don't punish for being autistic, however...

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So today my almost 12 year old son was having his computer free time after completing his daily tasks (today was soccer camp, reading and planting flowers in the garden.) He is told to move from one part of the house to another. He complies just fine, but as he's walking thru the part of the house my husband is watching the news in, he decides to set down his laptop and headphones on the sofa and make a detour to the bathroom. He's loud, making random loud noises over and over, and my husband asks him to be quieter because he can't hear his tv. My son says "NO." I say that's not very nice, I say try to be quiet when people are watching tv. He says "I don't have to." I say that's really rude and not nice and he says "I don't care." Then off he goes to the part of the house he was moving to.

My husband says he should have the rest of his computer time for tonight revoked for being so rude. I'm more inclined to have him write an apology note as part of what he has to do before he gets his next chunk of computer time. Luckily I know he'll feel remorse when we talk about it later... If he was still saying the things he said during the incident and still felt like he doesn't have to try to be quiet when passing thru a room where people are talking or watching tv, then I don't know what I'd do because I wouldn't force him to write a fake note of apology. And he is capable of getting immediately quiet when necessary - he's pretty good when he comes screaming into a room and sees I'm on the phone, and he's silent as a mouse in a movie theater out of respect for the other patrons,

So what do you all think? Do you give a consequence for something like this?

We first try to make sure DS understands what was expected and what he did wrong. I use the apology note as a consequence often, because sometimes it can help sort out any confusion over something.

It might also be worthwhile to explain the concept of reciprocity: if he wants peace and quiet when he needs it, then he needs to offer peace and quiet when other people need it.

If he would have done that to my parents, he would have gotten the royal beating of his life. If it he were my child, he would find all his possession iN the trash, with NO chance of having them replaced. Further, he would be confined to quarters for the next 5 years, with all rights and privileges revoked. There is absolutely, positively no excuse for that kind of behavior from him toward anybody in authority.

Well damn I hope you aren't a parent....all that for one incident of being rude seems way over the top if not abusive. Beating children is luckily also considered abuse now days not that it ever shouldn't have been.

To the OP: I think it is reasonable for him to have some consequence for that, but its also important he understands what he did wrong. A letter of apology only really does any good if he feels responsible...if he does it just to get out of losing computer time then he kind of misses the point. I don't think it would be unreasonable to revoke it for the rest of the day...and go from there. I think what is important here is he needs to take responsibility for his actions he can control.

Which is part of the reason why I never got married. I should not have to explain why I'm doing this. My house: My rules.

EVERYTHING sweetleaf said.

Explain why you are doing what? and even in your house the laws still apply and they include laws against child abuse. But hopefully you're just a troll and not a parent or guardian.

I guarantee I am no troll. My parents did this when I was older. If you didn't pick it up your stuff, ir gor rude, not only did you get the beating, you got grounded, as well as have your possessions thrown out.

If you also didn't perform to their standards academically when I was also a kid, they would tear up my homework in front of me and would send a note to the teacher why they did it, thereby being ostricised by the teacher in fron of the rest of the class. Otherwise, the only other option for discipline by my parents, for any kind of discipline problems would have been rwould have been being either being sent to reform school or a military school.

Last edited by Meistersinger on 15 Jul 2013, 11:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Well that sounds terrible quite frankly...and I don't see how it would actually help anything.

times sure are different, I remember the story's my dad would tell hes about your age. his dad used to make him choose the belt he was going to get whipped with. one time when his parents went on vacation to Alaska he threw a party and trashed the house. he joined the navy and left before they got home to avoid the beating. though you could get away with tons of stuff those days, like if you were drunk driving the cop would just make you leave your car and have someone pick you up or stay the night in jail with no charges. he told me about all the times he would drive the willys jeep at 13 around town and no one would even bat and eye

I haven't found consequences to be necessary. Or, when you look at the long term goal of raising an ASD child who can be comfortable in the NT world, effective.

When it comes to these sorts of things, my son and I have long, long debates. Something you'll realize is that many Aspie kids don't have the same ingrained respect for authority that we expect kids to have. They can actually have a very negative attitude towards that expectation. But they do respect things that make sense and are logical, and want to live in a world that is well ordered. My son won't follow any rule that makes zero sense to him, but he will follow every rule that he understands, and it can be very effective to appeal to his desire for order and predictability, to spend time getting him to see the conflict from the other person's perspective (something else that is not in the least bit natural to many ASD kids).

Sure, you can get compliance with consequences, but I noticed that it feeds the negative attitude and sense of confusion, "life isn't fair," "what is the point of trying" ideas my son could latch onto. And the negative attitude increased his levels of combativeness and rebellion. But when I can reach him with logic, not only do I get the behavior I want, but he also starts to feel more positive about life in general.

At this point, I can often just give him a look and he'll realize he came across rude, and apologize for it.

Break down the situation from your son's point of view. He does something totally natural with no intention of disturbing anyone and gets criticized for it. Watching TV is an optional activity; using a bathroom is a necessity (even if the random noises are not, but if your son is like mine, he has to think hard to not make those). So the logic of B deferring to A doesn't make intrinsic sense to him. You'll want to sell him on it by reminding him how he reacts when he is the opposite position.

