Common childhood interests you did not have

[Rodafina]

I did the same with guppies and tried to enlarge their fins.

@Sunny1, Did it work?

 

[Sunny1]

Yes. Marginally.

@Sunny1, Did it work?

Yes, marginally. But then I sidetracked into increasing the iridescence of their colors. Nothing to report on that, it didn't in the time I did it.

 

[Darkkin]

Team sports...gah.

Legos
tree climbing (I would climb trees to read in peace)
dog training (in my own dialect of elvish)
Trivial Pursuit
an insane amount of reading
creating stories about my small glass animal figurines (all of which I still have)
I love marble runs, (it is a sensory indulgence, so I have a few sets)
swings

 

[UberScout]

Me: Hey guys I got Mortal Kombat on my Genesis! What do you guys do in your free time?

Literally all of my friends: f r o g c a t c h i n g

 

[Luca]

I don't think I really did anything "typical" as a kid. All of my interests and behaviors were highly unusual which is why I was diagnosed so young. But also resulted in horrific bullying from my peers and teachers

 

[Slim Jim]

Similar to germany,at least where i live.

#1 sport in the world, last time I checked.

Me: Hey guys I got Mortal Kombat on my Genesis! What do you guys do in your free time?

Literally all of my friends: f r o g c a t c h i n g

I caught a frog once. Spent lots time outdoors. I would have rather played Mortal Kombat. Still remeber seeing it first time, at friends house. Like woah...this is awesome. Couldn't afford it. Or more accurately, they could have bought me one, but Obviously didn't give a crap to do so. I had a Sonic-deprived childhood. Thankfully somehwat rectified when I got a Playstation.

 

[Leo Zed]

I couldn’t get into sports. I’m too clumsy to play sports, and I find watching sports on TV to be boring. As a child, I always thought this was the main reason why I didn’t fit in.

 

[Jeepcarpenter]

Sports.. I enjoy archery, wrestling.. used to enjoy golf.. but sports or team games outside of manhunt or hide and seek; no interest. I can’t easily say what I didn’t enjoy compared to other children, I can impart what I did enjoy. I started out with simply fluids and water, basic hydraulic toys and bath time.. have never outgrown my absolute fascinations with water, fluid timers can still occupy me for countless hours.. but then so can some gyroscopes.. I have never enjoyed to get out of and experience the wet and cold sensation before being dry.. and I’m probably severely understating that.. but fluid dynamics had me infatuated since at least the age of 3, 4 led into to the likes of construx and mechano as well as toy dinosaurs. By 5/6 I was absorbed into bugs, other small creatures and invertebrates and their environments as well as outer space, regarding our planet in the universe in the same manner as us to those invertebrates. So became a passion for helping and nurturing animals…. As well as incorporating several smaller ecosystems in our various homes. I had lots of lego, made various forts and structures out in nature like tiny diorama’s but didn’t use them until relatives used them for the tiny GIJoes and I did the same thereafter. The main toys I remember and went back to were chemistry sets, electronics sets, microscopes, short wave radios, you name it but all of them stemmed from a love of books and most were random landfill finds that my father would bring home and we would fix up together. Firstly at 5/6 with non-fiction but slowly warmed into fiction as well. My father provided an entire workshop/laboratory for me to learn, a library of books to process and learn from and freedom to experiment and do as I wished, eventually having a knack for fixing things in various aspects. Apparently I can hear the inner workings and rhythm’s of machines better than the average person, can hear bearing wear or an unseated valve on a passing vehicle, can hear blade alignment and balance of a tablesaw from across a warehouse.. yet have trouble listening to someone talking to me with the slightest background noise present.
7 1/2yo our family got our first Commodore 64 and once my father got the hang of it, I eventually took it over. We had Atari’s, Nintendo’s but the computer was separate from the main household tv, therefore could by used without impeding or interfering with the schedule of others wanting the tv. Eventually through my father learning, I learned the very basic programming of DOS and learned of text-based RPG’s. That took over my life from then until early 20’s, all while putting previously learned skills to work starting various businesses starting with grass cutting, snow removal then property maintenance …. And that’s 10. . Most of my fun enjoyed.. wasn’t actually toys.. mainly nature, knowledge and science.. and I didn’t fully realize that until writing this.

There is one thing that I did not mention.. model trains. I hate that this is a stereotype.. but I had model trains and was very passionate about them, not memorizing facts or timetables but absolutely adored the steam engine, it’s capabilities and all other variations of steam powered equipment. I lost the entire modelling table that my father and I built in the fire of 92 as well as nearly every other family belonging.. that’s when our family fell apart drastically, my father a model railroader for years with several friends before ever meeting my mother, bought a lot of part to rebuild but succumbed to depression and never was the same man again. We never rebuilt the table, the components aged for years in storage and I still have majority in my attic awaiting a day to unbox it all with my daughter soon.

 

[Slime_Punk]

I echo the team sports thing, too. I was obsessed with skateboarding instead and thought everything else was really dumb.

I still don't understand sports. It seems really foreign to me even to this day.

 

[Jeepcarpenter]

When I was little I read insatiably. Before I was twelve I had read through most encyclopedias and the dictionary, (and I was very particular about not inadvertently touching a picture of a spider as I turned the page. They still creep me out a little.)

I was crazy about science fiction and read the old greats like Asimov, Bradbury, and Frank Herbert. I was especially taken with Asimov and as a result, read his mystery stories as well. I started reading the autobiographies in my local library in alphabetical order. I practically lived at the library like it was my second home. It is still one of my happy places that I go to mentally when I need a break.

