Some insight into manipulating & difficulty with rules as a child
gets older:

Sometimes we intentionally manipulate, sometimes accidentally- I
will try to give an understanding to how our thought process can
work with rules.

Many of "US" have high analytical and math skills. Very black and
white. I tend to take things literally. Typically, you can not
assume we "should have known better, or know what was intended".
Additionally, the English language can be confusing at times. So,
sometimes breaking or bending a rule may be ignorance, other times
it is select interpretation to get what you want, Most of the times
as a teen, I just plain out did not like rules because:

A) Most people who deliver the rules (parents and teachers) are
just too confusing (because they change, are perspective based, have
too many variables, or are not followed through)

B) They aren't really rules after-all. (because they change,
are perspective based, have too many variables, or are not followed
through)


Let me give you some examples of difficulties as a pre-teen and
older;

I had the pleasure to communicate with a young autistic teen to see
if I could answer some questions that he could not articulate to his
parents or to therapists. His parents wanted to know: why did he
have such an explosive temper? Why he did not want to go to school?
Why did he want to live and breathe video games? The answers all
pretty much boiled down to rules and chaos both at home and
school. (With some minor exceptions)

After talking with him, he gave me examples how; " life is so unfair
and no one gets it" here are 2 examples that were a constant theme
in his world;

1) Dad said; "When you are done with your homework and you have
unloaded the dishwasher, you can play video games for 1 hour.

He did EXACTLY as Dad directed, but when he went to his dad to get
the power cord so that he could plug in his computer, (They hide it
from him) his dad was asleep. The boy wakes Dad. Dad gets angry
for getting woken. Dad says he was being inconsiderate and now he
can not play video games tonight. Boy has melt explosion-he tells
me "Adults don't play by the rules". I agree most of the times
they do not.

2) Teacher says; A book report is due on Friday. Boy does book
report and brings it in on Friday. Teacher decides not to collect
on Friday. He fails the book report because the teacher did not
collect it on Friday, she decided to have kids turn it in on Monday
instead without warning. He does not have it with him. He did not
think to talk to her or his mom about it. (remember many of us do
not like to communicate anyway or can't) Why can't teachers just do
what they say they say they will do?

From my autistic perspective, I can totally relate. Parents and
teachers are busy and do change the rules. For most people it is
not a big deal. For an autistic, life is filled with noise, chaos,
it is difficult to focus on ever changing variables everywhere.
Getting lost into one thing, like video games with fixed rules is
predictable and constant. Ahhhh, just thinking about no noise and
constant variables makes me feel good. Okay, back to the busy
world---I know people change rules, they change minds, they do not
remember what they said, they do not follow rules. It is hard
enough to follow rules, especially when people keep changing the
game.

An example of how taking things literally can be manipulated both
intentionally and unintentionally;

1) My parents made a rule you come home when it gets dark. I
got punished for not returning home on time with the rest of my
siblings. From my perspective, it was not dark, plus I wasn;t done
playing yet. Even though my siblings tried to encourage me to
come home and warned me that I would get in trouble, in my head, I
could justify that it was not really dark out.

When I came home later, I had the wrath of dad to face. My excuse
was the same; I did not think it was dark yet". Dad said, "Well the
rest of your siblings thought so and they all came home". I said
nothing. I got punished. I thought life is not fair. After staying
late and missing his "vague curfew rule" a second time he finally
asked me; " when did I think it would be dark?" I said; "Never in
our neighborhood, as long as the street lights are working".

My Dad's rule changed to: "When the streetlights come on, everyone
comes home. No manipulation room there.

Hope the examples helped shed some more light on the subject.

Pamela ©2007


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