/OT but thank you to whoever recommended Siblings without rivalry.
When kids say stuff like your S did, I just let them go. I don’t fight them. Maybe ask a few questions, as they older, maybe socratically leading questions, but don’t get emotionally wrapped up in it. If he were older, you might offer a contrary opinion, but to a kid that young, I think I’d just let him talk. keep him talking. He is developing his own self and opinions.
And then if you really can’t take it, change the subject. “That is an interesting, different perspective. Oh look, a fire truck!”
@Lizardly Obviously what I actually did was unproductive as well as unpleasant (for both of us) and your suggestion is much better. Worried that part of my job here is to model good social behavior. Not sure WHAT to say to do this.
My S is still the “smartest person in room.” According to him, everyone else is idiotic and he is the only true genius. We (our family) have learned to just ignore him when he makes outrageous statements, especially when we don’t have time to engage him. He is stubborn and opinionated and usually it’s just not worth the aggravation. It was tough to learn, but seems to be a good strategy. Good luck!!!
And right when I tried to have a laugh, got a call from school that he ‘ran an experiment’ which involved dumping a bottle of water on a classmate. He’s writing an apology note in school. What should I say when I pick him up in an hour? Obviously not something to ignore. “We don’t dump water on people,” seems too tame. Open for suggestions.
He often dumps his drinking water into empty containers at dinner. I just got him some containers for the bath to try to channel this urge appropriately. Did I make a mistake? Did I unintentionally “OK” water play? Poor classmate!
The Calvin and Hobbes comic is perfect!!
My opinion? He probably knows that dumping water on people is unacceptable. He just wanted to see what would happen. Would the kid get mad? Would the teacher react? How wet would he get? etc. Sometimes kids do unacceptable things just to get a “rise” out of someone.
And, if it were my kid, I would casually mention after school - "So, I heard that there was a “water incident” at school today. What happened? Was that what you expected to happen? Why do you think the teacher/student was upset? What is your consequence? etc. Ask questions that lead him to explore the situation. My S lacks empathy (a common Aspergers thing). Sometimes he really doesn’t know how people will react to his actions/statements ahead of time. We’ve spent years trying to teach him empathy, with mixed results (loves animals/still tries to use and manipulate people).
Dumping water is a waste of energy and water. Not good for the environment! But yes megpmom also has good suggestions. 
As for older buildings - plenty of older building are retrofit with good windows, new insulation and modern lighting. He should learn about it! It’s often much more wasteful to tear down an old building than to bring it up to modern standards.
Thanks @megpmom I think this is a good plan and an opportunity to use my therapist’s suggestion of reflecting out loud using the passive voice.
My husband is apoplectic. He comes from an immigrant family where there is a lot of social shame for ‘bad behavior.’ This is a big problem between us. Example: S1 played piano for the first time in front of fellow students this weekend. And yes, he also was wiggly in his chair listening to the other kids. But not show-stopping wiggly. When we were leaving, my husband was angry at S1 for being wiggly while I was praising him for bravely playing piano. That cause he and I to have a big blow-up fight on the street (in front of the kids). He maintains it is ‘his right’ to be upset that S1 was wiggly when the other kids played. I maintain he needs to be supportive of the good parts or else S1 won’t want to ever go to a recital again. (The music teacher was proud of him and said nothing about the wiggles). Anyway he’s sure S1 is going to end up ‘in jail someday’ and incidents like this set him off.
Sorry for the rant.
Feel free to rant. You need to have somewhere safe to do so. It’s hard when parents aren’t on the same page about any parenting issue - so I feel your pain.
Oh, how frustrating. (But I will admit, remembering my kid, I giggled at the excuse that was just like one she would have used. Then I went on to think about how annoyed I would have been.)
I’d take it to the more general “You can’t run experiments on people.” I learned with my kid to always be as inclusive as possible because she would find the loophole in any rule. “But I didn’t pour water on him, I poured juice on him. You didn’t tell me not to pour juice on people!”
