Autism vs Bad Behavior

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My son does things that look just like bad behavior, am I being fooled into thinking deviant behavior is Autism?

I guess it depends what it is. Any examples?

Please provide more details.

Deviant behavior as a broad concept, is not an autistic trait. It's necessary to know the specific actions and events that lead to them.

What does your son do, exactly?

So, the most recent.
Small house, when the air isn’t on at night you can hear everything in the house. There are only him and I in the house.

I’m in bathroom which is right behind his so we can hear most noises made that are above conversational speaking level. I hear the shower, I hear him get out of the shower, leave it running and he sits on the can. I know this because he also has sensory deprivation so everything he does is with a stomp and a slam.

We had just had a series of conversations about how much the utility bill has gone up and I told him I was in touch with the city and they said water usage was the only thing that they could see that has changed, so he knows also that the reason for the bill increase is water usage.

The bigger picture, I get the same behavior response with most issues.

My laptop;
I let him use my laptop, I told him to keep it clean, no eating or sneezing on it without cleaning it up immediately, this went on for four weeks. I come home Friday, sitting at the dining room table and catching up with him, (I try to do that daily), I happen to notice the laptop or want to look something up, and each Friday for about four weeks the laptop is dirtier, not cleaner.
I’m done with his blatant disrespect.
P.S. these are just two examples, I could go on but I think you get the picture.

It is the nature of children to be selfish, sloppy, inconsiderate, and even malicious. It is the job of parents to help them learn to change their behavior. The process of learning is usually accomplished through the establishment of consequences and keeping to them. If parents start late in applying the corrective process, the change may be difficult to accomplish at all.

When children grow without having encountered parental consequences for their actions they may find poverty, prison, or even health problems as more brutal consequences.

You want to make sure that your communication is not reflective of how you feel, but more along the lines of holding him accountable for his behavior. You also want to make sure that short term irritation does not lead you to alienating him. He needs to see that your patient insistence that he learn to accept responsibility for his actions is not your being mean or getting even, but for his long term benefit.

Aspergers may make his learning to be responsible more difficult, however, regardless of how difficult, he still needs to learn.

The sound of the shower running maybe relaxing to him...possibly even relaxing enough to help him get a poop out
It is hard to tell what’s what , and they may not even realize or have the works to explain it,, is it just a feeling which autism persons may not be able to explain .

I think the eating while using the laptop is just a kid thing, kids can just be a little inconsiderate and don't really think of the consequences over their convenience. My niece does that and always has done.

She has been told but she keeps on doing it. Not the end of the world though, we just clean the laptop with antibacterial wipes.

As for leaving the water on after getting out the shower.
This may be because your son suffers from sensory impairment of the hypo sensitive to sound variety.
He may leave the shower on as it gives him some sensory stimuli to enjoy. Same with the stomping around.

I have read that its not uncommon for some kids with are hypo sensitive to sound to do things that appear to be antisocial behaviours, such as bashing into things, slamming doors, making loud noises, as they don't get sensory stimulation from normal volume environmental noise, so are making noises themselves that will stimulate their blunted senses.

Must be very frustrating for both you and your son.
Not sure how you can address the shower over use apart from talking to him.
Perhaps tell him that the more money that you have to spend on water usage the less you will have to spend on treats for you and him, reducing pocket money?

Thank you for expanding. The examples you provided are normal adolescent behaviors, and are not autistic characteristics.

I recognize that from your perspective, these things may seem like major issues. I would encourage you to try and take a step back from your emotions and examine things from a more objective point of view. Consider that he is still young and does not carry all of the burdens that an adult would.

For example, you probably know the cost of the laptop and have a good concept of how hard you've had to work to be able to afford it, as well as other household things. You also understand the cost of utilities and how they factor into your monthly budget. You may feel the stress a tight budget right now and any additional costs are weighing on you. Even after children are told about these burdens, most won't ever come to actually understand them until adulthood.

I still continue to have moments of harsh clarity where I suddenly realize why my parents would get upset with us kids over stuff that, at the time, seemed overblown. For example: meals time. My mother would get very offended if we didn't show appreciation for the food she cooked. Now that I have experienced many years of cooking myself, it hits me how taxing it can be, particularly after a long day, to plan and make meals only to have it poorly received.

If your son is old enough, I would suggest trying to give him adulthood exercises. You could give him a sample monthly budget that he has to manage as you would. You could use the same numbers as what are in your actually budget. Have him go through the motions of paying bills, balancing the budget with additional items, talk to him about why it's vital to not spend all of your monthly earnings, etc. Let him see you worried about paying bills. Ask him to help you come up with practical solutions for how to save money.

For the shower issue: Ask him if there is another reason he leaves the water running so long. Does he not want people to hear him? Is the noise relaxing? What solutions can you come up with together? A sound machine might be a good substitute.

