Published on 12, July, 2020
I can relate to the “lack of remorse”. I was only diagnosed aged 64 but clearly my character had formed in early years, and to this day I mainly only obey rules and laws for fear of the consequences, punishment, withdrawal of privileges, financial negatives for example. As a child of similar age to your son I was a thief and quite without any sense of this being wrong, then it was all small and trivial things but later in my life not so. My parents were definitely good people, followed the Christian system of ethics and not at all laws/rule breakers themselves so the reason can’t be at their door, perhaps it is an inherently autistic thing?
Oddly my assessor for ASC said in the dx report that I had a “clear moral compass” which I find impossible to reconcile with my complete comprehension of “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”. I guess I follow and obey systems and rules I agree with and not those I don’t, but then isn’t that true for us all?
So in my experience I don’t think there’s anything you can do to change your son’s value systems but Iain’s suggestions in his reply give possible ways of mitigating the damage in the short term
Emma
Thankyou