My problem with a consequence is that you just escalate the battle. If he broke a specific rule with specific consequence A, and you can show him how he should have been aware of that connection, then you can effectively issue the consequence. But if he isn't seeing all those connections, it can backfire. And be aware that connecting rule A to situation B isn't something natural to most ASD kids, so extrapolating "be quiet when someone is watching TV" to "don't make noises in the bathroom because someone watching TV can hear them" isn't something you can just expect. You know your child and how your rules and consequences have been presented, so I can't tell you what makes sense in your family, just provide my general thought process on what works, what does not, and why.

I know a lot of people who were raised like this. Most seem like perfectly acceptable people. They use this fact to say it was OK that their parents beat them. All I can say is even if they seem like perfectly acceptable people, what has happened is they have turned into people who think it's OK to hit a child.

I appreciate your reply. I won't ever be the person who wants obedience and compliance from my kids so badly that I hit them. EVEN IF that means they are worse behaved (which I don't think it would, but even if it did), I'd accept that outcome.

Thank you everybody! I guess what's so frustrating is how inconsistent it is. He is usually disobedient in the sense of not being able to stop the current groove he's in... Throwing a ball at my seat while I'm driving, being told to stop, having it happen three more times at the same intensity and then twice more at a lower intensity before it stops. (Soccer ball can no longer remain in the passenger compartment of the car in between soccer sessions.) Of course that's not the only example - pretty much everything I tell him to stop doing, he cannot immediately stop. Kicking my chair, blowing on me thru a straw, flicking water on me from a mostly empty cup, brandishing the garden rake in my direction, rubbing his nose on me, talking when we need him to be quiet, throwing cushions off the couch at the tv. I mean seriously, I could go on and on. He gets in a groove and doesn't process the fact that I've asked for a change. That makes sense to me. The times he happens to stop faster than usual, he gets bonus minutes and praise.

But what's frustrating to me about tonight's incident - thankfully it goes this way much less frequently than the other - was the fact that he did get quiet, he stopped making the noises, but instead he got rude. Maybe twice per week instead of difficulties switching gears I get "no, I don't have to, and you can't make me." If I say that hurts my feelings he says he doesn't care. If I say we've agreed he is going to work on not saying things like that so often he says he doesn't care. Sometimes he even says that I need to obey HIM.

What response from me does that sort of thing need? I know from experience that it will get worse before it gets better. If I do the "come back here young man, that was not how you are supposed to talk to us" or "that hurts our feelings" or "that isn't how we treat each other" or "we've discussed this", he will get worse and then later he'll feel bad about his behavior. He'll do worse stuff that will make me really think he needs a punishment... Then if I let that worse stuff go, it's even worse than letting the lesser stuff go. Know what I mean?

We talked later about tonight and he said it was rude for my husband to ask him to be quiet when it was obvious he was only going to be in the room for a few minutes, so I reminded him about how today he flipped out on my mom and I in the car when he wanted to hear a radio commercial and we weren't psychic enough to know that before talking thru the first couple moments of it. I explained that even if he thinks he's not being too loud or disruptive, if somebody tells him he is, he needs to say "I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention" and then be quiet, and then later if he wants to debate the merits of that specific request in that specific moment I'd be happy to engage. I guess I should just do social stories and role playing as apparently expecting him to remember from the results of previous episodes is not working.

0223, I think you handled it right.

When my son yells out, "No!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !" We either let it go (if he seems like close to meltdown mode) and talk about it later with him, or if we can tell he is far enough from the brink, I will address the underlying issue. We have yet, to have a bad result from that as we err on the side of letting it go, but if we did, we'd back off. He doesn't mean "No!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!," the way an NT might. It is not meant to be disrespectful so much as it is his way of verbalizing a strong protest to tell us something strongly bothers him.

My son also has difficulty stopping, it has something to do with the way his neurology overlaps a bit with OCD. I don't think he CAN stop (there have been situations where it wasn't in his best interest to keep doing something punishments aside.) I am guessing the "no" response may have been a result of trying to inhibit the not-stopping, and it coming out a different way.

To be clear, when I said I have my son write an apology letter, it's usually after a long conversation breaking down what happened, and the letter is really about making the discussion concrete, not about punishment. Often, the letters will offer some insight into my son's thought processes that help me be a better parent to him.

I dont wanna excuse the behaviour of your son, but one of the thing that made me mad at home and being so called "problem kid" at home, and being an absolute "non-problem kid" at border school, was that I wasnt terrorized by that damned TV all day anymore. I didnt realize until then, how much that thing made me weird and couldnt separate it from my father making me weird, because most of the time he was at home, that damn s**t thing was running.

I dont want to excuse the behaviour of the boy, but for me all kind of noise is enhancing autistic behaviour, so I would be interested if, you usually have music in your car as well, when he had that ball issues. Its noones blames or whatever, but the more my thoughts are weird because of influences from outside, the more I must force a thought or doing into my brain, the more intense I need to concentrate on that, the harder it is to let that thoughts simply go. Imagine you are focusing on one simply thought, the more you focus, the harder it is to get unfocused.

I simply would tend to watch, if the behaviour of your boy is somehow linked to noises or special occasions. So as example if he has that ball issues only after playing football, when he was forced to focus on ball playing and then has his issues of unfocusing his thoughts and so on...

I dont want to tell you, that this shall excuse his behaviour, but the more both of you, what causes a certain behavior, the more easy it is to work with that. If I am in lout surroundings like entertainment parcs, even if I am in a good mood, I know now, that I get startled up by that, and that my startled good mood, then can easy turn into a startled bad mood, if I dont watch myself and watch for signs for me being overwhelmed. That helps me preventing to get suddenly into meltdowns.