My son Max is an “old soul”.  There are many different meanings for this term such as:

  • Someone who is very young and has the wisdom and self-assuredness that usually comes with experience and living.
  • Someone that comes from another realm, spiritual plane, with all the memories that entails.
  • People that have been reincarnated over and over again, also with their memories intact.
  • A person that is born knowing right from wrong; has good judgment; and can make the right decision all the time.

I don’t believe my son is one of these.  When people meet him, however, they get a sense he may be older than he is.  I believe this is because he thinks so himself.  He considers himself an adult trapped in a child’s body.

Because of this he believes that he should be able to converse with adults on an equal basis.  He should also be able to tell other adults, including his parents, what to do and when to do it.  This can be a cause for annoyance when he needs to be disciplined.

The one thing, however, that other people find initially cute but later can annoy them is the way that he assumes that he can automatically call them by their first names.  I first noticed it when I heard him being very personal with his Cub Scout den leader.  He wasn’t calling him “Mister ….”; it was just “Bob”.  Finding this a little disconcerting I pulled Bob aside and asked  him what he preferred.  It turns out he would rather “Mister” along with either his last or first name.  ”Mister Bob” works fine for him and he thanked me for asking.

Ever since then I will correct Max if he forgets the terms “Mr”, “Mrs”, “Ms”, or “Miss” when addressing adults.  For example, he always refers to his teacher as “Dana”.  I will respond with “Miss Dana”.  The first time I did it he told me that she was married and didn’t like “Miss”.  My answer was that he should then call her either “Mrs Dana” or “Ms Dana”.  I didn’t bother with the last name since all the teachers use their first names preceded by “Mr” or “Miss” in his school.

In a recent post I talked about a trip we made to Battleship Cove in Fall River, Massachusetts.  While there I noticed he was constantly referring to one of the dads as “Jack”.  When I mentioned it to the dad he said that Max had asked him if it was okay and he said yes, it didn’t bother him.  I smiled and shrugged; Jack didn’t know what he was in for.

For the next 12 hours Max was constantly insisting that “Jack” look at this or come over here or get him that or…  Literally every 2 minutes he was demanding something of Jack.

Shortly after our conversation I heard him calling another parent by her first name, “Barbara”.  Again, I asked her if this was okay and she told it me it was fine.  Several hours later she found me and told me it was bothering her that she had agreed to it.  No wonder, like with Jack, Barbara was hearing her first name being used constantly by this 9 year old boy.  She was finding it very disrespectful.  But she did not want to be called by her last name; “Ms Barbara” worked better for her.

Okay, from then on whenever Max called her or mentioned her name I would correct him by saying “Ms Barbara”.  At the same time Jack seemed to be ignoring him more and more when he would call him.   I started referring to him as “Mr Jack” from then on.  By the end of the trip my son was calling them both by their preferred methods.

I noticed two things as a result of this change:

  1. Both parents seemed much more willing to be with Max now that they felt he was being respectful to them.
  2. Max was badgering them much, much less now.  I can only assume my “old soul” was not feeling like he was their equal anymore; more like a child to an adult.

When I was my son’s age there was a program on television about a young family.  After 45 years I can still “see” it in my head and I can “hear” their interactions.  One thing that struck me was that instead of calling their parents “Mom” and “Dad” they used their first names.  The first time I heard it I thought it was cool.  I tried referring to my parents by their first names but they stopped that very quickly.  They found it very disrespectful and I’ve never forgotten it.

I wasn’t doing it out of disrespect and I certainly don’t think Max is.  He has very few friends; most kids don’t know how to handle him when is showing asperger’s, bipolar, or adhd symptoms.  As a result he spends most of his time with adults: his teachers, counselors, advocate, therapist, and parents.  So not only does he have difficulty relating to other kids but he also ends up trying to treat adults as equals.

My little “old soul” is learning how to be respectful.  He is also learning how to play with other children his age.  This is because we are not only introducing him to more and more kids but his counselor is teaching him how to play with them.

Will he always be an “old soul”?  Only time will tell.

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