Explaining manners

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Tomorrow I have a group of adult friends coming for tea. I explained to my family that they are welcome to come and help themselves to goodies from the table on two conditions: they must say hello and they must be properly dressed.

15yo ds has ASD. (Do we still say high-functioning? Anyway, that's him.) It's not the saying hello that he takes issue with, but the having to be dressed. He's in his own home, so why shouldn't he be comfortable?

It's one of those fuzzy social interaction things that are so tricky to explain. I don't want to make it a "Because I say so."

Any suggestions?

Does dressed mean ‘not in pants’ or ‘not in pjs’? If latter I’d be tempted to let it slide.

PJs and his dressing gown. Especially his dressing gown. Which he lives in. Which I have to peel off him to get it into the washing machine. And which, because he is a teenage boy, announces its presence to your nose before he gets anywhere near you.

Hmm. Could you compromise on a clean dressing gown? Or even a new dressing gown?

After a holiday, ds's dressing gown normally goes in the wash at 8.16am on Monday morning - ie the moment he has left the house to go to school. The difficulty is washing it during holidays. And it's big and thick and will take a couple of days to dry at this time of the year.

But the dressing gown is a red herring. It's social behaviour that's the issue. Ds got the hang of things like nudity/semi-nudity in the privacy of your own home is fine as long as the only people around are your immediate family. But when puberty struck nudity was replaced by his dressing gown.

It is tricky, I can see that.

10 minutes before my friends were due to arrive, ds was on the computer in the living room in PJs and dressing gown. I gave him a hug and reminded him my friends were about to come over. He humphed. I went out again. He then went quietly upstairs.

An hour later a perfectly dressed young man came into the dining room, said a quiet, shy, general hello and draped himself over me while eyeing up the biscuits.

In the evening I overheard ds grumbling to dh. He didn't see why he had had to get dressed.

So a good result in terms of ds accepting that certain behaviour is required, and that he can do things that he doesn't want to do.

Still working on understanding why manners matter. I suppose it's all part of the theory of mind issue.

Can you help him with basic things like these, use humour if he'll understand it. Try Luke Jackson's books, one for teens, the other for adults .

A lot of manners, particularly table manners are based on 'don't gross other people out'.
Eating with your mouth open, sneezing on someone's dinner, waving your arms around so spilling things etc.

There are also unwritten rules about how to present yourself in public, don't go to Tesco in just a thong, don't stand too close to people, don't shout or whisper.

Social unwritten rules are basically people like to be with people like themselves, both in appearance and presentation. anyone looking and acting differently will be viewed as not being accepted /wanted by that group.

You could look at social rules in other countries, different types of greetings, hospitality, gift-giving etc. which he may find interesting.

Have you considered laying out clothing for him, or insisting he attend in school uniform? Could you discuss appropriate attire with guests in the house? As an Aspergian, it’s faster and easier to just be direct with me.

I’ve tried to explain to my son that good manners just means making other people feel comfortable.

He spends his whole life feeling anxious and uncomfortable so that seemed to get a break through.