To think my son is an ungrateful brat. I have gone badly wrong

[Skatingonthinice16]

Ds, aged 7, has always been demanding and hard work in lots of ways. But as he's grown older he's becoming increasingly rude. He was very ungrateful over Christmas presents and basically anything anyone does for him or with him isn't good enough.

My elderly parents took him out for the day today on a special day out. It was expensive for a start off but that isn't why I'm annoyed. I'm annoyed because they took a day out just for him doing something he would enjoy - it wasn't something they particularly would want to do otherwise. He left the house at 9am and they've just dropped him back. As soon as he walked in he picked up his iPad. I asked him to put it down just until my parents had gone and to tell me about his day. To which he went 'yeah yeah blah blah blah, I want my iPad.'
They'd seen a show so I asked him to show me the programme and he said 'shall I tell you some facts about my life? Number one it's sooooo boring.' And then to my parents: 'are you going now so I can play on my iPad?'
He's such an ungrateful little shit. It must be my fault. I've brought him up. I've gone wrong somewhere because he's horrible. I'm so annoyed with him I don't even want to talk to him. This isn't one off behaviour. This is behaviour we see a lot now. He hasn't been allowed his iPad. However it won't stop him behaving like this again. Nothing does.

Any advice??

Aww, that is really sweet of him!

Yes I've suffered from PND which I know won't have helped.
Let me say though that some of these challenging behaviours have always been there. I'd raised him having HF autism with school before dd was born. So although I don't doubt it's made it worse it's not exclusively down to this.

Oh dear. I synpathise with you but I also sympathise with him. Haven't you ever had a long, wonderful, exciting, demanding day with people you care and about and have done your very best to behave well for all day long, and when you get home at the end of it all you want to do is crash out on the sofa and be left alone with the TV and your mind a total blank? If he has an ASC he will probably be in desperate need of "autie time" with his iPad by the end of a long day out. In those pre-iPad days I used to park DS in front of the telly to recover every day after school.

Don't worry. What you need right now from DS is not gratitude, it's just minimal not-rudeness in front of your parents. You certainly don't need him to immediately tell you all about his day out. Let your parents do that. The trick is to put his iPad upstairs before he leaves, then when he gets home tell him to say thank you and goodbye to granny and granddad and send him upstairs "for a rest" (with his iPad) while you and your parents have a nice cuppa and you hear all about the lovely day from them. If he has an ASC you should tell him exactly what to do and say before granny and granddad even come to pick him up so he knows what to do in advance, keep it very short, and when he gets home he goes through the motions and all's well.

Kids with ASCs often have especial difficulties around beginnings and endings of events and greetings and goodbyes, especially dragged out ones. My DS (ASc diagnosis) never understood why family would take forever saying goodbye and then stand around chatting in the hallway. He used to kick people - and I mean people he loves - if they went on too long. So finding a polite way to get my DS upstairs and out of the way (we used to tell him to go upstairs to wave people off from the window) was imperative. And before everyone tuts about needing to learn better, that was him at seven, not him as an adult. And he learned better, in time. From that little bit of politeness that he could handle at the end of a visit (waving from the window) better things grew.

You can lay down the law til you are blue in the face and take away his iPad and all the rest but it wont actually get you anywhere. Not with an overtired over-stimulated seven year old with an ASC. The important thing is not too expect too much, get your DS to do the little bit he can do and then get him safely away before it all goes wrong.

Oops

Anyway...

After all the stress and anxiety of coping all day (trying to figure out what people mean, sarcasm, what their body language means, is my body language appropriate, should I say that, I've spent so long trying to get what I'm going to say that this now don't know what's going on) I need to wind down somewhere dark and silent.

Obviously as a child I couldn't really self regulate like this and after being asked questions would explode at home. My teachers didn't recognise the child my parents described and vice versa.

"Whyyyyy do people think it's OK to say "is he an only child?" as if this might explain everything!?!? Folks, it's not a guarantee of an unruly, spoilt, ungrateful child. Come on!

Yet I can generally spot one within three lessons. Also fairly accurate on youngest in the family or who has a massive age gap. I don't know how, it's just quite clear having taught for so long."

And yet, many only children go on to become fully functioning, caring, pleasant adults. . Some even have, you know, friends and go on to have families of their own ;)

Anyway, we digress.

OP, it sounds like you have a lot to deal with pretty much on your own (if DH is away a lot). No wonder you are feeling so stressed out.

He told one child that Santa wasn't 'scientifically plausible.'

And quite right too! Aw, what a cutie.

I love him but I don't like him a lot of the time. Which makes me feel guilty and he knows I'm sure. But when he's constantly attacking me with something or incessantly repeating everything I say in a stupid voice or refusing to put his shoes on to go out it is immeasurably wearing. And yet he can be a delight and great company. Just not very often.