To me, it sounds like executive functioning issues.
Establishing routines may help: every time you are out of the shower, check weather the water is tapped. After each use of the laptop, wipe it, preferably in a very well-defined way, ant put in a specific place.

Things that seem no-brainer to NTs may be serious challenges when your executive functioning is poor - they consist multitude of tiny parts that have to be taken care of and your brain does not put the parts into the whole. You get lost in "everyday" tasks.
The famous autistic routines are often a way of coping with this - doing all these tiny parts in a well-established order, well-established way, helps get all of them done. If a routine is interrupted, you get lost, all the pieces falling apart again.

Thank you all for the input. I definitely needed to step back, I’m still suffering from an anger hangover but I have been in control of my tongue 98% of the time.
I will wait until the anger is completely out of my system and maybe write down the outline of a small conversation about the two issues well maybe the one since I have taken my laptop back to my room.

You all said so many good things that it would take awhile to respond to everything so I will just collectively thank you for your help I needed every word of it.

That sounds like a good plan Debianator. I hope things improve for you and your family.

My suggestions, cut back on groceries and tell him the reason why you can't buy a lot of food anymore is so you can pay the water bill. Another option is he won't get Christmas presents from you if you have to pay a high water bill. I think too many parents are afraid of being honest with their children about costs thinking it will ruin their childhood. Kids don't know unless you tell them and give them real reasons. I have no problems being honest with my own children. If only my own mom would have told me as well growing up, I imagine how much easier things would have been for her and me. Oh didn't like me wearing several pairs of underwear at once, why didn't she just tell me she didn't want to do some extra laundry and make me do some laundry with her so I can get annoyed and see how annoying it is to do laundry and how much work it is, then maybe it would have made me not wear five pairs of panties to school and I wouldn't have to be defiant and think "oh there is my mom just being mom again, yelling." But yet at school, the adults didn't have a problem with making me pick trash off the gym floor I left or making me wipe bark dust off the slide whenever I put bark dust on it. I have even made my children clean up their own poop and they never shat outside again and my son never shat ion our floors again in our house when he decided to take a dump in the dining room. I made him pick up his own poo when he was two and dump it in the toilet and he hated touching his poo. But he never shat outside the toilet again or his diaper. I also would make my son pick up his own poopy toilet paper when he was throwing it on the floor and he would have "panic attacks." I told him one day "if you don't want to have anxiety, don't put yourself in that situation. When you throw toilet paper on the floor, you are putting yourself in that situation. Don't want anxiety, don't put yourself in it, throw it in the waste basket and you won't get put into that situation."

Also one other option is just turn off the water whenever he isn't in the shower or show him the water bill and tell him how much it is. Maybe cut out on subscription and other stuff to show him about how you have to downsize to afford the big water bill.


Also, stop letting your son use your laptop, this is a privilege and if he can't respect it, he can't use it. If he asks why he can't use it, tell him you don't want it dirty and it gets dirtier and dirtier every time he uses it.

Sure just because they're kids doesn't mean we let them destroy property or coddle their feelings by not being truthful with them because so many parents are afraid of ruining their childhood or hurting their feelings and making them feel guilty. They're supposed to feel guilty, it's called remorse and they are learning that their actions impact other people around them. I would be concerned for the kid if they didn't feel guilt. Feeling guilt means that part of their brains are working like it's supposed to. I never understood why parents are afraid of their child feeling bad or guilty so they hide the truth from them about their actions. Sure if it's out of their control, then no need to tell them, that I can agree with. If it's a behavior they can control and learn, don't hide it from them. Leaving the water on when not using it, that is controllable. Eating around computer or using dirty hands, also controllable. Feeling bad that your mom can't eat and has to be hungry, well now you know to be sure to turn the shower off when not in use.

And my kids are happy, their childhoods are not ruined. My son still wants to rub my back and sleep in my bed. But the funny thing is whenever I stop a behavior they do I don't like, they replace it with another bad behavior. The cycle starts over.

I agree with telling your kid about the Christmas presents. Maybe he'll realize that it's not a good idea to run the shower every time he uses the toilet.

I'm in with the executive function theory. My son could have the best of intentions on so many things, and still never accomplish them. I learned to be like a robot with reminders, and eventually the changes moved into habit. A very long eventually but, still, eventually.

For example, when you hear your son leave the shower, you can provide an agreed upon signal that will remind him he has to turn the water off. Work it out with him before his next shower, so he knows what the signal means and feels it will be an effective one.

The computer will be more difficult since it sounds like you aren't present there, but maybe you can program a periodic pop up: maybe some silly GIF that will remind him not to eat and/or to actually clean. Or ???

The reminders were all my son needed; most of the time he wasn't even of what he was doing. We had a whole catalogue of gentle signals at various points of time and it really worked for him.