what was your parents "parenting style" like?

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My dad died when I was really young, so I don't remember a whole lot about him.....mainly that he was the "fun" parent, and rarely spanked us. And looking back, it's possible that he might have been somewhere on the spectrum.

With my mom, she was the sheltering, over-protective type.....with some examples being that I had to get her approval before I bought music, and she had MTV blocked when we moved to Phoenix. (not that this directly involves possible AS, but it definitely did NOT help being sheltered from "normal" things other kids experienced)

Father- very hands-on but also strict. Not in a bad way. I was not expected to act normal, but was expected to show respect and to follow rules as closely as possible. He would spend countless hours in his workshop, where I was pretty much raised.

Mother - always busied herself with gardening, cooking, cleaning, sewing and other duties. Also expected respectful behaviour, but would rather not be bothered with dealing with children.

My mother has had schizophrenia since she was 23, I was born when she was 31. I never knew my father (not even his name), and my mother was too delusional at the time to accurately remember anything. Custody was given to my grandparents shortly after I was born, and the parenting style of my grandparents was very relaxed. My uncle killed himself while in the navy in 71, my aunt was on all sorts of drugs (bouncing in and out of rehab), my mother in and out of hospitals. I was pretty much left to do whatever I wanted. As long as I went to school and did house cleaning they left me alone. They probably felt like failures as parents at that point. Anyway, I had a lot of free time when I was young, and I miss my grandparents a lot.

My parents are very discriminatory and 'right wing.' My mother has dismissed autism as 'an excuse for kids to be naughty' and my dad has threatened to 'break both my legs' if I ended up gay. While my mother says I can tell her anything, I know I really can't. This is why I have not told them about my suspicions of having AS.

My parents did the best they could. They didn't know anything about Asperger's, so when I was little they were happy at the way I liked play alone quietly. They also discovered from an early age that I was extremely intelligent, so they chalked all my oddities to being the smart kid. Around the age of 14, my parents divorced so they weren't much support emotionally; they were more interested in getting their own lives together.

My mom is borderline. She's bats**t crazy. Her parenting style was screaming at me to talk and "stop acting ret*d." My dad doesn't like talking about mental health issues. He denied I had any.

They actually prevented me from socializing with other kids in the street to the age of 7. Yeah, that's what I needed. They had a lot of rules and placed academic performance above my well being. Got spanked every now and then. That was the culture, and I was a troublemaker, but it isn't what I would have done with my children if I had any. Too many restrictive rules intended to prevent too much fun. If I had kids I would try to make them have as much fun as possible. Though academic performance is still important, it does not come before well being.

There were many foolish things they did although they did genuinely care (my mother more).

Kalika, my parents also had to approve my CD purchases and I was never allowed to watch MTV or rated R movies (even when I was over the age, according to theaters).

...and I do agree that those things made socializing even more difficult.


Those were minor things, really. I had great parents and we are still close.

On their parenting styles: my mother was the decider of all things...at her best, she was thoughtful and inclusive, becoming an advocate for me when I needed something unusual...at her worst, she was a micro-manager. My father was distant, but loving. He was (and is) almost always studying. My parents always had an impressive library. He was rarely the disciplinarian. When he did spend time with us, he would typically ask us deep philosophical questions to ponder and discuss (even at very young ages).

I was not diagnosed with Aspergers until I was 30 years old.

...however, my mother sought a diagnosis and took me to many specialists beginning at age 4. At that time, Aspergers was not a diagnosis and I did not meet the speech delay requirements for an Autism diagnosis. I was diagnosed with severe ADHD at that time. ...so, I think I would fall under both the early and late diagnosis categories.

My dad always zoned out and would tune the whole world out he would be oblivious what is going on around him so that meant I could be doing things Mom wouldn't let me do and my dad wouldn't enforce that rule on me. He also wasn't tough and only made simple meals and he would curse when upset or mad. I realize despite that he was around a lot, my mom did most of the parenting and my dad only did it when he had to like when my mom was out of town or at work or sick in bed or went somewhere by herself. In 6th grade, my dad always had to get us up for school because my mom was already at work. In my teens, my dad did it too because my mom would work and she only woke us up on her days off so my dad did more as a parent because my mom was working full time to earn money to support us all while he was trying to get his business started out there after we moved there but he wasn't strict or tough.

My mom did lot of the discipline and took me to lot of my appointments and took us to school and always got us ready. My dad did it too if he had to. She was also a tough parent because she wasn't easy and she paid attention to us so she knew what we were up to and always knew what we did. I used to think there was something wrong with her because I was surrounded by unsupervised kids so they got away with lot of stuff my mom would never allow me to do and I realized I just had a good mother and all those kids had bad parents. I can't imagine what it's like to not have a parent that pays no attention to you and doesn't care what you do and they never set any limits and they let you be mean to other kids and be disrespectful because they can't be bothered to be the bad guys and do their job. There were a few TV shows we were not allowed t watch and they were The Simpsons, Solute Your Shorts, Ren and Stempy, South Park, and Beaves and Butthead. But we also were not allowed to sit in front of the TV all the time so we didn't grow up in front of the TV and it bugs me when people give me a hard time or act surprised I didn't watch certain TV shows or ever heard of them. I was never a big TV watcher anyway as a child until my teens and I was selective about what channels I watched. We also had computer and I was one of the few kids in my class with a computer at home and this was 1994 or 1995 when I was in 3rd grade but by 6th grade, most kids had computers at home by then. That just shows how times had changed by then. When I say she was a tough mother, I mean she was consistent, gave out consequences, set limits, didn't give in and if I didn't eat my dinner, I got no dessert and I went to bed hungry because she refused to make something else for dinner, and she also followed through. Oh yeah we also did lot of reading so we always went to libraries or got new books because my mom believed in reading and she wouldn't let us snack out of boredom so she would say get a book to read. If we were truly hungry, she would tell us to have an apple or something. She also said no a lot too. Oh yeah we were also expected to follow the rules or there was always a consequence.

But we always went out a lot and went on lot of trips. Then in my teens we didn't go on trips and only did rarely because they didn't have as much money.

Dad - Kind of strict, high expectations. Not mucho of a positive reinforcement giver but he always does his best.

Mother - Loving, over protective, controller.