Should there be consequences or discipline?

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I have a stepson who has been diagnosed from a young age with AS. My question is: Shouldn't there be consequences or house rules to abide by? "House rules" are what my husband and I are trying to impose on our 18 year old son (my step-son). He obviously has never had any...

He's been doing well in school, has been holding down a 30 plus hour a week job (Subway), but we can't seem to keep him under control around his siblings. He seems to disrupt whichever household he is in with no consequences...

Example: This past weekend, my "kids", 23 & 26 came over to the house to put a couple of mopeds together. My stepson was told as were my kids, that stepson was not to ride it. He had never been on one and my husband and I were going to teach him when we returned from our weekend getaway.

At first my stepson was going to be staying with his mom, but ended back up at our house because he was having a meltdown there.

When my kids were putting it together, stepson went into an absolute rage and started throwing things (wrenches, gas cans, whatever) because he was told he couldn't ride. My stepson continually lies and lied about having ridden one his brother has. His brother does not have a moped and he has NEVER ridden. He ended up being approached by my 23 year old to be settled down. Stepson took off down the street and called the police.

My kids were made to leave and his mother ended up coming and getting him. We left our getaway cabin at midnight to make the 4 hour drive home.

My kids have made it a point to mention that they will not come over when stepson is there as this has happened once before with the angry outbursts and lies...

How do you impose "house rules" when things like this happen? He's an excellent student at school (senior year), has never been in trouble at school, is doing a fantastic job at his work, but yet can't seem to control his anger around his step brothers or siblings....his mother can't handle him for more than a day or two.

thanks.

He holds down a 30+ hour work week and is doing great in school? That's fantastic!

From your description it sounds like either he uses all his energy to keep it together at school and at work, and then has nothing left when it comes to dealing with home life and explodes, and/or he thrives in the structured school/work environments but there is something about the home environment that keeps him from being successful there. Either way, I would talk to him about what it is at home that makes it really difficult for him there, and make a plan together that helps to improve things. Discipline sounds kind of counter productive in this situation, and not all that applicable to an 18 year old young man.

Given the situation, I wouldn't leave him alone in the house with his siblings or step brothers. Not until you've investigated why the situation is so explosive and made a solid plan to improve things, and gotten everyone on board the new plan (including the step siblings).

I agree with Annotated Alice. Are you aware of how hard it is, and how unusual it is, for an aspie teen to be holding down both a full time job AND be doing well in school? Wait a minute - that's fairly unusual for typical teen too. So if he's succeeding in both of those EXTREMELY challenging roles, you are going to have to cut him some slack at home. He is most definitely using up all his energy being "good" when he's away from home.

All kids need house rules, but I don't think that's the issue here, and I don't think consequences are the (whole) answer.

I would say that this situation may have been predictable, and therefore avoidable. Why did the mopeds have to be put together at your house? Why did they have be put together when you weren't home to manage the situation? Why haven't your adult children learned enough about aspergers and autism to empathize with their step-brother?

These may sound like harsh questions, but I don't mean them that way. I mean them honestly - those are honestly the kind of questions you need to ask yourself, when you have an aspie in your life.

Consequences for meltdowns don't generally work, although it is crucial to have discussions during calm times about why violence is unacceptable and what can happen when we are violent toward others (ie. hurting people, being arrested, etc). And helping him - possibly with professional therapy - to find acceptable ways to channel his anger.

I would hazard a guess that in the particular situation you described your stepson probably had a difficult time accepting the authority of his step brothers telling him he couldn't ride the moped. Do you think his reaction would have been the same or different if you and your husband had been there to be the ones to enforce the rule you made that he was not to ride? I agree with annotated_alice about sitting down with him and making a plan to improve home life and maybe his interaction with his step brothers should be part of that discussion. If there is ever a time when they are all at your house together when you are not around, the rules should be clear about who has the authority when you are not there.

Thank you all for your replys. Given the situation that happened, had we to go back and do it all over again, it would've come out differently.

I agree with everything that has been said. I never thought of him as "using up all his energy elsewhere". Makes perfect sense.

Arrangements were made for my boys to come over on Sunday when we were home.... They changed their plans to accomodate one of their friends who is a mechanic as the assembly was more involved than first thought. We were midway thru our vacation before we could rationalize what could have possibly gone wrong. I guess this is where we "live and learn". Kyle just looks at my boys as them all being "equal" I suppose and not as authoritive figures...which I understand that too.

My boys don't truly understand his condition and I guess that is my fault as I haven't made it a point to talk to them in depth.

