Question about naive/gullible Aspie son

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Hey there!

My son is almost 10 and was diagnosed with HFA when he was 8. We've had an issue lately with other kids conning him. This year they are not allowed to use their ipods/devices on the playground or at lunch, which is what he'd do in previous years. I thought this was good as he'd get some practice interacting with other kids instead of sitting by himself playing a game.

He saw some other boys trading Pokemon cards on the playground, so he decided this would be fun to do. He took his Pokemon cards and right away we started to have some problems. The 2nd day of trading, a kid gave him 3 $10 Xbox gift cards in exchange for 3 nice Pokemon cards (collectable, not cheap). Problem was that the Xbox cards had already been used. My son confronted the kid and he said he'd give the cards back, but he never did. I thought, upsetting, but not a terrible thing. He will learn a lesson about trusting people.

The next incident, I'm not clear on the details, but he let a kid carry his Pokemon cards out to recess or something, and it turns out the kid stole ALL of his mega and EX cards (or whatever). I didn't know at the time that one of these cards was worth $25 and some were worth $5-8 (my husband had purchased them specially off of ebay for my son). If I had known that I wouldn't have let him take them to school actually. My son said he talked to a recess teacher about it, but she would not agree to search the other kid to see if he had the cards.

So, how in the world do I get him to see that not everyone is honest? He himself can not tell a lie. He just can't, and he doesn't seem to realize that other people can easily lie... Very easily. Will it just take getting conned and scammed and stolen from repeatedly for him to learn this fact, or is there something I can do to help him out?

He goes to social skills therapy 2x a week, and I'm going to ask them about it as well, but I thought I'd ask here and see if anyone has any advice.

Thanks so much!! !

You're probably right in saying that if you knew the true value of these cards you wouldn't have let him take them to school with him.

I can remember similar things happening to me when I was younger, I love bicycles and would trade and swap them (all second hand) with other kids. Sometimes I got ripped off.

Unfortunately, sometimes we have to learn by our own mistakes.

if he's a smart kid he will learn pretty quick and with your guidance he'll be fine.

Good luck.

bb

It might be possible he is suffering delayed "theory of mind" development. You could maybe ask his therapist (or someone else) if there are any theory of mind tests that he can try to see if this is the issue.

Thanks for the replies. I searched through some older posts here and found that it's not an uncommon thing. I think I went through a similar thing myself and then turned around and became super skeptical as a result. Maybe he will go that way too.

I did talk to his social skills teacher about it and they are going to try to find a unit that addresses the issue, as well as keeping yourself safe from other types of predatory behavior. We've talked about online safety many times (don't tell your name, where you live, phone number, etc...) and he abides by the rules, but I don't think he really believes us when we tell him there are people out there that might use the information in a bad way.

Chichikov- that is interesting. I wouldn't doubt if he is delayed in that area, and it might be worth testing. He knows, in an academic sense, that other people have feelings that are different from his own feelings, but he's not good at accessing that information during everyday activities. He also knows in a similar way, that people can lie and be dishonest and don't always mean what they say, but using that knowledge in a practical sense, he's not there yet. He often does not understand when someone is angry with him. I'll ask, "can you tell that I'm angry?" And he will say, "I didn't know, but now I do since you asked me that." A political smear ad came on the other day and he said, "Oh, that guy must be very bad!" So we had a discussion about why one politician might say bad things about his opponent, and how facts and figures might be manipulated to sound as bad as possible or to put a 'spin' on things. We will keep working on it!

Thanks again!

This is probably going to be harsh advice here:


You are going to have to keep telling your son not everyone is honest, you may have to keep checking his bag before he goes to school to be sure he has nothing valuable. You are going to have to tell him he may not get his Pokemon cards back and to not get any gift cards or any xbox cards, etc from other kids because they might be used. You are also going to have to let him learn from his mistakes if he refuses to listen to you. If he loses his cards to other kids because he didn't listen to you to not trade them for other cards or to let other kids have the, for a day, etc. he has to deal with it by not having those cards and he will learn to listen to you after these things keeps happening to him because he will realize you know best. But you are going to have to keep telling him to not bring this or that to school because kids like to steal things and he can't trust them and keep having to check his pockets and backpack before he leaves for school or otherwise you and your husband are done buying him stuff if he won't leave it at home.

This is the best you can do for now until he can learn. If he is like me, he will get too anxious to let anyone borrow his things or to even look at it or take it with them because he would be too afraid of "what if the kid just takes them" "what if he doesn't give them back" "what if they are just trying to trick me?"

League_girl- thanks for your reply. I agree that he will have to learn by making mistakes. My husband wanted me to email the teacher and see if she could intervene and maybe get the cards back. I don't want to do that because I think it would weaken the lesson. To be sure, the kid who took them is wrong, but he just has to learn that sometimes you get fleeced and there's no re-do. At least it was Pokemon cards and not an ipod or something more valuable!

