I'm finding this a very thought-provoking thread, but it's hard to read and there is so much I don't agree with here. However, I'll add my twopenn'orth.
I'm the parent to a severely autistic son in his early teens, and he has significant learning disabilities too, which combine pretty seamlessly with the autism. It's impossible to separate these conditions from one another, just as it's impossible to separate them from my son. If he didn't have autism, and to this severity, he would be an entirely different person.
His autism informs everything he does, is interested in and how he functions. To train him out of any outward manifestations of this has, at times, seemed futile, as we know his brain is simply wired that way. We can't change the wiring, and we know that the behaviours are a symptom of the wiring, or sometimes a way of coping with the wiring of his brain coming up against the rest of the world.
But. I do try sometimes. We would never have a 'zero tolerance' approach - what a brutal, stupid phrase! 'Zero tolerance' with my child would look like - probably him locked up in a bare room somewhere and the rest of us trying to ignore his screaming.
But we try to tweak and modify his behaviours. Now he's 13 he's a bit more amenable to reasoning with. But please remember - cognitively, he's mostly about 3/4 (and yes we did have this assessed two years ago, privately because the LA were utterly crap and had never done an educational psychologist assessment at a point when he was able to co-operate with the tasks, and we needed an assessment of his abilities in order to get him into a far better special school). So it's very hard for him to grasp concepts like deferred gratification, or pro quid quo, or just plain and simply 'no, you can't do that, it's dangerous!'.
At 13 he is wiry-strong and if he wants to do something it's almost impossible to stop him physically. So yes, our family life is reduced. We take my older son off to do certain things and the other one of us does something lower key with my autistic son. Family days out are a challenge and very limited in scope. Holidays are a challenge but he does actually like travelling and exploring. Every time we get on a plane for the very short flight we take each summer to the same place, I think 'maybe this will be the last time, this might be the last time he's allowed on, he might kick off.' Our lives are becoming smaller. And I feel like we sleep-walked into this - but what are the alternatives? ABA was never an option, it's intensive, requires vast funds that we don't have, and very few special schools in the country support it. (plus we disagree with its central tenet, that you focus on the behaviour rather than the iceberg of neurology beneath it). We have a great school for him now but it's a day school. Getting any sort of respite care including nights in a unit at school needs a social worker, and thus far we haven't been able to get one. He's getting violent in his meltdowns as his teenage hormones kick in. So hey, maybe that will help get a social worker. How bruised do I have to be before someone finally gives a shit, eh?
He is often a joyful, lovely, gorgeous boy. He takes joy in all sorts of things and that gives us joy. He'll always have LDs alongside the autism that is part of him.
Our lives, and his life, seems lightyears away from NT society's view of 'an autistic kid' and we feel invisible. Please don't forget about people like us.