I do sympathise OP, your post so reminds me of my DDs (challenging DD1, delightful DD2). It's not that you have gone wrong at all - it's that you have a child with some challenging needs. At the end of some days I could just cry about how impossible it all seems and how foul her behaviour has been. We address the bad behaviour, but it feels so negative when you are having to do that all the time. There have definitely been good and bad phases, and around 8/9 years was particularly bad for us. On another note, my nephew has diagnosed ASD and his doctor has recommended some iPad downtime.

I wouldn't necessarily introducing chores as a way to earn privileges. It may make things worse and encourage an attitude of only doing something if he gets a reward from it. I would definitely up the chores but as an everyone pitches in thing rather than for rewards

I've got three kids. 8,7 and 4. Younger two both have autism. With my 7 year old she can be seen as bratty but we're quite tough and don't tolerate rudeness. She is still punished. I also find the iPad makes both the older two's behaviour worse. They pick up all sorts from it.

I've got autism (my parents didn't see it) and when I was younger I was very blunt and quite often rude. It was really just a way of getting out the stress because I'd be tired.

My middle DC (7 with asd) had huge issues when our youngest was born and still finds the youngest an unpleasant addition to the family. If he's got hfa all the social stuff has to be taught to him. It's not natural like for most other kids. Next time ask him to thank the grandparents but let him have some down time. If he's rude obviously not but he'll need some time to process the day and just rebuild his energy. A lot of questions when he was shattered probably made it worse.

You have my deepest sympathy tho as asd is really hard for the person and the people around them.

Your mil sounds like part of the problem tbh - hf autism or not, those comments aren't going to make anyone feel good

I am shocked at this thread.
I think you are getting a hard time OP and on a different day you would get a different response.
Giving an iPad to a 7 year old is where you went wrong .... suggested pp.
what?
All kids I know of 7 and 8 have access to some sort of device, round here.
And many of them are very entitled, spoilt, unappreciative, like a brat. Rude.
Even the nice ones.
And I've been complaining about this for years, on MN and to Camhs etc, and told it was 'just the way it was these days'.

I'd go off it if either of mine behaved like that. They wouldn't be allowed whatever their favourite thing to do is for a significant amount of time each time it happened until it stopped.

Has your husband had a word with his cow of a mother?

His language isolates him from his peers He told one child that Santa wasn't 'scientifically plausible.'

He sounds SO like my child, who is now almost 14. He was assessed for dyspraxia twice but didn't tick enough boxes to merit a formal diagnosis. He is very bright though and masks well, covering up for his appalling handwriting and the fact he struggles with group interactions and anything he doesn't excel at. Art and Music have been a constant struggle as he finds them difficult and prefers to not take part. His social skills are poor - he doesn't pick up on other people being bored by him, or disinterested/embarrassed by what he is saying. We had a school report just before Christmas which said something like "displays impressive knowledge which he is keen to share, but struggles to recognise the appropriateness to his audience". In other words, know it all who bores the rest of the class.

It is hard dealing with a child like this and I've been doing it twice as long as you and without PND and the rest of it. My child needs his space. He can't cope with prolonged interaction with other people and very much needs alone time. At 7 he would have struggled to spend a whole day in other people's company and then come home and spend more time with them, he would have wanted to retreat to his room and play with Lego alone. Other people struggle to recognise this need for space though, especially the grandparents.

I would leave it today and speak to him about what is expected and how he should be behaving. Don't say stuff like "Granny was embarrassed" as he probably won't get it.

Sorry I didn't RTFT. If there are other issues then I'm unsure how I would proceed as I don't have any experience

How helpful sj. Have you actually read the thread? Do you have an autistic child?

X-post. Sorry for my rude comment.

Sorry I hadn't realised it was such a long thread, didn't realise more details had been added.

Msg and frusso

If you are quoting me I didn't say asd parents think their children get a free pass for their children's behaviour. If you read my post I said it means asd parents have to work harder.

As I said in my post I am a asd parent and I said how exhausting it is!

Luna - yes! Ds has dreadful writing and cannot draw even a simple house or stick person. He says he can't because he can't picture what it looks like. Even with a photo or the actual object in front of him. General knowledge is absolutely immense. Retains everything he's ever heard I think.

Op you could be writing about my son DS8. He got a high functioning autism diagnosis this year (took about a year). I always knew. From what I have read it's not unusual for high functioning autism to be diagnosed around this age as it becomes more apparent.

My son is doing a programme at school called Zones of regulation. It helps then recognise their own emotions and coping strategies. My sons is a masker, but when he gets in whoosh!

Pop over to Sn chat, you will get some helpful advice on getting support etc

DD 9's like this. I think it's an age thing. Just keep correcting his behaviour.

He also has a very superior attitude. He's now told me a little about his day but only that there was 'a really annoying boy behind me who had a tantrum. How pathetic. Why have a tantrum? I was like really? What are you doing?'
And that's all he's gone on about. This is also typical. He does it after school too: X in my class couldn't even do 6x4, I mean how stupid can you be to not even do that?
I don't find this particularly endearing either.