Manipulation

Can kids/people with autism manipulate? Most definitely they can and do! Jonathon blatently demonstrated his manipulation on our way home from Kentucky.
We had gone to the horse races on Saturday and Jonathon had a blow up. Come Sunday Jonathon commented that he could go back to the races and "be patient and kind." In the past, we have taken him back to places where he thought he messed things up behavior wise and let him "fix" them, but this time there was no time to "fix" it. We thought letting him go back and "fix" situations brought him closure, which it did, but the piece we left out was that in some situations you can't go back and fix them. Note to other parents: Think about what you do today and how it will come back to bite you in the ass in the future!
I figured we were headed for a blow up and sure enough no matter how many times I told him the races were over and it was ok he was beyond comprehension.
When you're in the middle of combat it's hard to remember what you're supposed to do. Try as I might to recall the email from the autism specialist my own thoughts of you little shit! Knock it off! intermingled with "empathize, remind him of where we are now, redirect"...... aaahhhhhh what else did she say to do! He was having nothing to do with it, so I told Tim (loud enough for Jonathon to hear) "Jonathon is probably hungry so once he's patient and kind and ready we can go ahead and stop to get him something to eat." It wasn't ten minutes later when out of the backseat I hear "Jonathon's being patient and kind and you should get him to his restaurant." My gut told me to hold out for a bit. To stretch out the newly "patient and kind" Jonathon. To give him time to soak in the new found good mood, but we needed fuel and there was a McDonalds right there so we stopped and we fed him and by doing so we fed the beast within!
He gobbled down his Mickey D's in about five minutes. He seemed to be settled down. We had all of 20 minutes of a fairly uneventful ride until he remembered oh that's right I'm ticked because you won't take me back to the race track to fix my bad day!
He pulled it together long enough to ensure his McDonalds and then started in again! I knew it! I knew we should've fueled the truck and told him we would get him his food at the next stop. Why does hindsight always involve me kicking myself?
So, what happened? After trying to deal (as I type that... deal... it makes me question... do we try to "deal" with him during his poopy behavior times?? Not deal, as in get through the episode, but deal, as in "Let's make a deal." Something to think about definitely!) with his unsafe behaviors of not staying in his seat belt, kicking, hitting, screaming, blah, blah, blah, same crap different day, I told Tim to pull the truck over. I told Jonathon we would not be going any further until he was ready to be safe. Pulling over on interstate was a bit of a gamble as well since I knew he was likely to get out of the truck. I was pretty proud of myself thinking I'd done one thing right... his shoes were muddy from the derby the day before so I had thrown them in the back of the truck. He's a huge germ-a-phobe so I knew he wasn't likely to get out of the truck without shoes... should've confiscated his socks as well!! He got out of the truck, in the pouring rain and grabbed his shoes! UGH! I convinced him to get back in the truck and take off the socks and shoes, which he did. I told him that when he was ready to go to let us know and we would be on our way back to Glenrock, which for once he actually wanted to be in Glenrock! Within ten minutes we were back on the road looking like drowned rats but at least there were safer behaviors in the vehicle. 
End note to other parents - I don't want to mislead ANY parent into thinking we only use redirection, behavior modification, etc... when dealing with Jonathon's behavior. We do use a PRN medication when Jonathon is escalating. A PRN medication is a medication that is given only when it is needed. We give it to him when we are seeing increased anxiety/agitation or when he is no longer able to control himself. I still question when we should administer the PRN. I want to give him the chance to work through his emotional disregulation. I don't want to be cramming medications down his throat anytime he experiences a little bit of anxiety. On the other hand if we administered it sooner would we avoid the huge blowups? It's such a hard call. Sometimes he can work through it and other times, even with an early dose of the PRN, we still end up in a behavioral nightmare. And now, again, as I'm typing this another thought has popped into my head... by waiting to administer the PRN, is that like waiting to see if a diabetic really needs their insulin????
The only advice I can pass on and know it is 100% true and accurate... THERE ARE NO EASY ANSWERS WHEN DEALING WITH AUTISM!!!