Justice and Rules and Autism

I reread my childhood and teenage journals recently and one of the recurrent memories is that of being accused of “tattling.” When I saw other children breaking the rules, I would alert the teacher to this fact. I thought that this was what I was supposed to do. In fact, I still think that this is what we often tell children they are supposed to do. No single adult in a classroom of thirty students can make sure they are all following the rules all the time. That’s why it’s useful to have other eyes helping you.

Except that neuro-typical children often use “tattling” as a way to increase their own status in the classroom community. Maybe? I actually don’t know if this is true or not. If it happens, it’s an occasional moment when one child wants to get back at another child by getting them in trouble with a teacher. The reality is that for many autistic children, however, tattling has nothing to do with social status. We have trouble perceiving that social status exists, let alone figuring out what to do to try to increase our own status by decreasing someone else’s. We simply don’t have the skills to play these kinds of social games. But because we are rule-followers and genuinely believe that rules — as our teachers have told us — are to be followed to help keep everyone safe and to keep society fair, we “tattle” all the time. Which means that teachers get tired of us and our constant need to tell the truth…