I wrote a neighborhood newspaper for my street and the few around me and drew, copied by hand, and delivered them to the neighborhood.
I loved language and would diagram sentences for the fun of it.

My favorite "toys" were my microscope and my chemistry set. I was especially enamored by mercury and spent hours playing with it. My uncle, 5 months older than me, used to order mercury by the LITER, by MAIL, so we always had a ready supply! His chemistry set was much more advanced than mine was, so I loved experimenting at my Grandma and Grandpa's house as well.

I gathered pond water and saw amoeba and paramecium in the water I collected. I also collected frog eggs and hatched them, watching avidly as they changed from eggs to pollywogs, to legged pollywogs, and eventually to frogs with no tails. Fascinating. My miniature frog eggs turned out to be mosquito eggs and gave me quite a surprise when they hatched into first larvae, and then actual flying creatures! I was embarrassed by what I considered a rookie mistake, but I still was fascinated by my experiment.

I also did genetic experiments by breeding multiple generations of hamsters. I did the same with guppies and tried to enlarge their fins.

I guess I should quit here. I got so entranced by answering that I didn't realize I had gone on and on and on. Sorry if I bored you.

Lol, I did the same thing in my reply and had to edit it back.. but wow, I line-bred various guppies for various features as well as other freshwater fish. I don’t believe I was all that good at it until maybe halfway or more through my teens but started alongside mice, crayfish and frogs around 7/8yo catering to local fishermen and my sisters fish. I was always excited to try new guppy strains and breeds, they weren’t for bait purposes but culls did get fed to oscars sometimes. I’ve settled more into tilapia aquaculture and aquaponics nowadays but almost always have some type of guppy somewhere.

 

[Captain Jigglypuff]

I was never really into sports or playing outside. I also had no actual interest in dinosaurs. I mean I’ve always found them fascinating in a wondering what they were like when they were alive type of way and learning about them but I wasn’t so invested in them that I had to have toys of them or constantly reading books about them. I just never got into the whole Jurassic Park craze of the mid 90s and got bored watching the first movie midway. In fact the only Jurassic Park movie I’ve ever watched entirely was the third and that was because my science teacher showed it to us as part of the prehistoric chapter of our text book.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Lincoln Logs were the best. I really liked playing with my brother's Hot Wheels ramp and making different loops and jumps for the cars.

I was a Barbie fanatic. I had so many dolls an accessories.

I used to like dressing up in shawls and loose dresses, and pretending to be Stevie Nicks.

I liked climbing rocks and tracking animals. I liked learning how to walk without footprints, or how to tell who's been where by shoeprints and by tire tracks.

I liked knotting leather, and lacing up bridles for horses. Sometimes I'd just have a bit of nylon cord, and I'd pretend to be harnessing a horse. I'd knot everything just where it goes, and pretend there was a horse.

I was very clumsy and not good at sports. But I enjoyed swimming in the ocean (back and forth, through the surf, from one side of a bay to the other). And I've always been good at playing as goalie in various games. My eyes really hone in on where the ball is in play, and my body has an aspie superpower to keep the ball out of the net.

I liked reading The Encyclopaedia Britannica. It was fun to pick a letter of the alphabet, and learn everything I could about different subjects.

My grandmother had an old 10 volume set of "The Bible Story" from the 1950s. My parents were not Christians, so this was very interesting to me. I didn't understand it much, and I still get the stories confused, but I loved reading the books from cover to cover.

 

[Galvatrancis]

Sports. I tried to get into them so that i could talk with others about it, but i gave it up cause' it was wayyyyy too boring.

Also, whats so entrertaining about people kicking a ball ?

 

[Zhantera]

Any sports or games that required running or coordination, because I have none. I didn't like dolls and to this day, have never owned a Barbie. I liked matchbox cars, playing in the dirt and swings. I read so much that I would get in trouble for trying to read at night with a flashlight. I loved to hide in the attic and read our dictionary and encyclopedias. I never could ride a bike like the other kids. Actually, I still can't lol

 

[Nitro]

I was a Barbie fanatic. I had so many dolls an accessories.

I used to like dressing up in shawls and loose dresses, and pretending to be Stevie Nicks.

I'm a Barbie girl too

https://www.autismforums.com/attachments/20210821_113248-jpg.70048/https://www.autismforums.com/attachments/20220430_144251-jpg.78528/

 

[D'Andre]

Never got into sports (I played football one year but had no idea what I was doing.) I don't get the team spirit talk. That surface jargon made me cringe.
I could care less about clothes and looking cool.
I loved collecting little things! I still like sorting thngs in categories.. Love gaming, farming, RPG, and arcade mostly. And making any kind of textured art (mixed media/clay). I also loved asmr from childhood just didn't have a name for it. Also got into cooking at an early age. Almost wanted to be a chef.

 

[D'Andre]

My biggest one is sports (any sports in general), I think my parents realized that I wasn't good at any of them, as did any school I attended

I have wondered sometimes that if I had been exposed to sports more when I was younger if I would have developed at least some level of skill... I guess I never showed the interest, so my parents didn't push me much in that direction...

I've been told the rules of sports over and over and still don't understand them, except for what's painfully obvious

 

[AprilR]

Face painting and clowns. I was scared of both clowns and face paint

 

[D'Andre]

Face painting and clowns. I was scared of both clowns and face paint

When you think about it, clowns are creepy and always seem to have some hidden agenda. Like masking something ominous.

 

[Owliet]

I was never into dolls.