Give the kid a little credit
Or be incredulous, depending on your perspective ...
So, Younger Child had mostly misinterpreted a couple things said to him. While most kids would be whining "I thought you said a C was OK" in response to "get your grades above a C", this kid rephrased "your grades must be a C or higher" to "I have to get an A or B because that's higher than a C."
I really don't know where he learned to put that kind of performance pressure on himself. Really.
But I was surprised that his dad hadn't fooled him one bit with his silly paper-grading exercise. He knew he'd not done A- work, and wasn't surprised when the teachers handed the paper back asking him to clean it up. He seemed a little disappointed that his dad would again tweak him but we glossed over that one. Not my problem any more, he's old enough to deal with his dad on some level. And he needs to see the truth: that's who the man is.
Many ASD kids would have taken the first one literally and set the bar at a C and no higher; and they would have taken the second one literally as well, choosing to hang on to the more flattering input.