Your Child's Most Bizarre Obsession?

The Boy has pretty much been obsessed with a limited number of "fairly typical" things...helicopters, Cars, water, pin wheels, etc. It gets on my nerves, but it doesn't rule our lives...e.g., he has helicopter toys, but he isn't allowed to only play with them. We don't feed the obsession, but so far haven't "banned" anything (we did have to remove helicopters at one point because he was just "stuck").

This morning, for whatever reason, The Boy woke up obsessed with hair. I have absolutely no idea what it's about, but it's incredibly strange. He found a barbie with long hair, and has been wandering around talking about her hair, about how he is going to have long hair, about how his hair is soft, etc. Beyond weird, and I just can't be that parent who says "go for it" and buys the kid a wig. Right now, we're ignoring it completely to see if it goes away on its own but ohhhh how I hope he comes up with something new fast.

For those of you with kids with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)/Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)/etc...what has been your kiddos strangest obsession?

Also: I should probably post this as a separate thread, but...for those of your children with mental illness vs Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)/Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)/ADHD...can they "turn it off" for periods of time? We still aren't sure what The Boy's actual diagnosis is, and I'm just curious. He can (after days/weeks of more typical behavior) wake up completely "crazy" in the morning with high pressurized speech, completely unfocused and unable to answer questions, only focused on his obsessions and saying things that don't make sense. We do "summer homeschool," and when I say it's time to work, he can turn off the "crazy" for a couple of hours and complete the tasks. I've had kids with both Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and MI diagnosis at work and none of them have been able to "turn it off."
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
I don't think they can so much "turn it off", as it is that they react to things on many levels. So, an accumulation of minor stressors can trigger a major problem. OR... the insertion into the day of structured activities they are comfortable with (such as "school work", in your case), may counteract some of the other triggers.

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) kids - and kids with any level of spectrumish traits - are VERY structure-driven, but can't generally create effective structure themselves. The more we created and maintained structure, the less "problem behaviours" we have had.
 
L

Liahona

Guest
difficult child 1 has what I call the light switch effect. It is spooky. He can be in full rage and all of a sudden he is completely normal. I've noticed a change in his environment is normally the antecedent for this behavior; like someone else coming into the room or him going from the car to the house. I think difficult child 1 has Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) but that is not all he has.

Have you tracked this behavior change to see if it might be a cycle?
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Onyxx is completely able to go from zero to rage or the other direction in a split second. All depends on what is going on around her. Structure is key, too. (She's been out of our home for just under 3 months and has racked up 5 felony charges, some with multiple counts, and half a dozen misdemeanors, where that same half dozen misdemeanors and a single felony took her 3 years before - when she was living with us and we tried to structure things.

As for odd obsessions - keeping envelopes her bank statements come in, even though they are useless; and being terrified of fish but loving to eat them... She used to have a small aquarium in her room... I think she's afraid all the tetras she neglected to death are going to come back and get her.
 
Yep, no clear cycle. It's good for a while and then it might be VERY bad for a day...or two days...or three weeks (that was the longest). Sometimes there's no evident trigger, other times it's obvious what started the situation. The three weeks of bad was definitely in response to a PTSD trigger though, so it doesn't really fit the pattern.

*He just does the strangest things sometimes, his behavior looks more psychotic than Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). But then the rest of the time, it doesn't look like MI. psychiatric basically said with his combination of issues, there's no way to know unless we a) wait it out until it's more obvious or b) start shooting in the dark with medications. Most days, I don't worry about it but omg was yesterday an "off" day.
 
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