Shirt Chewing and Bitter Apple Spray...

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I wanted to get a view of a situation from your points of view.

My girlfriend's son (Billy, 10 yr old aspie) is costing us well into the triple digits each month for new shirts. He chews and ruins his shirts, after one time of wearing them. Yes, I know, this is stress relief, but we can no longer afford it.

So last week, I made a deal with him. We to took some of his and mine old shirts and make "chewy cloth" necklaces for him, the collars and such of ruined shirts (I recently lost a lot of weight and therefor have a lot of old shirts). If he could chew on these for stress relief rather than ruining his shirts, we won't start spraying "bitter apple spray" on his collars.

Well, it didn't work. He ignored it and has ruined six shirts since we made it for him. When I told him we were doing the bitter apple, he got REALLY upset and angry. That was a shame, but we simply can't afford to spend that much money per month on shirts for him!

What are your thoughts on it?

I would do the spray. It's a tried-or-true aversion technique that I know helped me (I had the exact same problem, in fact.) You are not injuring him; ultimately coming into contact with the negative stimulus is up to him. Hopefully this will condition him relatively quickly to not associate the shirt-chewing with stress relief and come up with a less expensive stim.

It would be different if you putting on a shock collar or something. This sounds pretty gentle.

It may not work
Some years ago I tried bitter substance... and I liked this taste. Aspies have odd senses

What about chewing gum? It helps me not to bite my cheeks, pens, clothes and other people.

He may not like it, but it sounds very necessary at this point.

i know that i used to to the same thing, especially when it came to the pullstrings on a hoody. I kinda just stopped on sheer willpower though. And i mostly did it out of boredom than stress, yeah i am a person of mass destruction when bored XD

Or maybe tank top? There's nothing to bite.

He wouldn't get so upset about the bitter spray if he wasn't planning on continuing to chew the shirts.

Frankly, I would have done that immediately after figuring out telling him not to do it (and traditional punishment that works with NT) isn't effective. I'm not a parent myself, but I'm not a believer in positive reinforcement to correct negative actions. If I have a kid, I will teach him there is a price for everything. I was on a plane last month and there was a kid a few rows back who was screaming, kicking the seat of the person in front of him, and refusing to sit down. His parents tried to shut him up by asking for a lollipop to give him. It didn't work. If I were the person sitting in front of him, I might have turned around and punched him in the face. I have a low threshold of tolerance for bullsh*t, that I acquired as a young lad dealing with kids my own age. I also had a military father (up until age 8 at least).

If the spray fails, take all his shirts away and give him one, single leather shirt. Tell him you'll let him take a test run with a normal shirt again in a week

any alternatives to chewing shirts, such as "chewelry?" It's designed to be chewed. never underestimate the need for specific sensory input in a kid with AS. we just need to guide it into more tolerable forms.

I tried the chewy necklace, but he simply won't use it. So hopefully, the bitter spray will encourage him to use it rather than ruining a shirt every day.

What if you gave him a set allowance and made him buy his own shirts with his own money?
Maybe that'll help him learn to take better care of his belongings, as well as teach him the value of a dollar!

You could get cheap shirts from charities like Goodwill. I think they cost less there.

You could buy shirts from ebay.

You could buy plain white shirts from Hanes online. Packages of three white shirts cost $4.99.