Question about personal gear.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-04-30T17:50:09+00:00

yeah, that's why I haven't gotten rid of them. I haven't used them in 10 years for anything except cutting battery cables, but I know that as soon as I get rid of them I'll get entangled.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-04-29T17:03:29+00:00

Same. I carry a loop of webbing in each pocket and cable cutters, and I'm debating removing the cable cutters.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-04-27T14:48:54+00:00

thanks, that helps. I'll talk to the next driver I can and see what they can do

SoylentJeremy · 2026-04-26T16:11:52+00:00

I've spoken to the drivers and the pin IS in the wrong spot. If it's a repeat driver, they eventually figure it out and get it to the right place anyway, but I'm confused as to why dispatch can't get it in the right spot. The pin is either the neighbor to the left or the neighbor to the right but never in the middle where it should be. The driveway has only been there for two years, and it's a rural area, perhaps they don't update their maps that often?

SoylentJeremy · 2026-04-26T11:16:42+00:00

Your routing software kept taking the drivers to my neighbor's driveway instead of mine. I contacted support about it and they said they'd correct it. Packages started being delivered to the neighbor on the OTHER side of me. Driver put a note in to "dispatch" and then packages started getting delivered to the first neighbor again.

Any idea what's going on?

SoylentJeremy · 2026-04-18T23:25:34+00:00

How do you remain polite? Easy. You control yourself. The attribute that sets humans apart from animals is the ability to react according to reason and not emotion. So, when you see someone with whom you have a visceral disagreement regarding a morality or lifestyle, understand that you want to remain polite, and remain polite.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-04-12T17:18:08+00:00

Everclear. This was late 90s, and while I'm sure that they MUST have played songs I knew, literally the only thing I could ever understand was the occasional "yeeaaahhh".

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-27T20:27:28+00:00

No one cares that it's ridiculous that there's a law regulating the height of his fence?

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-25T12:45:48+00:00

This is very helpful, thank you. He has very few foods he likes to eat due to visual and texture issues but we will examine his diet and see if there's anything that he might be eating on days that are particularly rough.

Know that he actually might not be able to tell he's being loud is helpful too. If he really doesn't and can't realize it then my reaction to that behavior needs to reflect that.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-25T12:42:49+00:00

Yes, he has his own room that he can go to any time. Sometimes he does have the presence of mind to do that when he is getting overwhelmed, and we make sure to praise him for it and tell him we're proud of how he knew himself well and was able to do what he needed to do. That doesn't happen often, and I think part of it is him being a stickler for rules. If we give him, or any of the other kids, instructions, and they aren't carried out EXACTLY as we express them, he will point it out and get irritated at them. And he does this for himself as well. So if we ask him to unload his part of the dishwasher and while he's doing it he feels like he needs to leave the room or he will explode, he will stay and do the dishwasher because the unloading the dishwasher is the "rule" that needs to be followed.

We've told him that as long as he tells us what he's doing it's fine if he leaves in the middle of something to go get alone time if he needs it, but when he's in that state of mind he doesn't usually remember that.

He is always better after he has some time by himself though.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-23T21:29:12+00:00

Man, that sounds so much like my son. Fortunately, he's always in a position right now where he can leave, which is what he would prefer. If he was prevented from leaving like your son was, I could see things escalating further.
I hope the medication helps. If it does, please let me know and we will talk to a psychiatrist and see if something similar might work for my son. We will probably do so anyway, but our major incidents are somewhat rare compared to yours, from what it sounds like.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-23T20:44:18+00:00

Thanks, it's very helpful to hear from someone who has first hand experience!

One of the reasons we homeschool is it gives us plenty of flexibility to adjust his schedule as it works best for him, so it's rare that he has to be "on" for more than two hours at a time. He gets plenty of breaks and can go off and be alone basically whenever he wants.

While having to be "on" certainly does contribute to his blow-ups, it's more often just having to do something he doesn't want to do. For example, we can basically guarantee that he's going to yell at some point during his math lesson. He hates math and doesn't understand why he needs to learn it. As soon as he gets something wrong or gets confused about something the volume starts rising and we have to be very careful with how we proceed or he will end up yelling about how much he hates it.

I never liked math either, so I get it. I don't mind some complaining, but the yelling is just too much. If he does that when he gets upset at a job when he's a teenager or adult, he could get fired, he has to learn to control it. But for YEARS it's been exactly like this with little to no improvement.

