Does your aspergers child try to control you?

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The grand autismo - I think you are correct that she controls us because of her extreme anxiety. And that is a good strategy to ask her why she wants us to do something, rather than arguing with her that she can't tell us what to do. I am reading a really great book now called from Anxiety to Meltdowns and the woman who wrote has autism and is really good at explaining how autistic people think. I find the best thing she has taught me so far and the rigid adherence to scripts. I could not understand why my daughter would get so upset if I was 15 minute late, but now I know she wants us to follow a predictable script and will become really upset if we don't stick to it.

This is a great discussion from the ASD point of view. I find it pretty hard from the NT parent point of view. It is helpful to understand, but I am still left with not being able to do what is naturally helpful to me. My son controls too much in my house. Music really helps me get boring things like housecleaning done. But he controls the atmosphere of sound. I love to sing and sometimes dance. Nope. Not while he is around. And he is around my work all the time because we had to put his computer in the kitchen to monitor his computer time. Works for him. Not for me.

It is not so easy from the ASD parent point of view either b/c we have our ideal preferences and routines that often clash with the child's. It is all about trying to get the child to be more flexible and that is a hard thing.

The big problem I always had working on general flexibility is that if we go too far there is carryover to the next day, and often consequences that aren't OK to allow b/c they end up impacting something else. If the child has to be in a good mood for school, a visit with relatives, going shopping or any of the other things that real life involve, it impacts the parent's ability to move forward.