asd and sugar cravings ??

[thriftychic]

i have always limited ds1 and ds2 with sweet stuff. saturday night has always been treat night and i put a biscuit or cake in lunch boxes. yoghurts are always there for them in the fridge so they arent completely sugar starved but ds2 keeps taking stuff on the sly from the cupboards ! hes 13 btw.

none of us take sugar in drinks or anything but i have some sachets (brought back from costa for when mil comes round and now realise ds2 has actually eaten them all.

yesterday i discovered that the box of quality street i had stashed in the top of my wardrobe (for cousin at xmas ) is now just an empty box , not a flippin sweet left in it !

my question is , is this an asd thing ? and also , lying and stealing , is that uncommon in asd ?
we dont have asd diagnosis yet but the psych has more or less said he has it.

Personally I'd take a child that had never ever tried to raid the biscuit tin to a shrink fairly sharpish as I'd see it as a sign of something far more serious than ASD

One of my fave childhood memories is the sneaky pilfering of sugary goodness from my Mum, Gran's and Aunties various hiding places lol! It's the specific behavior most sensible parents use to teach a child stealing is wrong, so impose a sanction. (My neighbour's NT kid didn't get the obligatory punishment & went onto shoplifting with the consequences that getting caught and reported to the police carries - VERY harsh lesson, with a real impact on life chances)

Our kids are still just kids even if they have ASD. Their disability doesn't preclude their ability to be plain naughty sometimes. The ASD is significant in that you sometimes have to rack your brains much harder to
a/ get them to understand that a particular behavior is totally unacceptable in the first place
b/ impose a meaningful sanction (or motivation for ceasing the undesirable behavior in some instances).
c/ sometimes understand the difference between naughty and genuinely "can't help it" (though this seems to be more of a problem for schools than parents tbh).

DS, his Dad, & myself are all what I'd call "carboholics" left to ourselves. I can demolish a loaf of fresh bread or a packet of biscuits at one sitting. For DS I do try and keep his carb intake to a sensible level, as his appetite doesn't seem to have an "off" button.

Don't know if it's and ASD thing or a teenage thing.

DS is the same. If he realises I have been shopping he will ask "Are there any 'nice' drinks. By 'nice' he means fizzy sugary crap such as Dr Pepper, which I only buy as an occasional treat. I now have to hide biscuits and sweets, and only put cereal bars in the cupboard. Fruit is eaten as a last resort. He is very good at looking in a full cupboard and fridge and slamming the doors and declaring "there's nothing to eat"!!!!

Ds will also lie about eating any sweet food he finds - even though he is usually too idle to put the wrapper in the bin, so the evidence is left in the vicinity of where he has been sitting.

And this is all from a boy who was brought up on healthy food and now refuses point blank to eat any green vegetable.

All my Dd's take sweet food, it drives me round the bend.
Dd1 and 3 have ASD although Dd1 is undiagnosed.

Dd2 is NT but she is a nighttime grazer.

When Dd3 was being assessed we were asked about this kind of behaviour and I said it is a big problem in our house but the psychiatrist didnt enlighten me as to whether it is related to the ASD or not.

I personally think it is related to the instant gratification thing. If Dd1 or 3 want something they have to have it now, they cannot wait. So if they are craving sugar they just take something sweet.

I also think that they dont understand the implications of their actions so even if they can quote rules to you about lying and stealing they cant apply it to their own behaviour.

Dd1 is a master liar, I find it very difficult to trust her these days because she has lied so many times over the years.

Dd3 cannot lie at all, thank goodness, I couldnt go through that again.

We tend to hide stuff TBH, fi we dont want them to have it and just leave plain biscuits in the cupboard.

sounds like ds2 !

its not just the food though, we have already had a couple of occasions where he has stolen money. given consequences , massive meltdown and hes done it all again.
ds1 has found that things in his room have been broken, the rule is that nobody takes anybody elses stuff without asking but ds2 doesnt comply.

same sort of thing with his phone , told not to access the internet and use up all his credit doing so , but he has , managed to get on some unprotected network on the way home from school. done it about 4 times despite taking the phone away for months after each occasion. always to look at porn aswell.

i actually dont even want to confront him about the chocolates as its likely that a huge meltdown will happen and the last one he had my kitchen knives and destroyed most of my stuff . i know thats not right but i am so tired with it all.

i have bought a wardrobe lock from B & Q

I eventually asked Dd1 to leave because she was taking money. She was 19 by this time and I had just reached the end of my rope with it.

She used to steal anything, if she needed it or wanted it she just took it.

I have absolutely no advice for you, I am sorry. I wonder if CAMHS might be able to help you

sorry to hear that ineedalife

i think we will be back at camhs in about a month so i will see if they can advise on it.

If you are going back I would recommend keeping a diary of your Ds's behaviour and how you are dealing with it.

If you are anything like me when you get in there you will forget everything. I found a diary really helped the proffs to see what we were up against on an everyday basis.