I hear you. Oh boy, do we get tis! (right, husband/Marg's Man?)
The thing is, the methods in TEC are NOT wishy-washy. Or rather, they shouldn't be. But i agree, sometimes it can feel like that, if you don't do it right.
Yes, with these kids we need to be consistent. But consistent doesn't have to mean rigid. In fact, if you can be consistent but flexible, you are teaching him to also be flexible, which is a very important lesson for these kids.
Yes, TV all day is not good. But these kids actually use things like TV and computer gaming as a coping strategy, that is one reason for them being so insistent. If they could, they would play games all day and never get in touch with the real world. That is not acceptable. But the other side - banning them form gaming, especially as a punishment - you are removing them form their coping strategy, often as a punishment for not coping, which pushes teir anxiety higher, which... you get the picture. It's a matter of finding balance, of negotiating. And yes, you can still be firm and consistent, and still negotiate.
Now, what I do is not necessarily what you do - you have your own household rules and that is perfectly fine. You don't have to get rid of them. But you may need to consider modifying them (in a way you feel OK with) in order to begin teaching your son that negotiation is good, nagging and trying to wear people down, is not.
How we've done it - we will be rigid in not giving way to nagging. However, we WILL listen to negotiation. Now in the early stages this was still difficult because difficult child 3 (and easy child 2/difficult child 2) would still snap back into nagging mode.
Ways to survive -
1) Avoid ultimatums, avoid making, "That does it! Now you're NOT getting what you want!" statements. All this does, is teach that you, the parent, have power over the child and you WILL exercise it as a personal whim, a form of punishment. To the child this sounds like control for its own sake, a form of bullying. You mightn't mean it that way, but if tat is how the child sees it, then you have lost.
2) Avoid viewing this as a "him vs me" situation. Once you see this as a battle you must win, you will have already lost. Instead, you need to see the whole interaction pattern as your child needing you to teach him how to negotiate, and how to get his needs plus your needs compromised in together.
I'll give you a scenario. difficult child 3 wants to play games. I want difficult child 3 to get his chores done. difficult child 3 is willing (theoretically) to do his chores, but to change task form gaming to chores takes mental effort and he needs help to make tis transition.
So - I remind him that he can always pause his game or save his game, that way he can (later on/next time) pick up where he left off. He knows this, I shouldn't have to remind him - but by reminding him, he's again touching base with this knowledge plus I am the one 'helping' him remember, so he is getting reminded that I am on his side.
Next - I remind him why the chores are so important. The birds have to be fed or they could starve. It's fun to feed the birds - they are good company. Son, why don't you get the camera and take photos of the birds? I know you like to do this (ie make the other task as attractive as possible). And the threat of the stick - if the birds don't get fed, then neither do you, because it's not fair for you to eat while your responsibilities go hungry. ALWAYS take care of your responsibilities first, before you meet your own needs. That is an important life principle for when you become a parent.
I also stress - feed the birds now while it is daylight, because trying to manage in the dark is tricky, there are spiders in there. And sometimes a very large (non-venomous) snake. Daylight is better.
If he really needs help task-changing, I will 'invent' for myself a task outside too, and I will suggest we go together, to work as a team. He ends up doing the same work, while I do my thing. I might fill a bucket of water for him, he might help me get clothes off the line. Again - he was supported. He generally ends up doing the chores in good grace especially when we work as a team (which is what Shari was suggesting). This is a good technique when you're trying to establish a new chore or a new routine.
The issue is one of habits. They form habits so incredibly fast. Example again - we live near the beach. I often take difficult child 3 to the beach with me. ONCE when I went to the shop on the way home and bought milk, I also bought difficult child 3 an ice cream. Next time we were heading home from the beach, he wanted an ice cream. "But we ALWAYS get ice cream on the way home from the beach!"
In vain did I say, "No, we don't, we only did it once."
For a while I caved, then I began insisting - not today. But I compromised - "when we get home, we'll make some shaved ice and syrup for you if you want." Over time he has learnt that we don't always have ice creams. In fact, they are a treat.
A lot of the insistence again comes from anxiety - "I need my world to be predictable; I need to know that I am not missing out on anything."
I have learnt to ignore the raging, the screaming and the yelling - it is not intended as insolence. But ignoring doesn't mean accepting it as OK. Once he's calmed down a bit (again, using TEC methods, as he can handle it) I will say, "I was not shouting at you; please do not shout at me, I was trying to work with you to find a solution, and it is difficult for me to think and to help you, when you are screaming at me. Now, let's try talking about this again, only you try talking politely with me. Let's see which feels better for you and for me."
ALWAYS keep calm. Show him how you want him to behave. Be patient. This takes time. But hopefully it won't take as long as you fear.
