Eating out with AD or public presentation.....

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My oldest son97 yr) was allways well behaved when we went out to eat something at a restaurant....but the last 2-3 times he is becoming more and more rude with the waiters....For example: Even before they ask what he wants to eat he will shout it out and interrupt them or if they take to long he will say loudly 'where is my food, I'm hungry!' Why wasn't this a problem before, but only started now? Is this aspie behavior or just bad manners? I feel so embarress and usually just calmly say, my boy just wait or ask politely.....
Or sometimes he will be directly rude to me in public....like when I try to politely correct his behaviour, hissing at me to STOP IT and looks VERY irritated! I know they suspect a bit of ODD, but at the moment I'm not sure what is ODD and what is aspie , because the handling of the situation will differ.
Ps: What does NT refer to in posts?

Hi!

NT refers to nuerotypical, or "normal."

Question: does your son like eating out? If he does, that is leverage: "honey, if you don't change this we will have to stop going to restaurants.". That worked on my son when he was 3 and fidgeting, too much ... And he has always taken us seriously when we've told him that certain behavior is expected in restaurants. He likes to eat out, he's not going to risk our refusing to take him.

If he doesn't like eating out, then I wouldn't take him. I think there is enough stress in the life of an AS child that age that the cost benefit analysis tends to say, "avoid," anywhere possible.

Hi...you know what....I was thinking about this....yes my son loves eating out, but I sometimes get the idea that he likes the idea of going out more than the actual act.
What I do realize was that the 2-3 times when he was being so 'different and rude' was when other people went withus, that is out of the ordinary...like once his grandma and the other times his friend...When we go alone in quiet times, he behaved well...the few times that he was out of line was when it was also very bussy and overcrouded....I sometimes think he tries to impress the people that came with but doesn't know how to and then try to gain attention and 'playing bigboy'?
I like the idea of not going again if he doesn't behave, but is this ok if he maybe doesn't have insight in his rude behaviour or doesn't know how to differently? He has this one friend that behaves this way in restaurants and I noticed that my son tends to mimic other people who he thinks is cool.

The extra people and the extra noise would definitely have made the experience more stressful. If your son is like mine, he gets "bossier" when stressed. My theory there being that they are desperately trying to gain control of something, anything, in a situation that feels out of control to them. In that situation, an "excuse us for a moment, I need to talk to my son outside" to the wait staff and a, "honey, lets take a little walk before we deal with this" to your son might be helpful. You can talk to him then about what is REALLY bothering him.

It does take a while before they become self-aware enough for these conversations to get anywhere. You go through a lot of what someone else here calls situational autopsies. Keep it all calm and non-judgmental, you are just trying to help him have the best experience possible.

My son doesn't mimic other kids that much so it is hard for me to know what to do there. Except maybe the same things I tell my NT daughter, "um, that was funny when M said it, but you aren't carrying it off, so I think it's better if you don't" or "I know some of your friends act like that but I don't find it acceptable and you are stuck following my rules, so sorry, can't do." If the other child's behavior is a big factor, it should come up in the breakdowns.

Another thing to try: hold your son's hand as you walk into restaurants. I felt it in my son's hand right away if we walked into a place that was too noisy or busy for his taste. He froze and hesitated. We could then walk out, see what he was feeling, and make a different choice if needed. Sometimes he would say that he wanted to stay anyway, but just having that choice, and knowing we were aware of his stress, made a big difference.

Finally, with all young children, you have to be ready to abandon the dining experience if it isn't going well. Always with warning to the kids and the wait staff, of course; but I think it is something we have to accept as parents: sometimes we get a half finished meal, or even a barely started one. Thankfully I think it only got to that point once for us, but you have to accept that concept, or you can find yourself struggling so hard to make things work, that you actually make them fail.

I sometimes catch myself being demanding to my husband and even my kids. Like I will say "go pick that up" instead of "Please go pick that up" and I know that this is part of my aspie tendencies to think about myself and also that adding more words in a sentence is wasteful. Also we do tend to forget the other person has feelings, it something that has to be learned and its something, as I said, that I have to remind myself to do. This does not come naturally. I dont want to say we are all selfish and rude although it may look like that. Its just that these things dont come naturally and that we typically have other things on our mind when someone says "Hi how are you?" and we dont respond or we mumble something. Also being hungry can set off a lot of sensory problems so when your son tells the waiter or waitress what he wants before hes asked its because hes hungry and he doesnt want to wait. Its all a teaching and learning process.
He probably does not want to be corrected in public because we already feel like everyone is staring at us when we are in public so he probably thinks that everyone knows that you are scolding him. Try using a special word or sign that only you and he knows to let him know that he is acting inappropriately and then you can talk about it when you are alone.
Eventually he will learn but try to be understanding when he forgets like if he is hungry. Also you may want to give him a little snack before going out to eat to prevent him from wanting his food so badly.
Just some thoughts.

Thanx for the advice.....I still have plenty to learn!

NT means neurotypical. It refers to people who do not have AS/ASD

Since this has just started, I would say your son is just being rude. He's probably gauging his boundaries to figure out just how much he can get away with...or how much society tolerates anyway. It has probably never occurred to him that if he upsets a waiter enough, they just might spit in his food. You should inform him of this.

As far as becoming annoyed when you correct his behavior, that's normal. It just means he's becoming more aware of personal independence, and perhaps more remorseful or upset with himself when he does mess up. I would only correct him in private or at least discretely. However, I would also make it clear to him that you will not tolerate him being rude to you. It's not that I never responded to my mother in much the same way but if I was horrible enough about it I'd be firmly scolded for it.

I agree that you should take him somewhere private (maybe outside) and tell him not to do it. Threatening with no more dinners is also likely a good idea.

When I was a kid, I wasn't really good at eating out. My main problem was the waiting time. I would need to do something, and most restaurants allowed me to do something. I always liked sitting next to the aquarium because I got to watch the fishes. Maybe his rudeness is not simply a result of the busyness but also because he doesn't want to sit still.

Also, remember that there is no excuse for rudeness. The fact that we have more problems learning society's rules doesn't mean we get to ignore them.

There is no excuse for PURPOSELY being rude!

Dictionary.com:
rude
adjective, rud·er, rud·est.
1. discourteous or impolite, especially in a deliberate way: a rude reply.

There is an element of purpose in the word "rude." Anyway, regardless, even if it's not done on purpose, the mother made clear that the child was being rude, and he continued to behave rudely.