It really does depend on the child, and often on the situation. There have been times when it would not work to try to insist on eye contact from the boys, especially difficult child 1. However, despite his diagnosis of autism, difficult child 3 is actually quite good at eye contact.
As for sarcasm - we are trying to teach difficult child 3 how to use it appropriately. We do not use it as a matter of course unless we are making it clear we are joking. But he has to learn how to recognise it because he has to live in this world and there are people who don't know any better. His grandma teases him all the time and then if he gets upset, she says, "I was only joking," which is not appropriate but you can't change some people. So the kids have had to learn to work within Grandma's framework.
We had an issue last night - husband was talking to Grandma about something important that relates to her needs. difficult child 3 walked in halfway through and said, "What's this about?" which totally derailed husband's train of thought. He raised his voice to difficult child 3 and difficult child 3 responded in kind, the whole situation rapidly escalating. Grandma then spoke up and tried to add her wisdom of the ages, while I tried to also step in and bring things back to an even keel, without anybody losing face to begin with. Meanwhile Grandma was getting upset with me for "giving in" and not insisting difficult child 3 come back and apologise. We handled it soon afterwards when we went home and explained several things -
1) difficult child 3 should not have interrupted.
2) husband should not have raised his voice - he was not yelling although he was loud and the tone of voice was harsh (I would have reacted badly if it had been aimed at me). However, husband did not get to finish telling Grandma what he needed to, because of the interruption and the subsequent drama.
3) No matter how much in the right he feels himself to be, difficult child 3 MUST learn a gentler way to respond. "Dad pushes my buttons" is no longer a valid excuse because there will always be people who push buttons. Always focus on what YOU want out of a situation and then decide the best way to get what you want from someone else. Shouting at someone else is less likely to get you what you want, even if you feel they deserve to be shouted at.
And finally -
4) Do not show disrespect to anybody else in front of Grandma. And Grandma is always right, even when she is wrong.
We will not always be there to help him through, to 'translate' a social situation into terms he understands. In fact, there are more distant family members who seem to feel it's their duty to correct difficult child 3 the way they feel we should (if we were not so indulgent!) and who wait until we're out of the room to try their own brand of correction on him. And when it backfires, they then lecture us on how our approach has made him disrespectful because he got angry with them when they were "only trying to help!"
Such people would never accept those rules - if a rule clashes with what these people "KNOW" to be right, they just ignore the academic stuff and blunder on, regardless. And blame us when they mess up.
Pity.
Thanks for the link, I found it validating.
Marg