Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:What was his relationship with food, and your role in it like in high school?
He want as bad with his food selectivity in elementary or middle school, but by the time he was around the end of his senior year. It got pretty bad. He usually didn't go out to buy or eat food (he does not drive anyway), but he usually took out snacks from our pantry all the way until he started his first semester of college.
It's not uncommon for kids to go through a phase, when they start to get more control of their diet, where they seek out their favorite options and don't have a lot of balance. It's also not uncommon for this phase to be delayed in kids with ASD who may have less independence in middle and high school because of factors like delayed driving, social anxiety that leads them to avoid places where they might have more food options, parental-child relationships that involve more adult direction, or developmental delays.
How long has this been going on? Is he having medical complications from the less than ideal diet? The good thing is that 20 year old bodies are remarkably resilient, so the time for him to learn independence is now when his mistakes will be less harmful. Learning how to be independent requires chances to experience independence.