Suggestion #31: Don’t ask them if they want to do something that you need them to do, there is a good chance that they will take you literally .
Often in the English language we say things that we don’t really mean. When a parent asks their four year child “Would you like to go to the grocery store with me?” – they aren’t really asking the child to make a decision. Most neuro typical children would pick up on this, and know that even if they said “not really” that they still would have to go with their Mother.
Language like this can be confusing to an autistic child. If you ask them if they want to do something that you need to do, what are you going to do if they say no?
a) Try to convince them that they really do want to goà they may become frustrated that you are not listening to them when they say that they don’t want to.
b) Force them to go anyway à they may think you are being cruel for forcing them to do something that they just told you they didn’t want to do.
A clearer thing to say might be “I need to go to the grocery store for dinner and I would like to leave now. Do you want to leave now, or would you like ten more minutes to finish watching your cartoons?”
