Aspergers and overprotective parents

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My mum wasn't overprotective by the standards of the time, but she was by the standards of the place I grew up in. That's why I lost my virginity at 18, not 11.

I wish she was a bit more protective regarding school bullies and my cousin beating me up (literally, I was covered in bruises). I'm still a bit angry at her about the last one in particular - though she has apologised.

My parents are extremely overprotective, they've been spoon-feeding me right from the start and now I have issues with independence.

I think your concerns are misplaced, and the proof exists in how well the kids in the current AS bubble are doing. You sound like you wouldn't believe in my parenting style, but I have a 14 year old Aspie being asked by both adults and peers to take on leadership positions, and thriving in them. Forget theory, and look at RESULTS. This group of kids is thriving with the turned-on-its-head parenting, speech therapies, etc. The kids behind my son are getting even more, at least when they live in well tuned in areas, and I am seeing "wins" all over the place. If the ability is there, the right support will bring it out. There is a world of difference between understanding and working with behavior, which is what we are doing, versus excusing it, which is your worry. And the biggest win? My son is 100 percent comfortable in his skin, not just making it in the real world, but making it with a smile on his face. Learning to play the game while knowing why he is playing it, and knowing at every level he has a choice.

OK, I know there are bridges left to cross, but you should see how excited the IEP team is. Years of everyone hunkering down and they are seeing payoffs.

I'm not one for strict parenting, and I get tired of all the blame for everything "wrong" being put on the lack of it. There is one golden rule in parenting: consistency and clarity. Learning to adapt that for an AS child, to make sure they understand what is asked, can only make things better.

I have lived with my grandparents since I was young and they have always been overprotective and at times controlling.
When I was little I was treated kinda like a doll; they would pick out my clothes and hair style (which sucked cause the clothes were itchy and my long hair was a pain). Before starting school I only went two places: home and church (which only had 3 or 4 kids my age). The only time I would go some place different is when my mom would "borrow" me for a while (which often ended with us on the run from the cops or someone she scammed).
When I started school I had no idea how to act, everyone thought I was weird cause I had a different hair color and spoke proper English, so I got into a LOT of fights. Middle school was horrible , I got into a ton of fights (with both students and my grandparents), got bullied, and I still wasn't allowed to go anywhere without supervision (I would sneak out and go into town in the summer without them knowing). High school was much better, I joined two martial arts classes, practically nobody challenged me to any fights, I was finally able to convince them to let me walk around town on my own, and even convinced them I could go to the mall by myself!

In my senior year of high school I was diagnosed with aspergers and that all my little quirks that they chose to ignore up until then weren't going to go away. My grandma was really depressed, but I was pretty relieved to know I was different and not just crazy. Unfortunately since my diagnosis they've gone back to being overprotective; they're still worried that I might get kidnapped or conned if left alone (by then I have to remind them of my age and that know quite a bit of self defense). They also thought that since I'm an aspie I wouldn't be able to live by myself, but I've since proven that I can take care of myself just fine, and that I'm actually better at taking care of myself than my grandpa.
All of these times remind me of one of my favorite quotes, "There will be plenty of people rooting for you to fail; that's what makes it all the more fun when you win".

Not all parents hover like a helicopter, some are neglectful or don't care (unfortunately i've seen it).
There are various parenting styles out there.
To include the whole vast spectrum of Autism children and how they were parented might make a good research study though...
It would have to include different demographics..

My parents are rather overprotective, I often get given 'advice' I already know, and the annoying thing is that if I tell them that they'll say I'm being arrogant. They also ask me a lot of questions when sometimes I don't want to answer. I live away from them at times as I'm at university, and feel better about myself the more I'm on my own.

To this day, my mom is still very overprotective of both me and my sister.

My parents weren't. When we were little they mostly neglected us. If they see us by dinner time and we sleep at home at night that was good enough. Sometimes when there's a big argument or fight at home (which was common) I ran away for a few hours to avoid the trouble. They never worried or looked for me, they knew I'd return by bedtime. I walked to school and back everyday by myself and could go visit anyone by myself. Of course this was the culture back then and we lived in a safe area. I pretty much could roam outside all day since I was potty trained. All other kids were like that, too. I could even go see a doctor in the hospital by myself. Sometimes I really miss those long summer days when I walked around visiting friends everyday. Yes even aspies enjoy friends if they're their own type. Sometimes I don't know how kids here can tolerate so little freedom. They can't even go for a haircut without someone "taking" them.

I was raised very traditional, but not in a bad way. I knew certain things were expected and I was not really given an excuse for bad behavior. There were some times when they seemed to be protective, but that was usually my mum.

My mother was (and to an extent still is) way too overprotective and was treated like a teenager as an adult and like a small child as a teenager. I'm still mad that she refused to let me do many activities with other kids did (like skateboarding) and made me even more of an Aspie (i.e. bullied and alone). She also pushed me into studying at university when I realized (and still do) it was a terrible idea and I have a degree that I will never fully use when what I wanted to do (Trades) would have made me very financially secure and I would have enjoyed it too.

Ugh. If I hear one more time that "everyone is bullied" I'm going to scream! There's a difference between being called a name and being afraid to walk around the school because you could get attacked by 5-10 kids with no warning or to have the whole class offer to pay you to sit away in the corner.

When parents overprotect kids, it's one thing. At least they have a chance in life. But there will likely be a time the parents are gone for a disabled child, and the state agency that is going to take over their care will be some shill for the government, and just haul the (likely now adult) child off to some institution...like the aps did to me when the person who should not be, but is, held responsible for me, was arrested under false pretenses.

