Aggression.

Thank you for your input

If he's hyper-sensory in the ways you say, he's empathetic. Empathy is a clinical term that's been... 'highjacked'.  You may have read this already on the Double Empathy Problem: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/professional-practice/double-empathy He may not show compassion or understanding or relate and "appear" lacking sympathy or compassion or empathy. These 3 often get mixed up.

Sensing - or being aware of our senses, is how humans engage with their surroundings to calculate safety. Engineers can use their tool of smell to detect ozone, electrical fires, and other unsafe chemical reactions. Just as perfumers or wine tasters or chefs (I'm sure you know this), but emotion is a sense in the exact same way. Francesca Happé is a professor at Kings College and could be a good resource for understanding further. 

My guess is reframing your understanding of how he understands language and then relates may actually solve some of these problems? We don't use language in the same way. The more pragmatic and articulate you can be, the easier it will be for both of you. 

A typical 'clinical' normal individual (according to psychoanalysis) almost demands language to have an emotional feeling attached, even if it's used to dominate or command. Normal society will use language to hold emotionally charged representations - people connect through this rather than the pragmatic objective reasoning of an actual element or expression. 

The element of language having meaning is important in a tribal sense, where a group will 'keep calm and carry on'. In a tribal setting or small group, if someone doesn't understand or needs to research the command, they're typically marginalised or sent to study under the alchemist, sage, prophet, mathematician... those strange individuals who seem to enjoy being alone and questioning or observing things. The autistic brain has always existed. Sometimes it is presented with additional difficulties as you've mentioned your son has. 

It's typical with autism that we're impacted intensely by sensory experiences (including emotion). And it's a theory that all of us think in pictures unless there's extreme trauma. Which means, we turn auditory sensory information into images in our imagination. Most likely this means we're using our Temporal Lobe different. 

If you can connect with an Autistic Therapist, like https://www.instagram.com/thearticulateautistic/ - they may be able to receive more clear and direct information as to what is going on. I've had 20 some years of mentors and therapists. It took much longer to become a functioning adult. Often I simply just lacked the correct information in very direct, exact and fundamental ways I could understand it.

Hi

No, I am not autistic, my 13 year old boy is. The reason why my post may have been hard to follow for some people is, my boy was occupied for a few minutes at a time allowing me to keep hopping on and off here.

The tea late comment, meant, his routine is so time driven that if he sees that it is a few minutes late being served, this is his main trigger at the moment, it is not because he is hungry, its because tea is later than he expects.

He has physical disabilities also that limit what activities he does in a sporting sense. He also refuses to go anywhere other than school because of sensory issues, despite me trying all the noise cancellers,he has alot of issues with smell and general busyness of his surroundings.

He has a 'friend' but my boy will not go to someone elses house nor have them here because of germs etc. 

My post was borne out of desperation as I have raised two other children,one of whom has just turned 33 years old and my other is 29 years old. We have been through the teen years and thoroughly enjoyed the challenges this brought. 

So, this time around is obviously different. I was reaching out for ideas how to discipline a 13 year old boy who (a) is autistic (b) has no empathy for others feelings (c) reward and consequence has no affect as he doesnt connect acceptable behaviour with reward or negative behaviour with a consequence , he really could not care less.

He sees his dad but really doesnt connect with him and just sees it as another person/situation to unsettle his day.

Thank you for your reply 

julie

I'm so sorry, but I'm having a bit of trouble following this. Are you also on the spectrum? I'm autistic. I'm a mother to a son with dyslexia and hyper-sensory. 

When you say tea is late and your son has a financial "demand" are you saying he'd prefer not to wait and is attempting to negotiate for a take out instead? 

It sounds like he has a great deal of aggression. Is his father around still? 

If this were my son, I might buy him a punching bag and just take him to a sport - judo, swimming, rock climbing, running - some where he can let it all out. There is something strangely tribal in males. Sociologists might suggest they're designed for war and it's part of our 'epigenetic' codes. But with my son, I also had to spend time learning to assert boundaries, which I was not given and therefore, not taught. After all, how he treats you is how he will treat other women. And regardless of our past, it's never too late to do things a little different. Learn new principles and grow. I went through a significant amount of change between my son being born until he became a teenager and learned Rule #1: Never take offence, as it's an internal signal I can't possibly support him if I'm in any way opposed to him. And children feel this. The important thing to discover and research is the significant difference between Boundaries and Abuse. 

My grandmother would leave fresh veg neatly chopped in bite size pieces laying about between 16.30-dinner. It was rather noticeable she must have started doing this for my father when he was young as he typically consumed most of them:) Nuts would also be in bowls. Healthy bits to snack on that looked inviting. No one inquired about dinner. I do this for my son. I don't ask him, I just leave peeled and cut carrots or cut up peppers laying about occasionally. He'll be on his laptop or gaming and not really notice he's snacking on them. Sometimes grapes or cut up apples. Sort of a sleight of hand 'move'. Anything with significant fresh fruit/veg or nuts and seeds - vitamins. These are openly consumable at any time in my home.

It might also be useful to think about the possibilities of what he's trying to do or become, Around 12, kids are working out how to be an adult.. As an adult, a 3-year-old negotiating for 4 pieces of chocolate rather than 2, may attempt ANY manoeuvre. And it's easy to not feel offended when they're that young. When they're older, it's can be more difficult to envision their 'inner-child' attempting to be a fully grown human with agency. For some reason this is a goal, and along the way we can lose that wonder which was innate.

Sometimes changing how I speak about things my son has tried engaging in, will change how I perceive him and can then also change how I respond or how I feel about it. Between 9-14 and even a bit younger he would 'try out' behaving in similar ways to what he saw other men doing. From my point of view he was working out Becoming Male. There were many times I needed to pul him aside and speak with him alone (so as to not humiliate him in front of his friends) about matters of affording dignity, or kindness or simply ask him why he did or said a thing. Occasionally it was difficult as his father could be rather misogynistic (we had separated), but my first rule has always been to allow room to reason. Affirm his feelings and help give him an alternate behaviour. When I was young the worst possible thing we could do would be to disappoint. My father had a way of shrugging his shoulders and say that well, you failed, you'l ljust have to try again. Looking back, he invested little intensity in it and it was probably that he was so unaffected that was startling. A bit like a professor who will give you chance after chance to work through it. 

It's not easy for any parent, but perhaps a few ideas here might help? I did at some point enrol my son with an NHS therapist. I would take him and he would say he has nothing to talk about for about a year. That was fine. Showing up is key. When he was in Uni, he booked his own therapy (Note that I insisted on same gender therapist).