Son diagnosed

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.)

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.)

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