Thank you again for all your responses...a talk will ensue over the course of the weekend so as to avoid further disruptions in our household.

Like I have said, he's doing an amazing job in the other areas and for that we are grateful.

One of the biggest problems our kids face is they present so 'normally' to other people. Often it isn't until you get to know them well that it becomes obvious that there's something going on other than they're a bit "odd" or "eccentric"... sometimes you'd never know!
It's so completely normal for 18 year olds to want to explore risk taking behaviour, and there's a fine line between our duty of care and their right to take risks just like anyone else. If you were 18 and someone told you that you couldn't do something, how would you respond? I think stepson's reaction isn't out of the sphere of "normal" reactions for an 18 year old, in all honesty.

I have been in you sons shoes
just have faith that this too will pass.
When i was 17, I drove my parents car through the back wall of the garage, broke my fathers 1961 fender guitar, broke windows, walls, in violent outbursts. I ended up in "the loony bin" more than once as the result of my actions and eventually was kicked out of the house.
it took years to mend the relationship between me and my parents.
But it has happened.
As rough as it is for the folks on the outside you can't even imagine what he is going through trapped on the inside.
I will say (as a man who has pursued his career in behavior analysis) that consequences are an essential part of learning, however punishment only teaches the learner to be sneaky, and to avoid or confront the punisher. Presuming that he can understand it a behavior contract might be appropriate, (ie you offer X reward that he desires,in return for Y, say no violent outbursts), the one caution is that failing to uphold the contract can create far larger problems (the occasion that got me kicked out of my parents home as a teenager was after my father reneged and pushed for more than the agreement.) the basic idea is that there are far more powerful motivators for a young man (for me it was borrow the car to see my girlfriend) than any parent could directly provide. Take advantage of them to help your son manage his behavior.

hope this helps some.

Kailuamom I think you really hit the nail on the head with that last phrase - doing the best they can in any given moment. This has definitely been my experience - my learning experience - with my son. I have learned that the type of agreement you described is almost destined to fail, because in that moment when they are in a rage, or frustrated beyond words, they are essentially incapable of stopping all that flood of emotion and saying to themselves "wait - I want to go to ac/dc - I will not diffuse and not touch this person". In fact I don't believe ANY young person would be able to do that in the heat of the moment.

My understanding of positive motivation - reward systems - for kids with ASD is that in order to work they must be POSITIVE. So the flaw in your agreement (and in so many that I've made with my own son) is that we are offering a reward for NOT doing something negative.

That's actually the opposite of a positive reward. A positive reward focusses on what they DO that's GOOD, rather than what they don't do that's bad.

So in your son's case or any case where the goal is to keep hands off of people, you need to catch them being good, notice when they get frustrated but don't lash out, recognize when they are diffusing situations instead of fueling fires, and also provide them with specific tangible methods to use (like, when you're angry take 10 breaths before thinking or doing anything) etc. And every time they do that, reward them.

I've also found that it's generally unwise to reserve the mega-rewards (the things they REALLY REALLY want - like AC/DC tickets) for those things which are most challenging for them, or things they are most likely to not have control over (ie anger and frustration). Because it can tend to set them up for tremendous dissappointment which magnifies their sense of failure and lack of control, instead of helping them to move on it makes them dwell on it even more. I try to keep reasonable rewards, but the favourites are saved for "just because I love you".

i am with you on that, the key to any behavior intervention is replacing the skills that have been learned with new ones that work with the rest of the world. If the issue is a lack of coping skills the distant rewards loose their effectiveness (ie there is a stronger contingency that is controlling the behavior) (would be happy to debate radical behaviorism, but that is its own thread) .
and I hear ya it is tough.
Rewards are largely for the benefit of the teacher(they simplify the equation). Reinforcement is what we are really looking for (ie strengthening behaviors, such as coping skills) to put it another way you are reinforced for the behavior of reaching into your pocket/purse for your car keys by virtue of having them available to use in the next step of the chain of behavior that goes into driving somewhere, i don't think you would argue that you are rewarded for it. (reinforcement is anything that makes it more likely that a behavior will be repeated in the future under a similar set of circumstances). If you can learn a set of coping skills that helps you get through a highly stressful situation (even if it takes something from outside the equation to motivate the initially) the environment will take over with regard to providing reinforcement.
just as another example to encourage a child who is learning to read we might offer extrinsic rewards, such as stickers or when I was in 2-3 grade pizza (some deal pizza hit was doing, you got a coupon for a free pizza if you read x number of books)
in any case we bring in something that the environment does not in order to encourage the learner to pursavre when they become frustrated or bored. Once the learning has occurred reading is motivated by its own contingencies: obtaining information, entertainment, communication, ect ( we call this trapping or capturing the behavior in its natural consequences)
a combination of smaller short term reinforcements for engaging in coping behaviors (would have to know specifics of the individual to say what was best)
ultimately they should be trapped by the natural environment by virtue of the fact that they provide for the same function as the problem behavior.



