Son diagnosed

Thank you very for taking time out to reply to me. I really appreciate it, I'm struggling to understand so it's really helped me to try understand! I hope soon enough I can fully understand alot more ️

Thank you for your reply. Reading what you went through as a child, about carpets being changed ect really made me think about how my little one is feeling. I didn't realise the smallest thing would have such an affect. I'm trying my very best to understand and learn about his world. Its much better then my world haha xx

Thank you so very much for your reply! I really appreciate it, thank you for giving me suggestions to use. I definitely will try these :) xx

Trouble is these things can be either in a small child. Most toddlers try it on to test where the boundaries are. They give up when it becomes plain parent, not them, is in charge.

However, most toddlers are through this tantrum stage by four. 

It can also be the case that his insistence on sameness and predictability are part of ASD. He thought the man would serve, now he's been surprised by the woman and can't cope with the unexpected surprise.

As regards you being in the garden...well, theory of mind is a bit different for us. If he wants to be in doors, he probably can't see why you might have a different desire. Also, it probably makes him feel safe to have everything where he wants and expects it, including you.

I'm no way suggesting you pander to his demands, but given he can't read or read well your body language etc indicating your intention and desire, it's important to keep very simply and firmly articulating them, along the lines of: 'Mummy wants to be in the garden. You will be ok if mummy is in the garden.' And keep repeating like broken record.

Not exactly the same situations but very similar, that was me as a kid too tbh, somethings other people don't think of as new and scary we autists do, could be you didn't notice a longer period of time where you didn't go in the garden and the man was always the server so it set a kind of "routine" your son had just got used to. When I was a kid I'd bawl and meltdown whenever the old car got replaced because I'd got used to it and had associated happy memories with it, but back when that old car was the new car replacing the old old car I hated the old car when it was new and took a long time to come around to it.
My son also has this not just with cars but with other things. And I never treated the behaviour at face value like my parents did. If the trigger behind an anger attack is panic then we treat an outburst like a panic attack, and calm him back down. If the trigger is trauma based we treat it like ptsd. We also do a lot of exposure therapy in this house because it's important not to dismiss the feelings we have or try to change how we operate fundamentally but acknolwledge we aren't always going to be able to avoid the triggers of things that upset ur or make us uncomfortable, so it's all about minimising the effect the trigger has on us for our own wellbeing.*

This is the analogy that helped me understand learned coping skills vs innate coping skills:
It is very difficult and may not come naturally at all to us autists but Bruce Lee's words really resonated with me when I was a teen struggling to find my feet with my autistic experience. “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.” it's difficult because as autist we are more naturally the rock, or rather I found out I am ice, I somehow managed in my own way (still autistic obvs) to realise I didn't have to change, ice is still water and water is still ice I just had to adapt enough to cope in the mment before I can go back to my own comfy default being the rock-like ice.

*(To use your example, it would be unrealistic to expect the same man to work in the cafe for the rest of his life. And you cannot be expected to never enjoy sitting in your garden ever again, that's just not fair to you.)

You know your son best! There's always a reason and when young, it can have something to do with deeper human values that might take a long time to understand. 

We can be more in-tune with our environment or with sensing connexions and the order of things, and sometimes get these wrong :) 

In the shop it simply sounds like he sense-perceived a better connexion with this man over the lady and this is normal for all humans. We might have a favourite barista or prefer a particular wait staff at cafe we frequent. Autistic children (but also all children) will need a spelled-out Rule to manage their 'hopes and dreams' in this situation. This could be as simple as telling you what he wants and then watching how you handle it.

It's OK to have preferences and sense connexions with other humans, we just have to learn how to navigate. If we can make everyone feel valuable and still have our favourite individual who we feel better connected to help us in a shop, all the better. I taught my son early on to always confide in me by getting to his level and letting him express somewhat privately his thoughts so I could help him navigate. By doing this on repeat, and checking in with him to see if he'd like to open doors or if he'd like to say hello or even just pausing for a minute before going into a shop and letting him know the plan, made everything much easier for everyone.

Children are somewhat in a becoming-adult default mode. Only with out the learned physics and psychology and social rules to navigate. At this age, most of his hopes and dreams will be based on feeling a sense of being connected rather than disconnected.

Help him navigate this by letting him know "I need to step into the garden in 20 minutes." and give him something useful to do with you which he enjoys (would you like to open the door? Would you like to carry a watering can?). Perhaps you could work on building a train set outside for him.

An analogue clock will help greatly. It's not changing numbers at a nebulous rate, but continually moving forward with a second hand we can follow. It's quite useful for matters of reliability and stabilising future expectations, even if they're 15 minutes in advance. Always give warning of transitions until they ask you to stop. I just kept doing rather mothering things until my son announced he was ready to do them on his own.