Siblings, lies and untruths

"That's a lie."

"No, it's not."

I can not even hazard a guess at how many times I've heard this exchange in our house over the last few weeks. Part of this is due to Anthony, our eight year old autistic son who has never told me a lie in his life.  Never.  And he also has difficulty in understanding when someone is lying, and someone is playing or joking around.

Should I tell off another mum? My son and his rules

So, Anthony's a bit of a stickler for rules. Rules are great if you have autism; they set boundaries, they prepare you for what's expected, in a funny sort of way they make you feel safe.  This means it's easy to feel nervous, upset or unsafe when the rules are broken by other people.  One of the things said a lot in our home is "Who's job is it to say what happens when a rule in broken?"  because Anthony will storm around ordering siblings, parents, grandparents and visitors to 'go to their room' or 'sit on the stairs'.

Anthony's two minute silence

If you've read 'Anthony's always aloud' you'll know that our seven year old son with ASD is always on maximum volume. But on Remembrance Sunday he stunned his whole family by coming back from his club with a reward for being the quietest and most respectful during the two minute silence.

Our terribly truthful child

Are we the most fortunate parents in the world? Our eldest son is 7 years old and he has never told me a lie. Never.

This doesn't mean he has never done anything wrong. Anthony will freely admit when he has been naughty and understands about the 'naughty step'.  He will offer up his guilt upon the first request of 'what happened here' and will even explain if he did it on purpose or if the event was actually an accident. Anthony has been diagnosed with ASD since he was 4 years old. He has always been literal and taken what he is told and sees as fact, which has proved difficult at times such as interpreting what is real and what is fiction on the television for example.   

Initially we thought he may have difficulty with thinking forward to the consequences of him being truthful and so saw no point in deceit. But there was a short while when Anthony would claim he didn't want to tell me something because he thought I'd be disappointed in him so I know he can think ahead.  At the time I assured him that no matter what he thought, I always wanted him to tell me the truth and he seems to have stuck to this.

But it's not all cheery cheery.  Anthony has wonderfully mocked some of my cooking as 'not being as good as normal', regularly declares I'm not being very nice to him when I'm helping other siblings instead and has mentioned to several relatives that they will mostly likely die before he does.

Today is the first day of the half term holidays that the whole family will be able to do something together.  Anthony has been very excited about his father not going to work.  However, yesterday he also confirmed that the main reason for this is not because he will get to spend time with his dad.  Instead, Anthony is looking forward to spending time with his dad's phone.  The Marvel Champions game has not been downloaded onto any of our other devices because they are on different accounts so Anthony can only play it when his dad, and therefore his dad's phone is at home. 

I sigh and then smile. Lucky Anthony.  A short while ago he also confided that he totally loved his dad and that his dad was his best friend.  And that was a wonderful truth to hear. He'll get to spend a few days now playing The Marvel Champions game sitting next to his best mate.  And of course, I'm the most fortunate mother in the world.

Links
Our blog - A little bit of obsessions in action
Our blog - Anthony's first experience of guilt