Clever Autism Social Hacks – Autism Parenting Magazine

An undiagnosed neurodivergent mom shares her top tips for navigating social skills and behaviors in a neurotypical world.

I have three grown children on the spectrum. Though in the 1970s, when I was growing up, I was never labeled autistic, just “troubled”. I have, what I lovingly call, “a touch of the tism”. I struggled to “pass for normal” when I was growing up.

So I came up with some awesome tricks that helped me. I then taught my autistic children those same “social hacks” or “life hacks”. They were so helpful for me and my children, I thought I would share them here.

Handshakes

I always hated to be touched by strangers, even casual friends, or distant family. I still do. I figured out to be sure to have something in each hand when being introduced to someone or coming up to a vaguely known person, so they wouldn’t reach to shake hands.

I usually have my purse in one hand and my phone in the other. In school, it was often a pencil and a notebook. When that handshake cue happens, you just kinda head motion to your full hands and nod in greeting instead. Works like a magic charm, so people don’t grab your hand and jerk it around limply, or worse, roughly.

Hugs

Similarly, hugs between casual friends, distant family, or even close family that I don’t like are hard for me. Being a Pagan, often in our religious ritual circles, we will “pass a hug around the circle”, meaning everyone hugging in turn.

In some circles, we will be directed to hug the people on both sides of us in the circle. I hate that! I started being careful where I placed myself in the circle, so that my own kids or close friends were stationed on both sides of me. Then the hugs were not with strangers or casual acquaintances. I know similar rituals take place in Churches, Synagogues, Mosques, and Temples of all faiths, so this hack is pretty universally helpful at religious events.

At family reunions, weddings, funerals, and such, the hugs can come at you more randomly. This means standing in the right place doesn’t help, but moving around and walking away to avoid the huggers coming at you often works.

If that fails, try the both-hands-full-approach, and you can just kinda lean at the hugger with your full hands out without having to fully embrace them. Of course, you can always just say no to a handshake or hug, but that can come off as rude, so I try to avoid it.

If I had a dime for every spanking I got for not making eye contact…well, I’d be sailing down the Nile on my personal yacht. If I had a dime for every report card note that said I wasn’t paying attention and not making eye contact, I’d be sailing to my mansion on that yacht.

It took me till 6th grade to figure out a trick to cover this behavior. I started looking at people’s eyebrows when they spoke to me. When a teacher was lecturing the class, I’d watch their eyebrows.

People have no clue you aren’t looking into their eyes when you look at their eyebrows. From their perspective, you are making eye contact, unless you are very close face-to-face.

Fidgeting

I find people are more tolerant of fidgeting nowadays, compared to when I was growing up. However, I still think it’s worth trying to fidget in a way that is perceived as more “neurotypical”. 

I found that shaking a leg slightly is pretty much ignored. If you were rocking around in your chair, that would be more noticeable to others. 

Rolling or twirling a pencil or pen between the fingers of one hand in a meeting seems like you are still paying attention. Whereas if you were wringing out your hands like a dishrag constantly, or looking here and there about the room, it may bring about unwanted attention, and it may make you look distracted or in distress.

Sounds

If someone is speaking too loudly or their voice is shrill, nasal, or otherwise grating on your nerves, holding your hands over both ears or sticking your fingers in your ears looks rather unusual. However, such behavior is more tolerated nowadays; it almost seems similar to people wearing noise-canceling earphones.

In the 1970s, these headphones didn’t exist. So I learned to rest my head on one hand, with an elbow on the desk or table, blocking off one ear totally with the hand my head was resting on.

It works wonders. The sound is halved, and you are in what’s seen as a “natural” pose. This hack saved me during many classes and meetings.

Talking

Not talking enough was never an issue for me. Rather, I talk too much! However, some of my kids struggled with making chit chat, staying involved in conversations that lasted more than two sentences, or remaining engaged if the topic was not a subject they were interested in.

One son would talk about nothing but comic books. He would keep talking to a random stranger in the grocery store, playing 20 (or more) questions about comic books.

I made a rule that he could only ask three comic book-related questions per conversation with strangers or people he was just meeting. This meant he did not seem so obsessed or narrow-minded to others.

One of my daughters had trouble talking with anyone, except when you asked her direct questions. So her speech therapist and I taught her “small talk” by play-acting social stories. and memorizing the usual greetings and topics like the weather, how old she was, what grade she was in, etc.

My other autistic daughter often sounds rude when she doesn’t mean to be. The same type of social stories and memorization skills help her to communicate in a way that comes across in a more positive way.

Summing-up

Of course, these days, more people know about and recognize autism when someone is behaving differently than the “norm”. Some may disagree with my approach, but I have found a certain level of “masking” the unusual behaviors we have, makes our days go smoother and with less tiresome feedback from others.

These autism hacks have helped me and my family. I hope they help yours as well.