I am having behavior problems with my Asperger's teenager and I don't know how many of these problems are related to the Asperger's, how many are from being a teenager, and now many are because he is male. He is 15 and will be 16 in July. I work at home. When I am at work, he feels as though he has the run of the house and can do basically anything he wants. He is supposed to ask permission to watch tv and play on the computer because he often goes overboard on these things, but he generally doesn't. When you call him on it, he gets mad and stomps away. He likes to mince words. I know this is something Asperger's do....a lot of you guys are very specific when it comes to the meaning of words and have issues with abstract or figurative meanings, but I don't know if he gets it or is doing it on purpose.

The other day he was using my cell phone as a graphing calculator. He was told to not go to any other app and to not put the sound on. He would shut the sound off and the instant I turned away it would be back on. I caught him attempting to put his ear buds in it and I told him not to plug it in, two seconds later, he's sitting there with my phone with the ear buds in his ears and the plug for the ear buds within an inch from my phone. He was waiting for me to turn my back so he could plug it in. It is as though my instructions don't mean anything unless I'm right there enforcing them. His answer when I confronted him was "I wasn't doing it right then."

I caught him messing with his dad's computer just a little while ago...he ran out of the room in a flash and it's the only reason he would have had for being in there. I asked him what he was doing on the computer. I denied being on it, four or five times. I finally got him to fess up when I threatened to take away things. Then, a bit later, he asked to get on another computer and I told him no, because of the problems I'd had earlier with him messing with a computer he wasn't supposed to. His reply, "but it was a different computer." I understand that reasoning but I need to figure out ways to combat it.

My son has an extremely good memory. He can quote from things he's concerned with. He took geometry in 8th grade in school, but when he doesn't do something you ask him to, his excuse is always "I forgot.". He has the same chores every night, but I have to ask him specifically to do them every night or he won't. A few nights ago, I worked late and I asked him if he did his chores and he told me yes. When my husband got home, he noticed they hadn't been done. When I mentioned it to him the next day, his reason was "you didn't tell me to do that". He has the same chores to do every night. He doesn't or doesn't want to generalize that he has the same chores every night and I shouldn't have to directly tell him to do them.

I believe I understand the Asperger's mindset fairly well. I've done a lot of reading and I'm a school teacher who's taught other Asperger's kids. I'm also very analytical myself and may have a tad of Asperger's traits. Any suggestions you have would be appreciated, however. We've done chore check off lists in the past and I thought he'd gotten better but maybe they need to come back out. I have a very hard time properly disciplining him due to problems I had with overdiscipline growing up, but I need for him to work with me, and I'm having a lot of problems right now.