Patterned behavior

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Although I am not extreme in the area of patterned behavior, I do engage in some of it. One area I noticed is that when I play a collection of music, I never set it to shuffle, as I want to hear it in the original order. It would be somewhat unsettling to hear it out of order. Having each tune follow in the usual order is somewhat comforting. I am okay with not playing the whole library of collections in order. That is, I can pick any other collection to play after the current one is over. It's just within the collection that I feel best if the order is maintained.

I don't have the same issue with the pix in my screen saver. I use the screen saver that plays the pix from your pix folder. I actually prefer to have it play the pix in shuffled mode. Since most of the pix in my pix folder are nice, I like being constantly "surprised" by nice pix. The desktop theme packs I pick are nice too, so I play those pix shuffled, as well.
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When watching old shows on the I-net I tend to stick with one show until I have finished the series, though I will take a break to watch new episodes of the one or two new series that I am following, or to occasionally watch a movie.
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With food I have a tendency to eat one type of meal until whatever is needed to make it is gone from the house. Then I pick another type of meal and repeat the process--and so on, and so on. I do occasionally interrupt the sequence by eating a different meal, but then return to eating the current "main" meal. I realize that this isn't the healthiest way to eat, but I do include at least one fruit or veggie per meal, a choice of meat/cheese/nut butter for protein, and a healthy starch. I also take a whole lot of different supplements. Because I live alone I can do what I want regarding food--no one else is forced to eat my way.
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There are other patterned behaviors I engage in too, but none of them does me any harm, except web surfing for hours and hours on end. It's hard on my eyes, I don't get enough exercise, and I don't get my chores done. I managed to avoid addiction to drugs, booze, tobacco, and gambling without any trouble at all, but I am hooked to the PC.
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Anyway, I hope my commentary on patterned behavior may provide insight to NT family members of people on the spectrum. Regarding food issues, instead of fighting over food, I suggest parents give their spectrum kids a list of healthy foods to choose from, and then the parents can provide meals from those choices. Don't be a scrooge about it, though. If the kids go along with this, then you should loosen up on the rule a little for dessert, but there are healthy ones of those too, like fruit, and healthier cakes like pumpkin spice cake, carrot cake, apple spice cake, that can be made with little or no sugar added. Instead they can be made with real fruit or veggies, and real fruit juice for sweetener. You can even freeze fruit juice in ice pop trays. There are a number of healthy options available, either in stores, or easily made at home. One of my favorites are those little fruit sauce cups. I get the ones with no sugar added and freeze them. When I want to eat one I take it out, nuke it in the microwave for about 45 seconds (because it's too hard straight from the freezer) and then have at it with a spoon.

One more tip for parents of ALL kids. Eliminate all caffeine and as much processed sugar as possible from kid menus, as these tend to make kids hyper, overtired, and cranky. You really don't want that with a kid on the spectrum who is already prone to freak-outs and meltdowns, and yes, I've had plenty of meltdowns of my own. I've seen others having meltdowns too. It looks bad to watch it, but I can tell those watching on the outside that it feels even worse to the person on the inside.

I hope this info helps.

Very interesting post. I think all people on the spectrum will relate to your experience. I also find I like music played in the original album sequence. When watching movies I can't stand watching from any point other than the absolute beginning and I can't miss any part of the movie because then I might as well not have watched the movie at all. I hate people interrupting to talk, ask questions or make loud noises such as opening packets of chips.

My interests in life intensely patterned. My pattern is essentially a research pattern because I'm fascinated by details. It doesn't matter so much what I research. In my 45+ years of life I have researched birdlife, trees, maps, religion, psychology, spirituality of various sorts, economics and I've done 3 basic degrees and more recently a post-graduate diploma. More recently I have become fascinated by genealogy and am currently on about p264 of the family tree. The thread through all of this is research. I have (if I may say so) become incredibly knowledgeable in the process.

I also get a lot of satisfaction from doing the same/similar thing repeatedly. I have become very good at writing procedures and drawing flow charts and when I put my mind to doing something I do it very very well. It takes me a while to learn that new thing, but I generally become a master of it. I have become a very good fisherman simply because I started fishing at a very young age and never stopped.

A consequence of the patterns, is that I cannot ever be taken to far from my underlying patterns. I therefore could have been a lot more successful in life but eschewed it because I didn't want all the social pressures that go with success.