How to get consistency?

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My son is 13 ( high functioning ASD ) and he is usually good about doing his chores but after a while he gets distracted and less motivated. The chores end up taking longer and longer till we get him back on track. He says he is really opposed to doing things that are boring and he hates work. He's getting to the age where he should have this stuff down. Any ideas on how to get him doing things well and being consistent?

tell your son that life is full of boring things. every job has its boring aspects.

excitement is not necessarily a good thing. when i was in sixth grade, a stampede of middle school rodents had the nerve to physically assault me. that was extremely exciting.

make a list of your son's daily or weekly choice. make a chart. put it on the wall. tell him to put a check on it after he does each chore. for example, monday, take out the trash. come up with a list of rewards and punishments. put the list of rewards and punishments on the wall. ask your son what kind of rewards he wants. see what your son wants. for example he might want to go to the park, get $$, go to the movies, a can of soda.

come up with punishments. united states parents seem to love to ground their children. or send them to their room. the punishment has to be something that your son does not like. the punishment has to be something that Child Protective Services will not overreact to. something like no dessert for a week. he is just a child. he has to get punishments that are not too traumatic or illegal. but the punishments have to be significant enough to make an impact or he won't learn anything.

Make it more «fun» for him somehow or explain that the most-successful people in life are the ones who tend to be the most spotlessly clean at all times and well-organised. Show him how to save time, such as looking up time-saving tools like vacuum-robots, how to order them, then let him set-up and use the vacuum-robot to vacuum the floor for you. Turn it INTO a «game» for him. Upon completing each «Quest/Mission» (such as dish-washing), give some sort of reward or benefit for a Quest well-done, depending on the quality of each task completed (even $$$ works and he gets more $$$ for doing fabulous and less $$$ or none at all for doing poorly or not at all).

Start training him on how to become an adult to be able to earn his way towards his own future-success. Consider it part of his «game-tutorial» on the game of life-survival. Give him a set time to be able to let him have enough time to start «mentally preparing» for when you're going to start expecting him to exchange those $$$ with you towards contributing towards his own upkeep via house-quests. Many on-line computer-games these days often have what are called «Dailies» (a set of Quests and/or Missions for the player to complete), and they give out various rewards for successful completion of each quest/mission, and sometimes even a larger or bonus-reward for having them ALL completed, and these «Dailies» as they are called are reset each day.

Prepare «invoices» for him, something equivalent to giving him his «bill» for your services after the first day that this «game» has gotten started, and how much $$$ it cost to service him, and if you have to do the work yourself, just «rub it in his face» that you're winning. Yes. WINNING, son, do you like WINNING, well, DO YA!? ;o 'Cause it looks like I'm WINNING in this «corporate GAME» that we've just started this morning (whenever the deadline is for these quest-dailies such as late-evening or before bed-time). You can even print out each day the «results» of «Player 1» (him) versus «Player 2» (you), just keep the game «fair» of course and don't «cheet» to get more points, and you can even «post the results» on his door for whoever is in the house to see or even on the front-door of the house for the entire neighbourhood to see, and IF he starts losing to you, just make these «passive» remarks periodically about how it must be embarassing to lose to «Player 2» of all people, but definitely praise him and express how «impressive» you are of his performance/abilities if he starts WINNING.

A highly visible chart is a good idea. A small reward after completing chores can work too. Also, he shouldn't be aloud any privileges like TV or computer until chores are done. Ask him if he needs help staying on task. My son (ADHD) does great if I'm with him while he works. He also has to finish chores before computer. Some days are just harder than others.

I don't know if this is useful or not, but this is normal behavior for a 13 year old. There are so many emotions at that age! Their bodies are going through so much and their minds are experiencing giant leaps and a lot of new social expectations. It's a lot and it makes them cranky and hard to live with.

None of which means that he shouldn't do chores. Just that it's one of those places where we have to recognize that ASD kids also go through regular stuff.

I don't know about the behaviorism stuff. It can work for some 13 year olds, especially if they are emotionally less developed. But for your average 13 year old, they see right though it and they tend to feel talked down to. Talking to him about expectations is important. Giving him a chance to negotiate and try new ideas is a good idea, although don't expect him to be very good at this yet. It should be an emerging skill.

I wonder if some kind of chore rotation would help him from getting bored.

I find that music really helps - pumping it though the house can keep me on track. I have wicked ADHD in addition to the ASD. The music really helps when I'm understimulated.