My ASD Child

“We have a 28 year old son with ASD (high-functioning) who refuses to leave our house. He is a college graduate with a marketable degree, but he refuses to get a real job. He has earned a considerable amount of money playing online poker and just laughs in my face and tells me to shut up when I tell him that gaming is not a way to earn a living. I recently told him that if he was going to support himself by gambling that he needed to find a new place to live. He threw a huge tantrum, got in my face, cussed me out, and dared me to kick him out. On top of everything else, he does not clean up after himself. You’d think we had a 16 year old living here! We are at our wits end. We don't want to strain our relationship with our son by getting the police involved because we love him and have had plenty of good times over the years. But we are getting older, and it’s time for him to go. My wife and I are getting ready to retire and we do not need to spend our retirement dealing with thi

“I have a 17-year-old son with high functioning autism. A big issue is social. He prefers to be alone rather than be with people. He has acquaintances at school that are nice and friendly with him but really no actual friends. He is perfectly content staying in his room playing video games. He is also very anxious and OCD. He likes things perfectly routine and on schedule. Gets very anxious if things aren't exactly on schedule, if something is out of place, or if doors and windows aren't closed and locked before we leave home or at bedtime. Homework is like dragging a horse to water, and short of drowning it, won't take water! Also, he has poor eating habits and problems with taking showers, combing his hair, and other hygiene-related things. I guess my main question is how can I help him cope better as a teenager – and help him get ready for adulthood? We seem to be so far behind schedule. There are so many things he needs to improve on, but I feel time is running out.

“I have a 5 year old with high-functioning autism. Whenever he encounters something frustrating, it’s like he ‘flips a switch’. He will go from cheerful and engaged to mad and yelling in one split second. I'm not sure if this happens simply because he encounters something hard, or if it is a buildup of frustration over time that results in a big meltdown when he finally hits his tipping point. Maybe he misses his anger cues throughout the day, and that causes a flood of emotions when he confronts something particularly frustrating. Are there some ways to teach him to calm himself so that he doesn’t get to the point of exploding?” Most kids with High-Functioning Autism (HFA) and Asperger’s (AS) struggle with low-frustration tolerance. Frustration is a powerful emotion, and their reactions can be intense in the moment. “Typical” children usually know when their anger buttons are being pushed. And many of them know what they need to do to work through something frustrating in