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Very productive and stern psychiatric mtng
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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 31166" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>Terry, this doctor sounds fabulous. Can you arrange to have him cloned?</p><p></p><p>You said, "difficult child was upset because he was going to a birthday party sleepover Fri. night and I took away the sleepover, but said he could go to the party and leave early, simply because it's not fair to punish his friend on his birthday."</p><p></p><p>I can understand why you compromised. But with 20:20 hindsight plus what you've said about him being literal-minded, it sounds to me that he would have interpreted letting him go at all, as a complete cave-in by you. I agree with you, most kids would have responded to it as generous but still discipline, but difficult child probably didn't.</p><p></p><p>Something to bear in mind - if difficult child is demonstrating such lack of control that he is obstructing your free movement, then he is not showing sufficient control to be permitted in other people's company. You didn't want to punish his friend, but maybe an out of control difficult child would not have been a good b'day present.</p><p></p><p>I do hope you get some answers soon, on the Asperger's front. The stubbornness you mentioned - it sounds very familiar. Only I've not seen it as stubbornness, so much as a determination to control things exactly as HE wants them. For example, difficult child 3 as a very young baby (newborn) quickly settled into a pattern of a full feed, then awake and looking around at things for an hour, then ANOTHER full feed, then a sleep for six hours. So he was getting his six feeds a day, but in pairs, an hour apart, with a six hour sleep three times a day. If I tried to change this pattern it was horrible. But when I gave in to it, he was a happy baby and doing well. So was I. So I let him, even when nursing sisters were very critical.</p><p>Similarly - when difficult child 3 INSISTED on watching game shows and screamed if he was taken out of the room while a game show was on, we let him watch them. OK, we thought it was cute because he was only six months old, but it soon became clear that this wasn't coincidence, this really was happening. It made no difference to us to let him watch.</p><p></p><p>The problems come when it DOES make a difference - when the game show is stopping him going to school, for example, or stopping him from going to bed when he should. THAT'S when you get rages and attacks. The other thing we learned to do, was allow difficult child 3 time to change tasks. If a 'task' or activity was watching a game show, we would often use the ad break to talk to difficult child 3, to warn him that when his game show was over he would have to have his bath and clean his teeth. By waiting those few minutes, we got further down the bath/teeth cleaned track than if we had forced this issue. Forcing it and saying, "Do it NOW!" only triggered raging meltdowns which meant he was too busy raging to have his bath then anyway, so we ended up being even later. </p><p>If the game show finished and then difficult child 3 still refused to cooperate, after previously agreeing to bath as soon as his show finished, we made it clear that next time his game show was on he would not be permitted to watch it because we couldn't trust him to keep his word. Usually, the warning was enough provided we always have allowed time to make the changes he seems to need. And now he's learn that WE keep our word, he's much more cooperative. </p><p>We constantly do deals, but now we can trust him because he's accepted that he can trust us. OK, he always COULD trust us, but he didn't always KNOW it.</p><p></p><p>I'm not saying that you should do things our way and then you'll have the perfect child; I'm only saying, think about how things work for us and see if there is any resemblance to how your difficult child seems to think. Can you see a possible similarity? because a lot of how difficult child 3 copes now, is because of his autism and how we've worked within the framework it sets for him. Trying to work outside it causes us immense problems. And sometimes it's not always obvious, where the boundaries lie. The smarter the kid, the harder it is to see the boundaries because these kids WANT to seem normal and so hide their problems and symptoms more than is realised.</p><p></p><p>The drawings sound cool, though. difficult child 3 can't draw for nuts - he's got poor coordination. But he's got a good eye for photography. Maybe you could use art supplies as a reward - change what he uses sometimes. If he uses a lot of pencils, maybe give him a set of different hardnesses of pencil, or introduce him to charcoal and pastels. But your doctor - his blood's worth bottling.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 31166, member: 1991"] Terry, this doctor sounds fabulous. Can you arrange to have him cloned? You said, "difficult child was upset because he was going to a birthday party sleepover Fri. night and I took away the sleepover, but said he could go to the party and leave early, simply because it's not fair to punish his friend on his birthday." I can understand why you compromised. But with 20:20 hindsight plus what you've said about him being literal-minded, it sounds to me that he would have interpreted letting him go at all, as a complete cave-in by you. I agree with you, most kids would have responded to it as generous but still discipline, but difficult child probably didn't. Something to bear in mind - if difficult child is demonstrating such lack of control that he is obstructing your free movement, then he is not showing sufficient control to be permitted in other people's company. You didn't want to punish his friend, but maybe an out of control difficult child would not have been a good b'day present. I do hope you get some answers soon, on the Asperger's front. The stubbornness you mentioned - it sounds very familiar. Only I've not seen it as stubbornness, so much as a determination to control things exactly as HE wants them. For example, difficult child 3 as a very young baby (newborn) quickly settled into a pattern of a full feed, then awake and looking around at things for an hour, then ANOTHER full feed, then a sleep for six hours. So he was getting his six feeds a day, but in pairs, an hour apart, with a six hour sleep three times a day. If I tried to change this pattern it was horrible. But when I gave in to it, he was a happy baby and doing well. So was I. So I let him, even when nursing sisters were very critical. Similarly - when difficult child 3 INSISTED on watching game shows and screamed if he was taken out of the room while a game show was on, we let him watch them. OK, we thought it was cute because he was only six months old, but it soon became clear that this wasn't coincidence, this really was happening. It made no difference to us to let him watch. The problems come when it DOES make a difference - when the game show is stopping him going to school, for example, or stopping him from going to bed when he should. THAT'S when you get rages and attacks. The other thing we learned to do, was allow difficult child 3 time to change tasks. If a 'task' or activity was watching a game show, we would often use the ad break to talk to difficult child 3, to warn him that when his game show was over he would have to have his bath and clean his teeth. By waiting those few minutes, we got further down the bath/teeth cleaned track than if we had forced this issue. Forcing it and saying, "Do it NOW!" only triggered raging meltdowns which meant he was too busy raging to have his bath then anyway, so we ended up being even later. If the game show finished and then difficult child 3 still refused to cooperate, after previously agreeing to bath as soon as his show finished, we made it clear that next time his game show was on he would not be permitted to watch it because we couldn't trust him to keep his word. Usually, the warning was enough provided we always have allowed time to make the changes he seems to need. And now he's learn that WE keep our word, he's much more cooperative. We constantly do deals, but now we can trust him because he's accepted that he can trust us. OK, he always COULD trust us, but he didn't always KNOW it. I'm not saying that you should do things our way and then you'll have the perfect child; I'm only saying, think about how things work for us and see if there is any resemblance to how your difficult child seems to think. Can you see a possible similarity? because a lot of how difficult child 3 copes now, is because of his autism and how we've worked within the framework it sets for him. Trying to work outside it causes us immense problems. And sometimes it's not always obvious, where the boundaries lie. The smarter the kid, the harder it is to see the boundaries because these kids WANT to seem normal and so hide their problems and symptoms more than is realised. The drawings sound cool, though. difficult child 3 can't draw for nuts - he's got poor coordination. But he's got a good eye for photography. Maybe you could use art supplies as a reward - change what he uses sometimes. If he uses a lot of pencils, maybe give him a set of different hardnesses of pencil, or introduce him to charcoal and pastels. But your doctor - his blood's worth bottling. Marg [/QUOTE]
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