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We are tired here...behavioral plans harder than the behavior!
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<blockquote data-quote="susiestar" data-source="post: 582935" data-attributes="member: 1233"><p>I absolutely do NOT believe in token economies. They may work for neurotypical kids, but were the stuff of nightmares for us. WHen Wiz was young they were supposedly the BEST thing for dealing with Aspergers. There was some book written by a young man with Asperger's in Ireland. It was about five years old when we were introduced to it. It was only about a month later I found an article about the young man as a teen. His family was stuck in a token economy they could not get out of. They had to pay him to even get out of bed, to do almost ANYTHING other than play video games. His mother said it seemed like a good idea, but in reality it gave him the impression that he should be paid for every basic act of living and she had caregivers from the national health plan who did all of the basic things with him because she just couldn't see any good in it and wouldn't do it. She was very frustrated, and ready to just walk away from him and the situation, and she couldn't get the health care system to see the problems with this token economy.</p><p></p><p>At the same time, we had HUGE issues with Wiz hurting jess. This was the time period when if I was alone with the kids, I took J with me into the bathroom if I had to go. If I didn't, she was hurt by the time I got back. The therapist student we were workign with wanted me to give Wiz a token every time he did anything remotely nice to Jess. Ten tokens would equal a five dollar book. He had NO idea why I totally refused to do this. I spoke with the therapist supervising him (he was doing postdoctoral studies under an awesome therapist) and she was dumbfounded that he would suggest this. WHy? What message would it send to J if we had to PAY her brother to be not mean to her? What damage would that do to her self esteem? When I asked the student therapist, he was confused. Why would he worry about the effect on her? She wasn't the patient, so she wasn't part of the equation. He actually said this while the awesome therapist was supervising and we never saw him again. He got terminated from the program a semester before finishing it because he just couldn't/wouldn't see the effect on the other children in the home. They strongly recommended he stick to adults because with kids you must treat the entire family. </p><p></p><p>We never had even small successes with token economies. We tried them for a few things, as did school at various times. It always degenerated into nonstop arguing over how much for what, what a token was worth, when he could spend it and where/what for, yada yada yada. I don't know if others have had success, but in my opinion they are useless.</p><p></p><p>I wish I could tell you what works. I do know that we got more bang for the effort from identifying and working with sensory issues, and using them to help teach anger mgmt. He also learned that even other kids would object to what he did at home while he was in the psychiatric hospital. I know the psychiatric hospital staff was not happy, but I wanted to buy a cake for the kid who punched him in the face during a therapy group. Why? It got through to Wiz that it wasn't just his dad and I who objected to him treating his sister as a punching bag and worse. That was a BIG wakeup call, and it left a lasting message that he was able to build on. It didn't do much for the other boy, and of course I didn't buy him a gift. But I did refuse to press charges, which frustrated staff. </p><p></p><p>Look into Occupational Therapist (OT) and auditory issues, and follow your instincts. It was the only way through for us. But the things like stickers and tokens just don't work. Well, they do for kids like Jess, who want to please, but they don't for our difficult children.</p><p></p><p>If I had it to do over again, I would establish one comp game or tv show and only remove that for the most extreme things. I would still take all screens away when he was younger, under twelve or so, because I know that he would slip into truly believing that what he saw on tv was real until around then. By about the time he came out of the psychiatric hospital he didn't slip into that again for very long, and being able to lose himself in one specific thing was a way to get out of his head and his own way. If that makes sense.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="susiestar, post: 582935, member: 1233"] I absolutely do NOT believe in token economies. They may work for neurotypical kids, but were the stuff of nightmares for us. WHen Wiz was young they were supposedly the BEST thing for dealing with Aspergers. There was some book written by a young man with Asperger's in Ireland. It was about five years old when we were introduced to it. It was only about a month later I found an article about the young man as a teen. His family was stuck in a token economy they could not get out of. They had to pay him to even get out of bed, to do almost ANYTHING other than play video games. His mother said it seemed like a good idea, but in reality it gave him the impression that he should be paid for every basic act of living and she had caregivers from the national health plan who did all of the basic things with him because she just couldn't see any good in it and wouldn't do it. She was very frustrated, and ready to just walk away from him and the situation, and she couldn't get the health care system to see the problems with this token economy. At the same time, we had HUGE issues with Wiz hurting jess. This was the time period when if I was alone with the kids, I took J with me into the bathroom if I had to go. If I didn't, she was hurt by the time I got back. The therapist student we were workign with wanted me to give Wiz a token every time he did anything remotely nice to Jess. Ten tokens would equal a five dollar book. He had NO idea why I totally refused to do this. I spoke with the therapist supervising him (he was doing postdoctoral studies under an awesome therapist) and she was dumbfounded that he would suggest this. WHy? What message would it send to J if we had to PAY her brother to be not mean to her? What damage would that do to her self esteem? When I asked the student therapist, he was confused. Why would he worry about the effect on her? She wasn't the patient, so she wasn't part of the equation. He actually said this while the awesome therapist was supervising and we never saw him again. He got terminated from the program a semester before finishing it because he just couldn't/wouldn't see the effect on the other children in the home. They strongly recommended he stick to adults because with kids you must treat the entire family. We never had even small successes with token economies. We tried them for a few things, as did school at various times. It always degenerated into nonstop arguing over how much for what, what a token was worth, when he could spend it and where/what for, yada yada yada. I don't know if others have had success, but in my opinion they are useless. I wish I could tell you what works. I do know that we got more bang for the effort from identifying and working with sensory issues, and using them to help teach anger mgmt. He also learned that even other kids would object to what he did at home while he was in the psychiatric hospital. I know the psychiatric hospital staff was not happy, but I wanted to buy a cake for the kid who punched him in the face during a therapy group. Why? It got through to Wiz that it wasn't just his dad and I who objected to him treating his sister as a punching bag and worse. That was a BIG wakeup call, and it left a lasting message that he was able to build on. It didn't do much for the other boy, and of course I didn't buy him a gift. But I did refuse to press charges, which frustrated staff. Look into Occupational Therapist (OT) and auditory issues, and follow your instincts. It was the only way through for us. But the things like stickers and tokens just don't work. Well, they do for kids like Jess, who want to please, but they don't for our difficult children. If I had it to do over again, I would establish one comp game or tv show and only remove that for the most extreme things. I would still take all screens away when he was younger, under twelve or so, because I know that he would slip into truly believing that what he saw on tv was real until around then. By about the time he came out of the psychiatric hospital he didn't slip into that again for very long, and being able to lose himself in one specific thing was a way to get out of his head and his own way. If that makes sense. [/QUOTE]
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We are tired here...behavioral plans harder than the behavior!
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