Coping with Growing up in a Strict Household

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It seems like being an aspie and growing up in a strict household goes hand-in-hand. (Why?) Not as causation, but as correlation. I read many accounts on here about how people had strict parents, were frequently scolded or punished, had to follow ridiculously restrictive rules, and had no personal freedoms. Many of such stories also included comments about how those aspies' NT siblings were growing up in paradise in comparison. My own stories are no different.

So now, I think it would be fun to see how aspies coped with growing up in a strict household. What methods did you use to make things easier for yourself? Was your family aware of you doing that? Were you punished for trying to make things easier for yourself? I'll start with my own.

1. Scheduling nice things as close to bedtime as possible.
If my parents or my NT older sister were arranging to give me something enjoyable (eating a special dessert, watching my favorite movie, going to a fun place, etc.), I would insist on them doing it as close to my bedtime as they were willing to agree on. For instance, if they made a berry parfait (which I loved), I would eat it as a bedtime snack, rather than as dessert for dinner, or god forbid, for lunch. If they were going to take me to an arcade, I'd insist on going at 6:00 PM, rather than at 12:00 PM. Why? I wanted to carry over the good feeling associated with those activities into bedtime. If they happened to early in the day, there was a high risk of them being "ruined". How so? My parents were very good at noticing bad behaviors, and bringing me to justice (to put it nicely) swiftly and fiercely. So if I played Donkey Kong in an arcade or ate a French silk pie in Bakers Square, then did something at home to "get brought to justice", all the enjoyment of the good experience was lost.

2. Redeeming or consuming earned rewards as soon as possible after receiving them.
Let's say I was promised a trip to Baskin Robbins for getting an A on a test, and an A is what I got. In that case, I would insist on going the same day, even if my parents told me it would be inconvenient to them. I would keep insisting until my parents either gave in or threatened punishment. I did it even if they promised to reschedule the reward unconditionally. Why? Because I knew if I got a C the next day or misbehaved in some way (see #1), the Baskin Robbins trip would be revoked. Ditto if I was given an hour of arcade time. I'd insist on going there as soon as possible, before I did something to get it revoked. So basically, once any kind of a reward was in my hands, I knew I had to use up all of it before it was gone. As much as I would have benefited from delaying gratification, it was either instant gratification or none at all.

3. Making multiple copies of my drawings.
My parents had a habit of throwing anything they found in my room that didn't look valuable. This included my drawings. My begging and pleading for them not to do it only resulted in yelling about how they were just keeping the room clean. So I'd draw two or more copies of each drawing I did. The first once was done with the most effort, and was hidden away in a safe place. Subsequent copies were hung on walls or left on top of the desk. Sure enough, they got thrown out. But I still had the original. Making multiple copies quickly got tedious, and I abandoned drawing of all forms, except for art classes in school. No big loss; I was never a good drawer. For items that had no second copies, like small trinkets, all I could do was hide them and worry all the time about its safety.

That's all I can think of for now. I'll add more in subsequent posts, if I can think of anything. For now, share your tactics.

I totally relate to #2. In our family it was also dive in, or miss out. It's hard to unlearn a lot of that.

My parents were strict, but I much later realized they just assumed I was bending the rules on my own. Of course I didn't having such a black and white mindset. I followed them to the letter, or broke them spectacularly (and usually got caught).

I think a huge part of it is due to ablism and NT families treating autistics like they are less-than, than NT kids. That's just my theory. It's discrimination, pure and simple.

With parents living separately the plan of action was to identify which parent to deal with for what issue or activity, or if I needed to skip both and go directly to a Grandparent. I learned early on how different a conservative or liberal type of parent react or deal with different things and how to take advantage of it.

Neurotypicals bend the rules more often. Autistics will follow the rules more strictly. NTs assume if the person is putting up with the rules it is "okay" and accepting of the authority....even if the rules are f*****g the person up.....

My parents were actually quite lenient, and a part of it was because whenever they tried to implement any sort of rules, I fought back against them. I didn't like rules, and I was kind of all-or-nothing about them; either I would follow them to the letter because I had no choice, or I would fight them until they no longer applied. The concept of "bending" rules didn't really come to me until I had reached adolescence, right around the same time I started brushing up on my lying skills. Another part of my parents' leniency came from their recognition of my self-sufficiency, and the fact that they were often too absorbed in other activities (like computer games or gardening) to watch over me.

The dynamics of all this started changing as my parents split up. My mother started becoming more strict about my bedtime schedule at the pressure of her boyfriend (which is one of the main reasons why I quit living with her), and my dad became even more relaxed about household rules than he used to be, so naturally I went to live with him. A while later, when my dad combined households with my stepmom, the household rules weren't too bad, aside from me having to do a few more chores, but after they moved to their current town, and I stayed back with my friends and grandparents, and I moved back in with them (it's complicated ), that's when my stepmom's disciplinarian side came out. For a long time, it was a back and forth battle between me and her, and eventually it just got to the point where I was like "f**k it! You win! I'm leaving!", and that's how I decided to move out.

My mother and grandparents were extremely overprotective but also pretty indulgent about everything other than not letting me go places/outside, do anything at all where I might get "hurt" (a bruise or scrape) or "sick" (a cold), etc. I got spanked when I deserved to, and looking back I'd say I got it a lot less than I deserved to because at home I was a spoiled little brat, although in public and with everybody else I was very shy and wouldn't say boo to a goose, and very, very awkward. At home though, I wouldn't shut up and threw a fit (not a meltdown, a fit) any time I didn't get my way. Although I do remember some meltdowns, in retrospect, I don't think they could really distinguish them because nobody knew I was having one, because nobody knew about AS back then, really.

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I can't even relate because I never grew up in such household. I was never treated any different or excluded or singled out in my family and I still had rules to follow and was expected to follow them and my brothers had the same rules too. There were mistakes my mom made with me because she didn't even know what I had then. I even wonder if I had anxiety then too and my mom didn't know that because they just looked like I was screaming and having a hissy fit because things were not going the way I planned or liked and instead of walking away from the situation, I tried to control it and I would get upset and frustrated. I wouldn't say the rules were strict.

Childrens' Happiness - by Kate McReynolds
https://great-ideas.org/McReynolds-Happiness.htm