17 year old son with ASD who identifies as a Nazi

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He isn't a bad kid,he doesn't even leave his room...I've had him in counseling and to psychiatrists for years. Obviously nothing has really worked. When he stopped going to school, it was because of severe anxiety...he did get his GED and we were involved with the mental health court during all of that. It isn't that I'm allowing anything...he's 6ft tall and if he doesn't want to go somewhere I can't move him. He will just sit there..and not speak and not move. I tried everything..took away the Wi-Fi and the video games..and he just sat in his room. No punishments work. As for the Nazi stuff..he doesn't leave the house to offend anyone. Having ASD myself..makes this even more difficult...and I thought maybe,in this group, people wouldn't be quite so judgemental and mean. I guess I was wrong.

Yes, anyone can have a stroke. She had the stroke during delivery though...while being born. She's 3 now and has cerebral palsy epilepsy etc due to the stroke she had as an infant.

I had him in the ER and told them that he threatened to kill someone...they sent him home after talking with him. What makes me think he's on the spectrum...is the fact that I am and I'm his mother and his 9yr old sister is too...so I'm very familiar with the signs and symptoms. I'm not saying his behaviors are due to ASD...or not directly. He hates the disabled baby because it scares him..he won't even go near her. He hates the noise and the smells and the mess that comes along with small children in general. He's obsessed with WW2 and Nazis...it started off innocently enough..as an interest in history..but then I'm pretty sure he found people online that helped fuel this interest. I really am disappointed in how judgemental you people are, you don't know him or me or what I've tried with him...and instead of asking...you assume you know.

I'm sorry you're being judged.

(I don't have any idea how you can help your son , so i don't have advice.)

Is it possible that he became a nazi to justify disliking his sister?

You changed the tenor of the conversation. You went from "my son is a violent, high school drop out" to "he is a depressed, GED earning won't hurt a fly" son. You never mentioned he earnes his GED. Your first post made it sound like a far more dangerous situation for your daughter. It also sounds like you are just looking for sympathy than actual strategies on how to deal with him.
Where kids are concerned ESPECIALLY kids with special needs, I have little patience for incompetence. The most vulnerable need to be protected andrarely are.
Also, saying he has ASD is a far cry from actually having ASD. You are not a doctor. Have him assessed, he may need meds to regulate his moods.

I will agree with the other people that you are letting your son do whatever he wants by not setting boundaries and other examples for him. Since he still lives in your house, you let him know that he is not welcome to talk about Nazis and other things. I also would take away his computer and anything associated with the Nazi movement.

No one can say if he is a bad kid or not, that's too broad and subjective, but it is undeniable that he is doing some bad things. You cannot allow someone to live in your house who threatens your children, even if it is another one of your children. Do you realize that if he actually did injure your daughter, you would be at risk of losing custody of her and he could go to prison if he is 18? Your current lifestyle is a ticking time bomb for everyone involved. This is not a judgmental post, it is a reality check. He needs serious help and if he is not willing to get it you should remove him from your home. What you are doing now will not help anyone, least of all him. You are enabling him. He is currently living in an environment that allows him to avoid developing any functional life skills.

If your son is a Nazi, have him research the Aktion T4 program. Pictured below is Hitler's authorization for the implementation of this program.



Aktion T4 was a Nazi euthanasia program that was designed to enforce Germany's racial purity laws. Under German law, your son could have been terminated under the auspices of this program for the good of the Reich.

Dr. Hans Asperger, the medical researcher who first published studies about ASD, was a member of the Nazi party. His patient records show that he had dozens of children in Vienna sent to Spiegelgrund for termination.

I wonder how your son would feel about the Third Reich knowing that under Germany's racial purity laws, he could have been interned at a concentration camp or killed to help keep the nation racially pure.

I'm so sorry that you have asked for help and are being subjected to all of this nonsense. I really sympathize with you, it sounds like a horrible situation to have to cope with, poor you.

I am sorry you feel frustrated with the tone of responses, but please remember that being overly (and potentially offensively) blunt is a relatively common ASD trait. Please remember that all the members here mean well.

I just re-read my post and stand by my instincts and the advice I gave. I don't think what *I* wrote was judgmental, but I don't know how it came off amid a string of harsher posts. As I mentioned towards the end of my post, your son seems to looking for something to hold onto in the face of debilitating frustration. I talked about why I think that is. In addition to what I wrote there, I believe he needs someone to HEAR him and validate him, first and foremost. Key to keeping your family safe will be helping him find a healthier group of friends and support system. Despite all the good things your son is, you can't forget that the ideology is toxic, and does tend to incite violence. I am sorry if that sounds judgemental, but there is a reason Nazi groups are classified not just as hate groups, but also often as terrorist groups as well. Helping your son find something else to grasp onto and helping him locate a healthier support system can hopefully reduce the risk of triggers from the ideology. Good people can be convinced to do bad things when their minds are in dark places. Just ... be careful.