I keep hounding on this for one reason, our natural instinct is to punish. In addition to having an ASD I work with adults who have far more profound ASD as well as MR of various etiologies. I have watched people that I have respected and called friends engage in behavior that has left me no other choice but to see that they never worked in the field again.
The problem with punishment is that it reinforces the punishing agent (example: say your driving with the kids in the car and their yelling, screaming, and just making you crazy, hollering shut the F up at the top of your lungs may very well result in an abrupt end to the undesired behavior, however, by virtue of the fact it worked this time you will be quicker to use it next time, and the time after that, until it doesn't work, now you are in a state where abuse happens (this is how I trained my staff when I was managing a group home)

Well he's 18, so it's not appropriate to impose the usual punishments you would for a child, because he is not a child. In fact, he's an adult, and you should treat him as you would any other adult.

If an adult came to my house and became upset and started throwing things, I would ask them to leave and I would probably not invite them back. If they didn't leave, I would call the cops.

If it were a family member, I would expect an apology and if they didn't offer one then we have not reconciled.

Just because someone has AS doesn't mean they can't be respectful of others and act as guests should.

Hi Chronos. That's harder said than done. My son and his sister were having such a lot of trouble getting along, that it came to a point where it may have got violent. My husband stepped between the two of them and said "If you hurt your sister, you're out of this house". My son didn't hit his sister, which was really interesting, since we didn't think he cared whether he stayed at home or was thrown out. The fact that he didn't hit her, showed us that he had more invested in staying at his father's house than the moment of anger. It showed us a lot of things, the primary thing being that he could have self control when things got really grim and the consequences were so dire that he would consider them. As it turned out, my younger daughter moved out to live with her older sister. It had got to the point where she didn't feel safe being home while her Dad was still at work.

The curve ball of all this is that my husband felt an enormous sense of guilt for putting such an ultimatum to him, and he apologised wholeheartedly for his words. He reassured our son that he would never ask him to leave, and that he had a home there as long as my husband was alive.

I understand my husband's frustration and his words in the heat of the moment. The truth is, as parents, we can't kick our kids to the kerb. Which leaves us with a very real dilemma about whether there are any sanctions we can apply (apart from "you're out!) that will carry any significance for a young adult on the spectrum.

I guess what my experience and now research has tought me, is to reward behavior that is choice based. If my child has the motivation and ability, then the reward system is great. If he doesn't have either the motivation OR skill - it is perceived as punishment.

Personally, we have found that all of the "positive" reinforcement systems look to my DS as punishments. He expects that he should be anle to achieve 100%, so anything less is deemed as being taken away and is punishment.

I think these systems are fine for motivating someone to do something that is not preferable, but is possisble. My point with the concert was to see if he had the skill. Prior to that, I really thought he had that skill and was making bad choices. After the concert incident, I got a much better understanding of my child's skill level.

And to take it to the next step; this type of system is used at DS's school, and has increased his anxiety exponentially. He does the best he can, but as yet hasn't learned to gauge his internal condition, so meltdowns happen (it feels like) randomly. He is so afraid of having one at school, that he refuses school and then has also been so stressed that he has had some psychotic episodes. The episodes are not related to his AS (I don't think), however the stress and anxiety are destablizing him from a mental health perspective.

I really don't like this style of system. I haven't seen good stuff, only bad.

I agree Kailuamom, and in fact the only times the reward based system has worked for my son is when I am implementing it for a skill/goal I am certain he is capable of and just needs the right motivation to keep working at it. I think you have a lot of great insight into your son's situation at school. Do the teachers consult with you before they implement these reward based strategies?

The other night at an AS parent support group meeting, we were talking about ABA and RDI (relationship development intervention). I was saying that, from what I've read/heard (and I could be completely wrong as my son has done neither) the ABA targets specific skills, while RDI targets relationship management techniques. I wonder if RDI might be a good way to handle the OP's situation.

I'm interested in learning more about RDI... I'm going to search the archives here to see if anyone's discussed it already.