because her brothers got a biscuit and she didn't, and kept asking why she didn't get a biscuit.

Also on Supernanny, Jo Frost uses good techniques to get the kids to listen, like giving them a sticker of their favourite cartoon characters each time they are good.

I remember when I was about 10, my older brother and his friends took our 7-year-old (NT) cousin to the woods, and they told scary stories to each other. One of the stories was a made-up one about the woods, which was quite silly, even I just laughed at it. But my little cousin thought it was real, and she started crying, so I had to take her home and watch cartoons with her to calm her down. She was OK after that, and went to play with one of her friends down the road in the paddling pool. She is 20 now, and is already settled down and married, obviously turned from an innocent little child to a responsible adult, like many of us (although not everyone is mature at 20, just saying).

And NT kids don't just ''play along'' with Santa, I can tell they really believe in him. When I got to about 9 and stopped believing in him, my mum told me to still act like he is true to my younger cousins, so I had to join in the lying of adults to the younger kids in the family for a few more years.

This link might be interesting. http://vishsesh.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/ ... child.html

ok that is being very blunt. innocance doesnt mean someone who will never do anything wrong. the innocantce of a child is a slightely diferent thing.

when i was in my 20s i worked with 7 and 8 year olds for 3 or 4 years, and yes they all had their own charcteristics, but they were all children and most if not all still had that naivity because its normal. that is why i found it easyer and even fun to work with small children. but i wouldnt do so well at a high school working with 11 to 16 year olds. they would have eaten me alive!

one day last week when i was driving the bus a lady got on with a child that looked about 6. they had quite loud voices and i could hear a lot of what they were saying. the little girl wanted to climb on the seats but i heard the mum say to her 'sit down otherwise the bus driver will tell you of.' the lady probally knew i wouldnt, but the child did sit still after that.

empty threats are part of how you bring children up, and if you play along it normally should make the child believe it, even though it is not always necasarily true. an older child starts to realise that not all threats are true, which is why parents let them out further with their friends and can do things independantly like walk to school without an adult or catch the bus alone to meet friends, etc. its all about growing up and getting to diferent stages of childhood. it is nature in all living creatures, baby lions arent as vicous as their elders, and could easily get eaten by anything bigger. hasnt anyone seen the lion king? simba believes all of scars lies which is why it was so easy for scar to fullfil his plans, but when simba grows up he comes back to scar near the end of the film and faces up to him.