(We will sometimes ask his ASD therapist to write what's called a Social Story, which is just that--a story that tells what will happen on the day.)
The rigidity you describe is all very classic ASD behavior.
If there are no magic answers, so be it. I'll just brace myself and carry on. It's also a bit heartening to hear that my kid isn't the only one who does stuff like this, and it is as exhausting as it seems.
Yes, it is exhausting.
We forced the issue a lot (which is not standard "good parenting" and is also not popular with many ASD journalists either). This meant we carried a screaming toddler into the woods to go hiking (afraid of bears); we enforced the two-bite rule; we purposefully changed plans to something unexpected; we ran out of bread so that the "ends" of the loaf had to be consumed. We rode out a lot of tantrums but did not let DS's anxiety dictate our entire lifestyle. It got better.
I think that a person who is anxious about trying new things needs to learn through experience that new things are not typically harmful-- which means exposure to new things is the real fix. It worked for us, though it was absolutely no fun in the short and medium term.
My feeling is that if you don't work on it, you end up with an adult who still gets really anxious in restaurants and other situations where something unfamiliar is going on. (We have family members like this.) That's why we chose to invest in working on it, even though it was very trying.
Even still, getting him to take that bite is often a 30- to 45-minute struggle. Seriously.
Yep, BTDT. We rewarded with Youtube videos for some years--only IF the bites were done with no fuss. I think it was a worthwhile investment: DS can now cope in any kind of restaurant, though he will still always order the thing with the most familiar ingredients. I think this is an acceptable place to be, because it's functional.
Sometimes we do give him choices of places to go, but it doesn't always work. If given a choice between a place he knows and one he doesn't, he picks the one he knows. If given a choice between two places he doesn't know, he will refuse both.
We started with take-out, to minimize public fuss. (Then eventually you get there and the food looks familiar...)
IME having a choice isn't going to help much if what he's anxious about is everything (or everything unfamiliar). ASD makes a person's world smaller, principally through anxiety. We saw our job as parents as pushing to make the world bigger, over and over. Lots of exposure to lots of new things.
Eventually you get to the point where there are fewer things that surprise or freak out the person: they've seen Chinese restaurants before, they know there are several ways to drive home, they have read the required book and survived ...
We get around this by saying he's going to go to New Place on X date and signposting it and foreshadowing for a week ahead of time. (We will sometimes ask his ASD therapist to write what's called a Social Story, which is just that--a story that tells what will happen on the day.) That prep usually kills any initial refusal but he'll sometimes refuse to go on the day and we have to deal with that tantrum and get him over and past that. (sigh)
That is as good a strategy as any. You may want to experiment to see whether the warning helps, or just gives him a longer time to be anxious. YMMV.
It is useful to work on various kinds of flexibility. The Floortime model involves engaged play, with the parent sometimes changing the course of the game. This is useful because it's a non-threatening arena in which to practice small instances of flexibility.
Every single time he chooses to be flexible (or even just copes) is a win and a brain-changing event. Even the tantrums are a learning occasion: this freaked you out, and yet you survived and nothing bad happened. That's learning (not fun for parents, but learning.)
DeeDee