If he’s receptive to discussing experiments, you could go on to discuss how scientists run experiments, with a nice scientific method sheet. I know my kid would have countered with, “But scientists run experiments on people.” Yes, they do. With proper oversight that includes bringing their proposed experiment before an official committee for approval. If you have an idea you can write a proposal…
Wiggly is NORMAL, even for a “regular” young kid. Your H needs to get a better idea of the range of acceptable. Is H having any sessions with therapist so he has a better idea of how to be supportive and HELP you in this journey. My BIL gets upset that their 10 year-old wiggles in church, but the rest of us consider that NORMAL behavior–he’s quiet and stays in his seat, even while wiggling.
I think a big part to remember is your son is 7 ,correct? While he may be very intelligent,developmentally he is 7 at best. Try to remember that. That is often hard for parents of young intelligent children to remember . While intelligent, they typically don’t have abstract reasoning capabilities and their ability to generalize is limited, especially kids with anxiety and on the spectrum. Keep working hard. You’re doing a great job. Is your husband going to therapy with you. Consistency i
Consistency is key with children like your son
Can’t get husband to do therapy but he will do a joint parent session with me and S1’s therapist. So we’re booking that!
Whatever you can get H to do so that he can get on the same page with you and be CONSISTENT but supportive is great. No question that parenting challenging kids is harder, but with the supportive spouse it’s SO much better than if the two of you are disagreeing and not working together. You are doing very well–keep up the great work and know that you will help your S become a better and happier person with your firm, consistent guidance.
I used to think that my son was the only child in suburban New Jersey who couldn’t and wouldn’t learn how to swim or ride a bicycle. Complete meltdowns almost every time, and eventually he simply refused to try anymore. The same thing with the karate classes he went to when he was 7 that we thought would be good for him – he hated them, cried constantly, was made fun of by the other kids, and we ended up pulling him out. After that, it was a question of picking battles and no longer making him do extra-curricular and other things he hated simply because he was “supposed” to. Like the period from ages 5-7 when he refused to set foot in the kitchen of our house because he was afraid of something; he never did reveal what it was, and eventually got over it. We didn’t push it. (It’s painful even now to talk about the battles over his handwriting and his insistence on holding his pencil with his hand positioned practically upside down, and as a result writing so faintly almost nobody could read what he wrote. He had rather drastic delays in fine motor skill development – which I suspect he got from me – and I still have trouble reading his handwriting, but once he started being able to type things, it was all kind of academic.)
He’s 25 now, and still can’t ride a bicycle, and never really learned to swim (although he had to take a swim class to graduate from the U of Chicago, and at least learned to overcome his intense, panicky fear of the water somewhat), and he’s doing fine and is way more outgoing and sociable at this point with people of all ages (as opposed to early childhood when he could only make friends with adults and much older children, possibly because he was so verbally precocious) than I ever was. My admiration is boundless for how hard he worked, for years, at overcoming his social fears and difficulties – which may not have come from the same place as your son’s, but still made life hard for him – with the help of a therapist.
TL; DR: don’t worry too much about the bike-riding and the swimming and the handwriting and the karate! There are more important things.
I agree @DonnaL Neither one of my boys can ride a bike. They were teens before they learned to swim. Each child is different . We as parents need to realize this to avoid frustrating ourselves and them. I agree that there are bigger things to concentrate on. My sons both participate in scouting . While neither one is on the spectrum, several of their troop members are. Scouting can be a wonderful activity for children like this because they can challenge themselves individually when needed, but ultimately work toward tolerating and excelling in a group at their pace. I’d recommend thinking about scouting once his anxiety decreases and he is able to tolerate social activities with decreased acting out.
If he does participate in scouting, you have to be sure he’s ready for it AND that you are standing by and helping the troop. We had one boy in our scout troop who was acting out and hurting the other boys. We told the dad that we were happy to have his S in the troop but he or another adult had to stay at the meetings to ensure that the S didn’t harm others. The dad insisted it was his “time off” and refused and pulled the S from the troop. We were sad for the S but relieved for the others in the troop. The other kids in the troop who had some issues had parents who were active in the troop and made sure their sons pulled their weight and did not harm anyone.