I really feel for you. My (mostly) NT daughter has spent a lot of the past year in a dark place and figuring out what to do (or, more importantly for her, not to do) was extremely difficult. Living with a child you don't know how to help is soooo very hard. And emotionally draining. While I never got any signs that my daughter was latching onto a dangerous ideology, there are parts of what you've written I can relate to. For me, it was helpful to learn to emotionally detach. I had to learn to look at situations with her objectively: more clinically, and less as her mother. Too many of my own hopes and dreams and goals are tied into our mother/daughter relationship, and she really needed to be free of all that. She also needed me to stop trying to parent, so I did, although I was there when she needed me to be and continued to hold her to the expectations I would have for anyone I was living with. Hard to explain what I mean with that, but hopefully it makes some sense. And ... Don't forget to take care of yourself, too.

Is this sarcasm? I can't tell.

DW, everyone's posts minis one, was actually pretty good. Everyone identified what the problem was. I have a couple of issues with OP's relying of events:
First claimed that her dropped out in the 9th grade than claim he has his GED, btw, one cannot get his or her GED until they turn 18, so that is patently false.
First claimed her son was a NAZI then changed it to " he is just fascinated with WW2"
Claimed he threatenes to kick his sister with severe disabilities changes to he is just afraid of her
You came here asked for sympathy and when you did not get it you changes the narrative.
Yes I am triggered

I thought your posts were good BTW. I'm not sure that the OP came for sympathy, I got the impression that she was looking for advice and support, there are good people on the site who I'm sure can help in that respect and I hope she stays and finds it. I thought that her post was being dismissed a bit harshly, she felt judged too, so maybe there is a grain of truth in that?
I'm sorry that I acted sanctimoniously

I know a lot of people on this forum have pretty decent spidey senses, but be careful with conclusions based on what you THINK you know as fact. GED rules vary by state AND there are tests similar to the GED that have different names, but for convenience people call them GEDs. My daughter is tested out, high school equivalent diploma, in California, at the age of 17. The official name isn't GED, but heck if I can remember what the official name is. She has spent much of the past year sick and in November, at the school's suggestion, she took an equivalency test and passed easily. I only know that by law employers must consider it the equivalent of a high school diploma, and that it is good enough to move onto community college. The test wasn't hard so I'm not at all ready to jump to the conclusion the OPs son couldn't have tested out as a freshman. But dang I can't come up with the official name right now. My poor memory doesn't change reality: plenty of teens, my daughter included, under the age of 18, have that piece of paper.

As for the other points, in high stress situations, I don't think it is unusual for a parent's perception to change from day to day. I was like that, too, as we tried to figure out what was going on with our daughter. Until I was able to emotionally detached, my perceptions were all over the place. That is one of many different reasons I noted to the OP that she may need to emotionally separate herself and basically stop thinking like a mom. Watching your child go through the kinds of things she has described, especially when you are exhausted from having another special needs child, plays with your head. Nothing in her softened descriptions changes my instincts or advice; to me, it shows how much she loves her son and is trying to stay positive, and the real issue is whether or not that leaves her in a solid place to make decisions about her son right now. When my daughter was in a tough place a lot of the school meetings felt really harsh to me, but separating myself also made me realize that many of the harsh seeming suggestions were actually extremely sound. It's just hard to believe that the road for your child can be changing that rapidly in front of you and, even when you do believe it, to realize it is the best road. It's just all. so. very. hard. Don't expect perfect consistency or even sanity from a parent in the middle of all that.

Do I think her softened stance underestimates the risk with her son? Yes, I do. It is very easy to underestimate the risk with your own child. I often have. The kids usually flow between moods and perceptions to a much bigger extreme than the parents do. But understanding that doesn't yield a super clear path, either. The interest in a harmful ideology needs to be squashed, but a lot of proposed actions have the potential to backfire, and its going to be tricky. So. I stand by my instincts and advice in my earlier posts, and I will continue to take what the OP writes at face value. The situation is too tricky to risk her fleeing from help because we've been too quick to judge.

Last edited by DW_a_mom on 23 May 2018, 2:44 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I just feel that the kid needs boundaries.

If you don't set boundaries, he will run roughshod over you.

Your son is a smart person. He should read what ChefDave posted. Its about the REAL Nazis----not those people in the US and other places who like to play Nazi.

I sympathize with what you have to go through with your son.

But your son needs to CHANGE. See the forest for the trees. Otherwise, he will have an unhappy existence for the rest of his life.

And you can help him change. By being firm.

To be honest, I don't know what I would do in you situation. I might handle it really bad.

This is advice from a person who is detached from the situation.

I feel like he needs to know about adult responsibility, and that he should be nicer to his little sister---no matter how "handicapped" she is.

What you are talking about is the California High school Proficiency Exam. And yes I believe that you mean well and I understand your main thesis. But I am also a special education teacher for over ten years. This is not just a personal bias but a professional opinion. I have seen parents who do not regulate their kids behavior, either they can't or they won't. It has a determinantal effect on the child both emotionally and educationally. And of course there are extenuating circumstances that make it impossible to control a kid that is beyond the parents control and I have seen that. But often the childs behavior is a direct result of the parent did.
This case seems very different, she left and in some cases said something completely different. This implues some form pf manipulation, which I despise amd have no time for.
And for the record, the CAHSPE is not a GED equivalent. And most states require you to be 18, but you are right in Ohio, you can be 16.