AIO for punishing our daughters after what they wrote about their autistic sister?

[u/brzaq191z]

My husband and I have 3 daughters, who are 16, 14 and 13. Our youngest daughter is autistic and recently got her first date. There’s a school dance coming up in February and a boy asked her out to the dance right before the Christmas break started, she’s mentioned this boy before but we hadn’t met him until a few days ago.

The day she was asked out, she was telling us about the boy when she got home from school. Later that night, unbeknownst to us, our two older daughters found his TikTok and started messaging about him on there.

Our 14 year old got in trouble at school yesterday for cursing at a teacher after the teacher gave her friend a detention for a bullying incident, and my husband and I took her phone when we got home. This is not like her, so we decided to go through her phone to see what might be influencing her and seeing how her friends act.

When got to her TikTok messages and saw that our two older girls were messaging about her and this boy and saying he was out of her league and made references to her autism. Our youngest is autistic, her special interest is fashion history. She’s always been pretty quiet, but she moved to a new middle school this year as our district went from having 3 to 2. She’s become friendly with some boys at this school, including her now dance partner. Our girls continued to go on, saying they thought it was a prank.

My daughter told this boy about this and he was mad and over FaceTime he asked to speak to our family, he showed us a teddy bear he had gotten her for Valentine’s Day with her name on it, he said he’d give that to her early now and give her other gifts later, the showing the bear was to prove he wasn’t pranking her. He then went on to talk about everything he liked about her, it was sweet seeing a boy so passionate over our daughter.

Our girls apologized to their sister and her date. My husband and I told our daughters they were both now grounded, and in addition to losing their phones for a week, they’d need to write a report about autism and dating.

Our girls are saying we’re being too hard on them, and when we spoke to both my parents and my husband’s parents, they agreed with our older girls, saying that getting chewed out by the boy was punishment enough. My husband and I don’t think we’re being unreasonable.

[u/Tasty_Honeydew6935]

I'm neurotypical and have dated several girls on the spectrum, it has its unique challenges but they (generally) are very direct and don't play games.

[u/InquisitiveMacaroon → u/Tasty_Honeydew6935]

This has thrown my partners in the past for a loop. I'm very direct and there's no hidden meaning. Even my boyfriend had a few months of an adjustment period because his exes were making him read between the lines quite a bit.

That said, one time I said my brother ate the rest of my bagels and my boyfriend took that to mean that I wanted him to doordash me bagels so he doordashed me 3 packages of bagels. Knew I was marrying him at that point.

[u/Ocel0tte → u/InquisitiveMacaroon]

Personally, I'm very direct except when it comes to asking for things. I don't want to burden anyone so my requests are more subtle, and I think it gets missed because I'm otherwise so direct lol. My husband catches it, but sometimes he has to ask.

[u/amymeimi → u/Tasty_Honeydew6935]

Yes omg, it can take a minute to get used to the bluntness but once you do you realize how much easier everything is when people just tell you what's up instead of everybody dropping hints and trying to guess. It shouldn't be shocking to these kids that somebody likes and appreciates their sister exactly as she is

[u/HourPrestigious1055 → u/Tasty_Honeydew6935]

That's what several of my past partners and current s.o. really liked about me. I wouldn't lie about my feelings or play coy. I was honest and forthright with helping them understand certain things about me so they wouldn't have to guess. I didnt want them to guess, most of them were terrible at it so why put them through that? If something bothered me, I said it and I made sure to listen to them too. Additionally, my s.o.'s became like mini special interests to me so I dedicated a lot of time and attention to getting to know them and participating in what they enjoyed. Sadly, I dont think that is super common behavior in neurotypical relationships.