Stepmom to possible aspie - help!

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Thank you very much. I also agree with you. There really has to be good trust and communication and that really is the best way.

There are few things I despise in day to day living as much as buttinsky parents who think they know better and butt in and cause problems.

My NT son often expects me to carry his things but I refuse. I tell him it's his stuff and he should be carrying it and I don't tell him to carry my purse. Only time I ever ask my kids to carry things is if I have too much to carry or hold and my son only has his jacket or his backpack and he can carry those. I just keep on walking and keep my hands tucked in my arms. He does cry and scream and call me rude or mean but I just ignore it. I don't let his words bother me whatever he calls me. I already have enough stuff to carry so why should I carry extra? I tell my son to put his things in his backpack so it he wouldn't have to carry it all just like how I put stuff in my purse.

It depends on the kid. Some kids have serious executive function issues that cannot be resolved with the baptism by fire approach. If you have a kid you know will lose his candy and will seriously meltdown upon losing it (On Halloween, no less!) it is probably not going to be worth it to attempt to teach him a lesson. The meltdown is not going to teach anything to a kid in that category and in any event Halloween is an awfully high stakes time to attempt that kind of lesson. Once my son wanted to go trick or treating, he could hold on to his candy, but he doesn't interact with other kids, so there was no running around playing games with other little ones. So for him,it was not a hard thing to do. If he were running around with other kids, he absolutely would have lost it, and it would not have changed anything in the future b/c my son's executive functions are not really helped by that kind of lesson.

In any event, Eikonobridge showed way more restraint than I would have with that crazy lunatic snatching things out of his hand. If it were me, after one shocked, probably polite request to cut it out; I would have told her to butt out in very clear language, if it happened again.

How does a kid lose their candy? Don't they put it in the bag or bucket? The people just drop it in there when they hand out candy. How does one lose it? Do they put the bag down and forget about it? Does another kid steal it when a kid leaves it unattended? I see no problem holding it if a kid is playing and they say "Can you hold this?" and they go running and play. Lot of parents hold the bags when their kids play.

If I remember right, Eikonobridge said his son was running around playing with the kids he was trick or treating with. That means that he would have to put the plastic pumpkin/bag whatever it is down to play and then he could either forget it, someone could kick it and the candy could scatter, or, yes, someone could steal it.

I've been mulling over this situation.

OP, do you actually have any kids of your own? If you don't, that might be the source of 'treating the girls the same'. Parents generally learn pretty early on that what works for one child does not work the same way for another, and they adjust their approach. Also, if you were one of the 'popular' kids growing up, you might not have learnt to be flexible around people who are different from you, because people have adjusted themselves a lot to you.

What I find strange about this story is that you don't seem to have any inkling of what the girl is feeling. Have you asked her sister? Perhaps the little sister has more insight. I still feel there is a huge chunk of information missing. Generally, people have Theory of Mind, right? There will be some assumptions about what the other person is feeling, but your posts seem devoid of that. It's like this girl is a thing, not a person to you. I don't understand it.

If you and the little sister get on swimmingly, I can imagine that the older girl doesn't feel very welcome. It's a difficult age, and as you said, she was 12 when you met her - a bit old for immediate bonding.

I wouldn't ask the older girl to show a lot of respect. There is obviously some very bad feelings in this situation. You can't fix it with simple rules.

From the posts I understand that the OP has the kind of personality that a lot of autistics find scary and confusing. It's not a bad thing in itself, it's just a lack of compatibility. People are different. Seems like dad found himself the polar opposite of his ex. When I meet a person who is so out to get reactions from me, I turn into a human turtle or run for the hills. The unfortunate thing for a sixteen year old is that they can't run. So they're stuck trying to survive the endless barrage of expectations, and they spend an enormous amount of energy on it.

And please don't lecture her on empathy. That seems to be a weak spot for both of you.

OP, you seem like you just really want to be liked, like that is a big thing for you. This will always be difficult when dealing with teenagers, even when they're your own. People shouldn't look down on people who want to be liked, it's a basic human condition. But please realize that this girl has a completely different way of showing sympathy or consideration, and that she might have given you those signals early on, and that you may have ignored them because you didn't know what they were - things like giving you space if you were upset, helping with practical things , changing the subject so that you wouldn't have to talk about your feelings in front of other people.

^I agree with all of that.
Sorry if you thought I meant wanting to be liked was a bad thing. I meant that I would have found it very overwhelming (kind of demanding) and not understood it.

Nah, I wasn't referring to your comment at all. I've been thinking about the situation and I've forgotten a lot of the comments. I just wrote down my impression of the situation, trying to step back a little. And I have a lot of the same reaction as you.

lol That's me!!

Yeah, I wondered, too. I am a new stepmother, very new. But my boyfriend's two sons are one year older and one year younger than my bio son. Everything is going as well as it possibly could and soooo much better than I mentally prepared myself for, but yes, of course, sometimes my stepsons get on my nerves or act up. Fortunately, I know and am able to keep perspective because my bio son ALSO sometimes gets on my nerves and acts up. I try to treat them all fairly, but I don't treat them the SAME. Because we are a new family, I'm still having to tread carefully. I can see that my son feels a little threatened by two new step-siblings and he doesn't like it when I spend time with them without him (which happens when he's with his dad sometimes), but I'm not sure he's recognising that my boyfriend actually spends more time with him than he does with his own kids because of the custody arrangement. I don't love my stepchildren with my whole heart - yet - but I absolutely try to treat them today the way I will when I do. And I want them to feel like they are ALWAYS* welcome with me, so I would never say anything that would make them feel less than welcome - at least not intentionally. I want them to feel like I would never come between them and access to their dad. Right now, their dad and I have separate places, but we are planning to move in together, so they need to feel welcome in my home and so there's no question they'll feel at home in our new place and same for my son the other way.

I also wonder about the gender stereotypical activities... I say this because 1) it's my understanding that aspie kids can be less bound to gender stereotypes and 2) I'm not aspie, but I'd rather play in the mud than go shopping for girly stuff, do hair, or have a spa day and a stepmother who wanted to bond with me over such activities would get right up my nose, because I'd feel not only that she didn't understand me, but that she was making a denigrating comment on who I am. And I totally get that this is not your intention, but even if she is horrible in all the ways that you describe, and I believe you - teenage girls can be horrible... there are still ways that you can find to have shared activities, but you may need to think hard about what those are!