Intolerance of Uncertainty and Managing Emotions

I totally agree with this.

Ever since I was diagnosed, the engineer in me has been measuring and analysing what I do and why I do it - and then assessing those around me in comparison.

I've boiled it down to two issues - sensory overload - everything is too sensitive to live comfortably - and the big one is a pathological need for certainty and predictability.    In the same way as the sensory overload, I am easily overloaded with uncertainty.     Luckily, as an engineer, I was able to design-out most of the problems in front of me.

I've noticed NTs don't seem to notice this stress - they blunder about with short memories so their task-anxiety dissipates quickly.

I've been watching young ASD children at a mixed ASD group I attended and almost all of their problems seem come from the chaotic lives of their parents - there's no grounding or basic stability - no schedules or patterns to latch on to for comfort.   There's no safe space or safe retreat area.    There's no logic in the random and arbitrary rules applied to them.   The kids seem to be locked into a permanent fight-or-fight mode.

Me, as a parent, thought it only logical to provide my daughter with every option to make her feel safe, (how I would have liked to feel) whatever the situation - little things like still holding her hand in busy places or arranging pick-up spots where she was under cover and me never being late.    it's meant that every life-challenge has been manageable for her because it is the only one in front of her - all the other risks have an escape plan and safety net in place to reduce any possible anxiety caused by external factors.

She's grown up to be a very well-balanced and mature young lady.

Plastic - you and I could write a book! Or make a 'choose your adventure' parenting app! I've done the exact same - design engineer out problems, and especially incorporating these parenting elements. Phenomenology is an underrated art. Children need tools to learn and especially help thinking through life problems. The world is chaotic enough, home should have an essence of grounding. 

If I could add to your 2 issues, I would suggest a third is having an understanding of relationship and responsibility. The amount of parents who don't act like the adult- full stop. Even to internally choose kindness and dignity over being judgemental as an example to children who don't have the best social skills. Because even if I cannot navigate a social situation in primary school, if I'm at least considerate/kind I will be readily offered help. 

Plastic - you and I could write a book! Or make a 'choose your adventure' parenting app! I've done the exact same - design engineer out problems, and especially incorporating these parenting elements. Phenomenology is an underrated art. Children need tools to learn and especially help thinking through life problems. The world is chaotic enough, home should have an essence of grounding. 

If I could add to your 2 issues, I would suggest a third is having an understanding of relationship and responsibility. The amount of parents who don't act like the adult- full stop. Even to internally choose kindness and dignity over being judgemental as an example to children who don't have the best social skills. Because even if I cannot navigate a social situation in primary school, if I'm at least considerate/kind I will be readily offered help. 

Awareness is a great solution to emotions. Anything you're aware of you're in control of, anything you're not aware of has control over you.

"Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality.
Alter your thoughts, alter your reality."
William James

Unlearn what you have learnt.
When we first came into this world we were fearless, full of inspiration and joy. We were always taking risks, but in time we learnt to fear taking risks. Reality is no longer what it was ten seconds ago.

Feelings are conscious choices, in the past you may of been threatened, but that's no longer reality. You find yourself in a situation related and think the present situation will have the same outcome making you feel threatened even if you're not.
So the truth is people fear their perceptions, not actual reality.

Thinking about the future, trying to avoid the bad and accept what's good has the outcome of a duelistic perception. Then that duelistic perception becomes your reality whenever you leave the moment.

JuniperFromGallifrey said:

having an understanding of relationship and responsibility. The amount of parents who don't act like the adult-

I only just saw this. So true. I bought a book called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents and it is SO helpful. I realised that my mum never really grew up, she mainly relied on me to be the parent after I got to about 18.

So I do the opposite, I hope, with my daughter.

   You probably notice from my answers that I'm terrible at English - I do engineering english - short chunks of data without any flowery bits bolted on..      I was taught Pitman ITA as a child.       The ruination of millions of children's spelling skills.

JuniperFromGallifrey said:

Because even if I cannot navigate a social situation in primary school, if I'm at least considerate/kind I will be readily offered help. 

It's one of the things we worked hard at - to instil the confidence to ask for help or let people know if things were becoming a problem *before* it was a a problem.      

One of my daughter's friends started to freak out at a Comiccon (it was packed) - but we had made sure she had the confidence to tell us and we got her out into the wide corridor area - but she said she couldn't cope with the number of people so we got her out completely - no fuss, no drama.

She felt guilty afterwards but we made sure that she knew it wasn't a problem - we went for pizza instead.