Now, some patterns are OK. For example, we have a pattern for difficult child 3, on Tuesday nights. Tuesday evening is drama class. It's a class for Special Education kids, many of whom are also autistic, or have other problems. difficult child 3 is one of the higher-functioning kids there. The kids are lovely to one another. But after class, one night I took an easy option and bought difficult child 3 a burger for dinner, so I could just worry about feeding myself when we get home. (another tip - a boy, especially a teen boy, who is hungry - can be REALLY unreasonable! So keep the beasts fed.) But over time, this has become a Tradition - difficult child 3 MUST have his Tuesday night burger.
Now, this is the interesting bit - over recent months. difficult child 3 has set his own new tradition - HE has decided tat every second week, he will get pizza instead of a burger. The funny thing last week was, "I feel like a burger tonight. But it's pizza's turn this week, so I'll have to wait until next week to have a burger."
I explained to him that it was entirely his choice. If he wanted a burger two weeks running, it was always his choice. Or he could choose something different again, such as fish. He still ended up choosing pizza, but it was a more sound decision - he really thought about it and made a conscious choice, and owned that choice. "I will have pizza anyway, because it is always good to try different things."
He is aware of his own habit of falling into routines and his own need to challenge himself and stay accustomed to change.
We have kept this tradition and added a new one - in the last few weeks since my cancer diagnosis, husband & I have met up after drama class (husband is on his way home from work) and while difficult child 3 is eating his burger or pizza (in the car), husband & I enjoy a quick Chinese restaurant meal. At first difficult child 3 whinged about the delay, but we pointed out - our meal from entering the restaurant, to leaving and coming home, was taking less than an hour. It takes about half an hour for him to order his burger, another ten minutes to eat it. He only has to wait a little while in the car (he doesn't like Chinese food and this way we enjoy a little respite form him) and while he's waiting, he can play on his hand-held game console. The alternative - he can come in and eat Chinese with us and forgo his burger - he chooses not to do. HIS choice.
What is happening here - difficult child 3 is making these choices, but they are made form options we give him. We are getting what we want too.
We went through a problem time when difficult child 3 was younger, of him wanting to play a certain computer game (Mission Thunderbolt) which should have been OK for him to play, but somehow caused him problems with nightmares, with anxiety, with sleeping problems, with appalling behaviour in the evenings. So we talked it over with him, explained that we knew he liked the game, but it was causing him trouble. We wanted to ban the game entirely. He wanted to still play it. So we said, "How about you stop playing that game after 4 pm? You can still play it, as long as you obey this rule. If you can't leave the game alone after 4 pm, we'll have to ban it entirely, until we know you can cope with it."
This worked. He learnt to leave the game alone and not even watch while his brother was playing it later in the evening. And the good thing - difficult child 3 himself observed that he was sleeping better with fewer nightmares. HE saw how good this was. The reinforced his acceptance of our wisdom.
But over the next few years, he felt he was better able to handle the game. So we talked about it (negotiated, not nagged) and we had a trial run. "OK, son, you can play Mission Thunderbolt this evening until 7 pm. Stop then, and we'll see how you are coping. If you sleep OK, then you can play it until 7 pm tomorrow night too."
In terms of getting a child off computer gaming and out of doors, we have used technology to help us. difficult child 3 likes photography, but he loves technology. When we got a digital camera, he wanted to learn how to use it. So we showed him, and let him take a few photos. He likes to take photos of flowers (close-up) and also of birds. He actually is a gifted photographer, we discovered, and we have told him this.
(another important point - use PRAISE as much as you can get away with. Use it appropriately).
So if I feel difficult child 3 is spending too much time indoors either on schoolwork or playing electronic games, I will suggest we go for a walk (or a drive) with the camera. We'll take photos. Taking photos of birds especially is a challenge to a kid who has trouble sitting still. The trick to it - you have to stand and watch the birds for a while, see where the birds are going. Then you go over quietly (wearing something subdued) and sit there and wait, until the birds can accept you as part of the scenery again and will go back to what they were doing. This can take half an hour or more. It's been an amazing sight for us, to see difficult child 3 sitting still and quiet in the Aussie bush, waiting for the birds to get used to his presence.
I'm sorry to use so many examples, but I thought it might be a better way to illustrate what I mean, and to show you that I really do understand what you're going through. We've been where you re. And in the earlier stages, we tried to handle it by being rigid and firm, thinking that it would be the best way to go (since it worked on us when we were kids). But with these kids - not only does it not work, but it can set you up for more of the same.
Since we backed off from rigidity and instead focussed on consistency and compromise, we have found a vast improvement in difficult child 3's manner as well as our own stress levels. We then find our happiness level at home steadily increasing in a positive feedback loop. Seeing difficult child 3 learn to be less rigid and more able to compromise himself, has been our best reward.
Our ultimate aim as parents, is to help our children become functioning, happy, productive members of society. They MUST learn to compromise, but when life is so difficult for them and so confusing, they often use rigidity as a coping strategy. They have to learn to relax their grip on that security blanket, in order to learn how to adapt to other people and their needs.
it will take them longer than most kids. But form our experience - they do get there.
Marg
