Welcome,
@carmenmiranda1072. A
few lot of thoughts:
1) His obsession about height and shoe size did not come out of nowhere. There is a source of unhealthy ideas that you need to learn about. It could be friends, acquaintances, or stories he overheard. It could also be online forums. Finding out what that source is will greatly increase your ability to counteract it.
2) Anger often spills out of its original situation. One can start out angry about one thing and then wind up angry about everything else. To address the anger, you - and he - will need to find out the original source of the anger.
3) All teens - ND and NT alike - are more emotionally volatile because that's a time when the brain goes through a complete restructuring.
4) Perfectionism seems to be common among autistics (it's very prevalent in me!). You can help model coping behaviors by openly and casually talking about mistakes you made and how you are dealing with them. This is more effective with current and ongoing situations so he can see you coping in real time.
4a) I find that rephrasing and reframing situations helps a lot, too. For instance, my youngest son would often get frustrated with school work and say he didn't understand it. I would tell him to add one word: "yet" and get him to say "I don't understand it yet.". It helps me to overcome perfectionism by looking at mistakes and saying, "Well, I learned something" or "That was a first try. I can do better next time with what I learned." Those are somewhat trivialized examples, but I hope they illustrates the point - phrasing and mindset go hand in hand. Changing how you express a situation will change how you approach it.
When you try to talk to him, keep a few things in mind:
Everyone needs to feel
heard and understood. Listen to understand, and ask open-ended questions. Don't ask questions that lead him to think that you have a specific cause or solution in mind. Become comfortable with long pauses so that he has time to think things through. When you ask questions that lead to him better understanding himself, you are teaching him to ask those questions himself - you are modeling mental and emotional processes that he needs to learn. Also, most people are more open to solutions they come up with themselves than they are with solutions that someone else has told them to try. Guiding him to solutions makes it more likely that he will work to make them work and also teaches him how to find solutions on his own.
If you want to suggest a solution or course of action, phrase it as a hypothetical: "What if you tried...", rather than "you should". If you try to relate his experiences to some of yours, keep your own story short - don't let the conversation be about you.
If can help to establish a regular time and place to talk openly, so that he associates that with safety. I (austistic) don't connect with my children as naturally as my wife (NT) does, so I established regular times to talk to them and spend time with each of them alone and with no interruptions from others. Having an established environment where our children know they have my full attention and understanding has helped them through so many situations. In fact, there were situations they wouldn't tell us about in any other setting.
Finally, don't be afraid to get professional help. Perhaps he could benefit from counseling to help him learn coping skills and strategies. Perhaps you could benefit from counseling to learn better how to counsel and guide him.