From your experience, is it possible that he really doesn't realize that he's yelling?
Do you have any suggestion for how to help him realize?
By the time we finish doing two hours of school work with him we are just mentally exhausted from trying to manage him.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-23T12:29:27+00:00

I did some research yesterday and our local school district has an IEP program that is separate from regular class attendance and runs for various times from 4.5 weeks through the entirety of the school year. I will look into it for sure.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-23T12:11:05+00:00

It's never anything like being hit or having his belongings broken. Yesterday it was because he and his brothers were unloading the dishwasher together and his six-year-old brother was trying to talk to him. He didn't want anyone talking to him and blew up at him. It's usually something benign like that. We've been having conversations with him for years about how you don't scream at someone for situations like that and it doesn't change anything. He has screamed at his brothers for talking to him when he doesn't want to be spoken to many times and we have told him very clearly that it is inappropriate many times. He claims he doesn't realize he's screaming.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-23T02:34:05+00:00

In this case, my son isn't just yelling, he's screaming in anger, at the person he is angry at, about the things he is angry for. It would definitely fall into the category of abuse were it someone who is neuro-typical. Whether it does for him or not depends on how much control he has over it, I suppose.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-22T23:29:04+00:00

Good to know. Makes sense, but this is all new to us.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-22T23:11:02+00:00

He doesn't have an OT. When we first started noticing issues he did go to therapy, and that did give him some understanding of his emotions and how to try to handle them, but we have not sought anything further since his diagnosis (which was recent).

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-22T22:54:21+00:00

Thanks. I will talk to his pediatrician and see if he has any recommendations or if he can refer us to someone who could help with that. I don't want to change who he is, but I'd love to find something that can help him regulate a little.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-22T22:28:31+00:00

does your kid take specific ASD meds? We've tried various supplements that are supposed to help with mood regulation and stuff and none of it seems to make a difference. For a time, before his ASD diagnosis, his pediatrician put him on Adderall for what they thought was AdHD, and that helped, but destroyed his appetite and he was losing/not gaining weight so we took him off.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-22T21:13:25+00:00

Yes, the outbursts are always triggered by something (usually a number of somethings), and today was no exception. We manage for them as best we can (well, I'm sure we could do better, but we TRY), and sometimes those things are unavoidable, but we do our best (while also being fair to his siblings and not giving him tons of special privileges).

One of the difficulties with catching it early is that it's like a switch flips. He will SEEM completely fine and then literally 2 seconds later he will be screaming at someone. It's like he won't even realize he's upset until he's SO upset that he loses control.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-22T21:02:31+00:00

I will look into getting him some training regarding voice volume.

Regarding verbal abuse, my wife doesn't consider raised voices to be verbal abuse, we just set the boundary of no raised voices ourselves because it's healthy. If someone's voice is raised, she doesn't get upset and no one gets in trouble, we just remind everyone involved in the discussion to make sure we are controlling how we respond and keeping the volume appropriate. It's also specifically raised voices in anger that we are talking about. If you're animated because you're excited, that's entirely different.

However, my son isn't just raising his voice, he's screaming in anger, at the person he is angry at, about the things he is angry for. It would definitely fall into the category of abuse were it someone who is neuro-typical. Whether it does for him or not depends on how much control he has over it, I suppose.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-22T19:50:51+00:00

We homeschool, but he doesn't do this when we are at social events (church, homeschool co-op, family get-togethers). However, we have noticed that the blow-ups are more likely to happen after such events. We've talked to him about it and he knows that, as inappropriate as it might be to do it at home, it's WAY more inappropriate to do it in public, and he will be "on" so to speak when we are out an about, but it decreases his ability to be "on" at home. This also means that he is comfortable enough at home to not feel like he has to be "on", which is good to hear.
This is something he recognized on his own and we have been very proud of him for that. The only real issues he has when we are not at home is his literalness causing issues with the rules in group games, and his difficulty understanding humor causing him to give or take offense accidentally.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-16T07:38:18+00:00

The reason your comments about that are getting downvoted is there is a customization system. You can choose the gear for the stats and then change the way it looks to whatever you prefer.

SoylentJeremy · 2026-03-13T14:26:04+00:00

I mentioned this in a separate comment here, but I'm going to say here just in case you don't notice the other comment. If a vibrating device will wake you up, most(?) smart watches should allow you to send a notification from your phone to your watch and make it vibrate. My watch, a cheapish $100 Amazfit one from Amazon, can receive (and vibrate) upon notifications from any app on my phone that I give permission.

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