I first read this as 'Aspergers and Protective Pants'.

Then I saw it was a thread raised from the dead... twice!

My parents were not overprotective at all.

I remember how much I envied my friends which had always home parents and grandparents, dinner ready when they got back from school and their mom cleaning their room. I was often staying in their home instead of heading straight home because they could treat me dinner sometimes.

Once I returned home there was usually noone there(mom working 8-17, dad working shifts = 1 week at work till 8pm, 1 week home till 6pm and 1 week sleeping after night shift, over and over) and I had to not only take care of myself but also prepare dinner for dad (just peel the potatoes and find a salad, meat was waiting in refrigerator prepared by mom the day before).

I was taking care of myself. If I was hungry I had to prepare some food and eat. If I hurt myself I had to find the first aid kit and figure out how to use it. And If I forgot the key I had to break into the house... It was a huge creativity lesson because I was forgetting key often and there was no specific emergency plan - I had to use different windows, depending which one and if any was slit, I was even forced to use one of 1st floor once, I borrowed a ladder from neighbor then .
And if something really bad happened I had to figure out what to do by myself. For example when our water boiler exploded I run out of the house, waited on street and asked a neighbor passing by for help. And when our coal heating machine started boiling water I gathered some snow and thrown it in to stop the overheating.

My mom was only taking care of me when I was doing homework since I needed supervise for a while. I managed to start doing homeworks unsupervised at age 11 or so but even then I had to ask mom for help with history essays. At times I was forcing my mom to write an essay for me because I was simply unable to do it. My mind was blank when I had to write a history essay and I couldn't help it no matter how hard I tried.

Other than that she was just letting me be. Once I started doing homeworks by myself she was just asking me "Homework done?" everyday and I could answer "Yes", "I got nothing to do today." or "Not yet." and she was not digging any further unless I precisely said "I need help".
I was often forgetting stuffs because of that. I could really use her browsing my notes because while I was doing fine with homeworks that could be done during one evening I often failed long time assessments (everyday after returning from school I was doing only the homeworks I remembered to do, then every evening was checking homeworks for the next day subjects and doing what's not yet done).
You can't use glue and color paper if you have no at home. You can't gather everyday house water use measure from a whole week by just checking it the day before the due date, you can't read a whole book for tomorrow literature lesson within a few hours.

I was bullied at school but I wouldn't get much help about that from my parents. Mom was just giving me emotional support ("You are smart, beautiful girl. Don't pay attention to those jerks.") and dad was telling me to stop being a crybaby and learn to control my emotions.

I still remember one time when dad got pretty angry though. He was called to school because I had a meltdown and broke a window. Everything would be as always - me being "a crybaby and emotionally instable kid that needs some spanking to get straight" - but when we were passing by the school one of the "brilliant" bullies thrown a flowerpot at me off the 2nd floor. It didn't hit any of us but dad got furious and run to school. I don't know what exactly he has done but bulling stopped for a while after that. I suppose dad threaten the guy that dropped the flowerpot, especially since he happened to know his parents and living place (mom of the guy was my moms former classmate).

My Dad was quite strict with extremely high expectations for all of his children. My Mom was definitely overly protective, particularly with me. Growing up, I had thought that this was to compensate for my Dad’s nasty behavior/treatment. Now I am not so certain.

What I realize now is that had my Dad not pushed me so hard (with the expectation that I would be a highly functioning, successful member of society), I would probably still be living at their home, unwilling to leave the safety of my cocoon. It made me appreciate how critical the “nurture” aspect is for enabling Aspies to improve their level of “functioning” within this crazy world.

My parents were not overprotective.
They probably did more than normal for me when I was small child, but then made me be more independent than normal in late childhood and teenage years.

Mine weren't over protective. They never kept me boxed in and sheltered and I was allowed to go to birthday parties and have friends over and go to their houses. They let me get independent, and I was always treated at my age level and expected to follow the rules and have consequences. I was never treated as disabled and I was allowed to do activities. I can remember my mom threatening me that she would stay in school with me if she found out I cut school and I knew I didn't want that because the last thing I needed was other kids seeing my mother hanging out with me and giving them another reason to tease me. I do wonder if she was serious though because I was a kid then so I didn't even think that if she had to do that, she wouldn't be ale to work and she wouldn't be able to pay for my therapies. I didn't know then she used her money she earned to pay for them or else they wouldn't have been able to afford it out of their own pocket on my dad's income alone. But if I had this knowledge as I did when I was 12, I would have known and the threat wouldn't have worked with me or I would have just thought I wouldn't see my therapist anymore and my occupational therapist and I would have to make a choice between them or cutting school so I guess that threat still would have worked because my mom would have pointed this out to me. I was also allowed to play outside alone but I still had to let my mom know where I was at all times and ask to leave the yard first, normal parent stuff and I also played alone in my own room or playing or being in the sun room alone, I didn't have an adult hovering after me at all times and in high school I was allowed to go to places alone when I got my license and I would drive myself to my own doctor appointments. It just made it easier on my parents and sometimes I would give my brothers a ride.

But no way were they neglectful so I think it was middle ground, not over protective and not neglectful and they did things that would be illegal today and get your kids taken for such as being left alone in the car or the time when my dad and I went out to Montana together, he too out all the seats in our mini van and put a sleeping bag back there for me to sleep in and lie down on, or lying across the seats in our mini van and sleeping, or being on my mom's lap when I was a toddler, or having play pen in our van and having out all the seats and we went to a drive in theater.