This isn't just a problem with autistic kids. Its a big problem in schools in general. That's why a lot of schools have banned pokemon cards. Public school is not meant to be a place where kids can go to perfect their scam artist moves.

For the sake of the other kids, you really need to let the teacher know that this is going on. Its so important that the scammers experience the consequences of scamming and stealing from their teachers instead of from the police.

If you want to ask your teacher not to reveal that its your kid that "told" or not to make a big deal about retrieving the cards, that's fine. But I really encourage you to tell. Your son is not the only kid affected here. There were likely other kids scammed, too. We can assume best intentions and understand that the scammer's parents are probably not raising their kids into a life of crime, and would want a chance to educate their children about their values on the matter, too.

Hi ... im very similar in that extent as far as trusting goes... i cant really give too much advice as im still too trusting even though im 40 now... Its hard to understand why people do and say the things they do, over time you do tend to become a little more wary, however i think it is a good trait to a large extent, it sows the levels of integrity that is becoming a rarity in todays society.. Maybe embrace it, he will likely get upset a fair bit with each incident but maybe over time he will realize like i have that there are good people out there and being a trusting individual you soon work out the good ones from the bad ones, so in some ways being a little too trusting or naive as some may say actually has some positives you learn from as you develop... Thats just my experience... I do feel for him and yourselves, i know the depths of disappointment felt when people appear sincere but only have self interests in mind.

I feel awful for your son. Is he a single child? I learned about scams from my older sister scamming me. Finally, I developed a rule: I'd let someone scam me once, if they were so inclined, and then never trust them again. Obviously too black and white, but it did help me survive through school.

IMO you could also help your son survive school by enrolling him in martial arts classes of some kind. Not only will the exercises help his physical balance and poise, and the discipline help attention issues, but as he progresses, it will give him the cachet to help avoid peer exploitation and the ability to defend against it.

Thanks for the reply. We tried Martial Arts and he hated it, lol. He's got an older sister and she fooled him plenty. Part of the problem I think is that he doesn't really generalize from something one particular person does to something anyone might do. If that makes sense?

...Hm .

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Tough situation. In my autism school there are rules and guide lines about bringing stuff to school and trading or selling things because of this kind of problem. I'm a born skeptic and generally untrusting which I have been told many times is usually not the case for autistic kids.

"We tried Martial Arts and he hated it"

I hated ballet. Undiagnosed as a child, and "walking like a drunken sailor," my mother forced me to take ballet twice a week from age five until age fifteen. By then, my mother declared me "almost graceful."

At age 14, my parents bought me a horse (horses were my "special interest," though back then we just called it my obsession) whom I rode every day, and at age 17, I voluntary started judo lessons.

It always took me longer than others to achieve a physical skill, but they were of lasting benefit for me. (Though a beautiful young man on whom I had a crush freshman year at Yale told me I "walked like an old mare" when I was tired.)

So, with regard to acquisition of useful skills like martial arts, you have to exercise some "tough love." With two grown children of my own, the younger of whom was extremely ADHD, extremely strong-willed, ODD, and pessimistic, I know how hard that is. But IMO sometimes tough love is necessary to prepare your kids to survive/succeed in the NT world. IMO you shouldn't give up on martial arts, but find a different dojo with a more effective teacher.

yourkiddingme3- We may look into Martial Arts again in the future. At the time he was very down on himself to the point he was hurting himself for things he thought he was not good at or 'messing up' and his MA class fell into the category of stuff he was too hard on himself about. He felt he was not good at it and would scratch himself to the point of bleeding and slam his head on the wall for 'mistakes' he had made in class. So my shorthand 'hated it' was really a misrepresentation of how bad it was at the time. He's in a much better state of mind now after much therapy and some anxiety meds, but I'm still reluctant to put him in a situation where he's going to be hard on himself. I'm thinking of trying some sort of music lessons, because he loves to sing and listen to music, and he likes to mess around on a keyboard we have, but I still have these reservations that he will be too hard on himself and start the self-harm again.

ETA- the MA teacher was a woman and she was extremely kind. So it wasn't an issue of an overly demanding teacher or anything like that. It was just his interpretation of his success.

I never found "kind" teachers in any subject helpful to me. I found objective teachers better, because I did not perceive them as lying or condescending to me. I absolutely did not want to be told something was "good" when it wasn't; that just made me feel worse.

Also, one has to engage with "kind" teachers; but you don't get them, and they don't get you, and they are just another social obstacle. And you can disappoint kind teachers as well as kind parents, which feels bad.

IMO the best teachers for Aspies are emotionally neutral, focusing on corrections, who only say "better" or "not that way, try this instead," and whose only goal for the student is continuous improvement.

To find good teachers for your son in any subject or activity, IMO your goal should NOT be to find someone that YOU find approachable or likable. Your son does NOT have those NT needs; a teacher's "supportiveness" can get in the way of focusing on learning and raise anxiety. IMO, someone as close as possible to an unemotional robot or AI would be best. Someone or something like the talking golf swing meters.