Reading your article, I started to suspect that your parents may have been religious and that was why they had such restrictive parenting, and I suspect that some of it might have been in place autism or not.

Your father definitely acted above his station taking a device away from that was given to your by your school, as it wasn't his to take away, whether he approved of content you searched for or not.

I remember, my parents sent me to Cubs, which I hated, and we learnt match safety. I wanted to light the candles for my birthday cake the following year but my father told me I was, quote, "too little."

I went to school with some kids from religious families who said that, at 11-12, their parents sent them to bed at 7:30pm. To that, I say, "Okay, if the kids were swimming at squad level and were competing at State Level, and their day was say, "4:30am, wake up and have an orange juice, 5am, start training, 7am, finish training, go home. 7:30am, breakfast, and shower, 8:30am, go to school, 9am, start school, 3:30pm, arrive home, snack, do homework, 6pm, dinner, 7:30pm, bed," fair enough. OR, if OCCASIONALLY, they have a late night for an important reason and they're not in bed until 10:30-11pm, and have to go to school the next day and their parents say, "Okay, tonight, you go to bed at 7:30pm to catch up on some sleep," but on a regular basis, that's ridiculous. Okay, parents should set bedtimes for school age kids, but within reason. So, a six year old, should go to bed at 7-7:30pm, an eight or nine year old 7:30-8pm, a ten year old, 8:30-9pm, a 13 year old, 9-9:30pm, and so on. And, it's fair enough for the parents to say to a ten year old, "Okay, 8:30-9pm school nights, and you can stay up until 9:30-10pm Friday and Saturday nights." I think when it comes to TV, parents should say, once a kid reaches 8 or 9, "Okay, when you come home from school, you can have 15-20mins decompression time, to have a snack and relax. Then, you do your homework." Once a kid reaches 10-11, the parents should say, "Okay, this is how an afternoon-evening can be: 3:30pm: arrive home from school, decompression/snack time, 4pm: core homework, assignment/study, 6pm: dinner, 6:30pm, shower, 7pm: watch TV." What parents can do, to foster good study habits is say, "Okay, if you've got an assignment to do, and it's due in two weeks, don't force it all into one night. And by that I mean, don't leave it until the last minute and don't force it all to be done two weeks in advance. Get your core homework done first, then say, half an hour research for your assignment, and then half an hour's study."

And yes, parents encouraging their kids not to smoke or drink alcohol before they legally can drink alcohol is good, but not talking to them about the dangers of smoking and addictive drugs is not good.