Suggestions for helping autistic son with waking up and anger management

Hi Nicholeen,
My question is probably on the more extreme end of behavior so I apologize for the long question. I recently finished the TSG course, and we started implementing the 4 basic skills and Rule of 3 about 10 days ago. Already we have had to go all the way to the 24 hour loss of privileges twice. Whew! Our 13 year old son was tested earlier this year and was shown to be very high IQ and high functioning autistic. The first time going through the Rule of 3, it took him over 4 1/2 hours to accept his consequences. The second time ( after trying to get him up in the morning – which is the hardest part of his day), he hit my husband , knocked over furniture, threw things, slammed doors, and threatened to damage more things and hurt us. He eventually accepted the consequences after my husband called the police (the police put him on hold and transferred him to voice mail – so no help there) But amazingly after that, our son did the major maintenance (cleaning out the freezer), completed the assigned chores, 2 SODAS, and 24 hours loss of privileges. He was calm and pleasant. The counselor we started seeing thinks the TSG system could work but because he’s autistic, we might need to make adjustments. Our son gets angry with the eye contact and the scripts. But I explained that this is important to ensure that we both are communicating well and that he knows exactly what is expected with no surprises. He also gets angry when we praise him, saying he thinks we are just doing this to manipulate him so I’m not sure what to do about praise. The counselor thinks we should focus on being calm and rewarding him for good behavior more than having him do so many chores. And also reduce the 24 hours to 12. She also says we need to come up with a positive consequence to motivate him waking up on time in the morning. I would appreciate any advice to help using TSG with our son, especially dealing with praise and mornings.

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