Precision in demands...

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My son has aquired a bad habit of doing anything I ask him to do "wrong" and then laughing and saying I have to be more precise...
"Put the puzzle in the bag"
He puts the puzzle in the bag, then tips it out again: "You didn't say don't tip it out." He thinks he's being really funny, but it's turning into a bad habit.
A social story about not shouting "boo" at people.... he shouted "bah" instead. We fixed that one by saying "anything that scares, shocks, makes people mad ect."
But I can't give 10 minute instructions of what NOT to do everytime I want him to do something....
Anybody else had problems like this?

our son went through a period of time where he would purposely do things that he knew were inappropriate just to get a reaction. for instance, he knew that making inflammatory comments was against school policy, but he'd just make them anyways to get a rise out of his classmates.........we finally had to sit down and make a list of what he couldn't talk about at school. we also had to tell him that if he was unsure about whether or not his statement would be offensive, that he should wait and aske the teacher in private.

How did you explain why it was a bad idea?
My son seems to to care what anyone else thinks/feels, if he thinks it's funny.
It's hard to use rewards/punishment when the issues are so varying... the core of the problem is the same, but it comes out in a million different ways... we can't give him exact rules for everything, so he argues that "he isn't breaing the rules". Frustrating:)

yes, our son would work out a million different ways to be inappropriate just for the thrill of figuring out a new way that " got around the rules"..........we worked out a plan with his school social worker. his main issue was in one specific area. he wanted to say what he could say when he wanted to say it. if it shocked or upset someone, all the better as far as he was concerned...........we ended up telling him that he could talk about these topics with the following people ( during a time period when he could be assured privacy and confidentiality): school social worker, parents, private therapist.............he was told that he would receive after school detentions for every infraction he made. I guess it seems harsh now, but we just had to be really firm. we had given him so many prior chances to get his act together~multiple warnings, positive reinforcement for positive behavior. he just seemed hell-bent on making these inflammatory statements. ........ there were no rewards.
once he realized that we were quite serious about following through with after school detentions, the comments stopped.

My daughter has trouble when you don't explain the entire process of what she's to do. If we're on our way out and I say, "Go grab your coat," she will grab it and stand there waiting for me to tell her what to do next. She doesn't automatically grasp that she can go ahead and put it on. So basically I have to say, "Go grab your coat and put it on."

Mikomi: LOL!

I guess it's time I got a little tougher. He clearly knows he's bending the rules, or he wouldn't think he was so funny... We've been being so carefull around him, but now he is doing so well we really have to stop "pampering" him.

you said it...If it's rude, then it is not funny and I would show my distaste for this behavior. I don't think I would be so patient,honestly. If he dumped a puzzle on the ground--I would most likely look at him in utter shock and wonder what was going on. I mean this is just too illogical, irrational--something. How old is your son?

I would decrease the rule-based home, too. My rule covers all bases--do onto others as you would have done onto you. If it isn't nice, then it shouldn't be done, period.


Your guy is relying too much on the "rules" and missing the point, so it seems. I think his actions are speaking very loudly.

equinn

Yes, I am very patient.
My son is 9 years old, with HFA.
I think "missing the point" has been a big part of his autism, and rejoiced the day he said "Wow, there are rules for everything"... hoping that this recognition would be his saving grace.
My son is rebounding from a very tough year. The issues we have dealt with this past year have been much more fundamental - stopping his aggression. We were forced to pick our battles very carefully. So it is almost positive for me to be having such "trivial" problems with his behaviour.
At this point I have to start feeling secure he won't "relapse", and start upping the demands. It is actually quite terrifying .

My son is 9 and can be a little like Mikomi's child. The other night he was told to, put his pj's on and get into bed. He said he was thirsty. I got him his drink bottle that he sips at threw the night, but he was taking his time with it. I told him to stop, put your pj's on and go to bed. He wandered out nearly an hour later, extremely tired. when asked why he was awake he started crying, he was thirsty but I'd told him to stop drinking.

Ouch... I have had experiences like that, too.
This was how we started - having to be very precise. And in many ways we still have to be. But on top, he's playing with the rules....
Tried to talk to him this evening, about what rules and laws are for, and how they are helpfull. He "smart" remark was that they were there to be broken.
It's difficult because he is so innocent at the same time - it's not like when my 10 y.o. is being cheeky.
But we ended up telling him that he knew when he was breaking the rules, and so did we, so it was 5 minutes in his room from now on.
If that doesn't work, we'll have to be more drastic... take away his "obsession" which means docking his pocket money, so he can't by "habitrail" ..... a horrifying threat

sometimes it's not worth getting into the semantics of explaining why rules are important.......sometimes, when you have an argumentative child, it's just better to say that this is what the rule is. this is what the consequences are. for breaking the rule. we found that for our son, we were talking too much~explaining too much. he'd get trapped by the words and not come out with any understanding.

Think back to when it started. Was it right after he got in trouble for not following an "unspoken" demand. Ie you're in a hurry"Put on your hat and coat because we're leaving." and then its time to go out the door and you notice his shoes aren't on, so you snap "why aren't your shoes on?" If so, he might be doing it at least in part as a way to protect himself from you realizing about things he doesn't know/can't know. Or it may have started that way and evolved into a fun game


There's an episode of the Brady Bunch where Greg isn't allowed to use his parents car for a week. So he borrows a friend's mothers car. When his parents find out, they confront him, and he says he didn't break the rules because he was only told he wasn't allowed to drive their car. Rather than punish him, they decide to hold him exactly to all the rules. So when he trades chores with Marsha, he has to take the garbage out on Thursday, not friday, even though its already really late thursday. In the end he decides being precise isn't worth it. It might be interesting to see what happens if you do this with your son, but also might be quite frustrating at first.

You're probably right - the discussion didn't get us far anyway, but I still hope he thinks about it... it would be great if he realised rules are about the best outcome for everybody... or that they at least are sensible.

We seem to run into a "theory of mind" problem where he can't think of what is good for other people/that other people don't take his point of view and see things from his perspective. He just doesn't get it.
I hope he at some point understands it from an intellectual point of view, if not an emotional one.

As for talk, the problem is, that when he breaks/doesn't break a rule, we have been stuck having to explain why he broke the rule anyway. It's probably this explanation we have to cut out...

Hope this makes halfway sense.

Ours is the same way. I have to explain the scenario all the way through until I get to the result I want. It's frustrating and a whole new way of thinking and to be truthful it doesn't always work.

The way of the Aspie

I think it started with the particular social story about shouting "boo" at people. He did it quite impulsively/enjoyed doing it, I think he thought people's reactions were funny, and had no idea of how it effected people (I came close to a heart attack several times). He found it hard to control that impulse, and turned it into "bah" instead of "boo". So a new social story was written with some broad formulation meant to cover any loud noise meant to startle people...

I'm realizing he most likely got stuck on the rule instead of the explanation, which probably overwelmed him or was incomprehensible (people get scared, angry, shocked).

Soon after this, he started talking about "there being rules for everything".
He also started playing round with "lawyer talk" - incredibly intricate sentences, mostly aimed at his two year old brother (! !), and started to like what he calls "precision". It became a fun game that is very appealing to him. It has an "autistic obsessive" feel to it ... like other things he finds irresistable.


The Brady bunch idea is compelling - but a bit exhausting even to think about.

My son used to think it was hysterical to do things the wrong way (on purpose). If given a multiple choice selection, he would pick all of the wrong answers before the right one and he thought that was the funniest thing to do. He outgrew that though. I didn't do anything special to get him to stop...i let him know it wasn't funny.