Many parents “fly by the seat of their pants” in setting rules. That is, they assume a child should understand appropriate social behavior under a wide variety of specific circumstances and, when that doesn't occur, they scold in the moment.

For example, suppose you are in attendance at a wedding and your child with Asperger's is bored or distracted. To your chagrin, she insists on telling everyone around her the flight schedule of every major airline departing from your local airport in a loud, clear voice that carries. Your first reaction may be to “shush” her into silence. When that proves ineffective, you may firmly whisper to her to stop. When that doesn't work, you may take hold of her and make a threat, such as the loss of a reward, special privilege, or favored plaything. As a last resort, you may physically remove her from the setting. You have intervened when the situation required it.

However, as the parent of a child with Asperger's Syndrome, your approach to discipline should be one of prevention, not intervention. After this chapter reviews steps to ensure prevention, it will revisit this exact scenario.

Your child with Asperger's Syndrome can know only what she knows. Many children with Asperger's interpret information in ways that are very literal and concrete. Remember Tom Hanks as the boy in a man's body in the movie Big? At a reception, he drew stares and raised eyebrows by attempting to eat the miniature corn as he would regular corn on the cob. He wasn't trying to be socially inappropriate on purpose. Never having had experience with the social conventions of consuming the mini hors d'oeuvres, he was doing his best in the moment.

Like the parent in the wedding scenario, you may expect your child to automatically “read” your body language and facial expressions of displeasure or to transfer what he's learned in a similar environment to the present situation. It doesn't usually work that way. Most important, your child is not consistently misbehaving solely for the sake of “being bad.”