My mum just apologised to my 13 yo son for raising such a difficult parent for him

[TheSummerGone]

sigh

Your mother is being ridiculous, but please don’t call your child an idiot or say he looks like an idiot. That’s a horrible term and as the parent of a child with autism and SN I can tell you that it is a term he’s liable to have slung at him in future.

Spanked as in S & M? Your child said that? WTH!?!?

Don't be ridiculous
Spanked as in smacked

DH reckons I am too wordy with him - & that being more direct and assertive would stress him less than the longwinded explaining.

It's not my normal vocabulary to the kids - but when we'd had ten solid minutes of "DBro is a baby who poopy poops his nappy - plop plop plop" - and we'd segued into waggling sticking out tongue & gurning.... it kind of was being an idiot .... and I took DHs advice of using 1 word rather than 50 to describe the problem.

Have you been to any parenting courses around ASD? I ask for two reasons, the first is that you say that he ‘is’ ASD rather than ‘has’ or ‘is on the autism spectrum and the second is because in ours it was hammered home that you have to be very clear with communication, not too wordy and say what you want.

It sounds like a different choice of word would have been more effective but I totally get that parenting a child who is on the spectrum is challenging and a massive case of trial and error.

No parenting courses MN is my teacher

I second parenting courses, for parents and grandparents. Also try how to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk Faber and mazlish. An excellent book, works with kids and grandparents

She is right i that she is your Mum and she calls the shots thats what i tell my DD, she doesnt seem to agree