what I've learned

I had a one on one appointment with the therapist on Friday. Here are my notes of what I learned. I think that these will be very helpful. The therapist said that the behaviors will get worse before they get better and the hardest part with all of this is the follow through. I'm making up my morning, homework and bedtime routines now! I have an appointment next Friday to go over how to handle the summer routines - basically you still have morning, homework, and bedtime routines, but the homework routine may be just reading for a half hour at X time).

*She also stated that this could take 21 days (of us following through perfectly) before it makes sense to the kids!

The number 1 important thing that she stressed is that during discipline you have to act like a complete robot. Do not show any emotion over the situation. After you have reacted to the behavior (timeout, soothing box) then you can show emotion over what they did.

5 things that parents must commit to: (if you cannot commit to these 5 things, you will never succeed).

1. Structure - you should have 3 things that always stay the same (morning routine, homework routine, bedtime routine) and at bedtime you should take 5 minutes to let your child know what the schedule is for the next day.
2. Consistency - what we expect as parents must stay the same. Family rules should be posted in the house.
3. Follow Through - because the rules are posted in the house and have been discussed as a family, there should be no warnings given if a rule is broken. If a rule is broken, straight to timeout. Timeout should be in an open, neutral space (not a bedroom - bedrooms need to be reserved for quiet, peaceful places that we sleep, not where we take timeouts). If the child is disruptive during timeout, they gain additional minutes (timeout minutes = 1 minute for each year of age)
4. Teamwork - stay in communication with everyone who watches your child. Let them know what works, what doesn't work, etc
5. Communicate - whenever someone enters the house (i.e. Dad comes home from work) that person should be given 5 minutes alone to change clothes, etc. When a parent comes home, they should use that 5 minutes to communicate with the other parent about what happened during the day.
   

ROUTINES
Laminate routines so your child can check them off with a dry erase marker.
For the homework routine, estimate an amount of time that homework should last, don't allow it to go longer (this is so the child knows that the homework timeframe will end and they wont dillydally).

Rewards
You can use video games as rewards. If your child completes everything on their morning routine, for example, they earn 15 minutes video game time starting at X time.


MELTDOWNS

When to remove from the situation?

• If you are out doing something for him (i.e. at T-R-U and he can't decide what he wants so he starts to melt down) you leave.
• If you are out doing something for you (i.e. grocery shopping) you do not leave.
  

How to deal with meltdowns?

• His bedroom should be his safe, quiet, peaceful sleep place.
• He should have a "soothing box" in his room filled with things that are calming to him - music CD, a favorite toy, a blanket, a journal, a blow up punching bag.
• When a meltdown starts, send him to his room to calm down and tell him to use his soothing box.
• If you find him in his room hitting himself, tell him that it is unacceptable and he needs to find something out of his soothing box to calm himself.
• Offer him the option of using his journal to write down his thoughts about why he is angry, frustrated, etc. For us, he will yell that he hates his brain so the therapist suggested that he write a letter to his brain in his journal.
  

my hero

I spent this past weekend practically dead. I came down with some bizarro flu Friday (which I am still convinced was Swine flu) and am still feeling sick tonight, but I can tell I am now on the mend. My husband worked all day yesterday and I could do nothing but lay in my bed dying. I was so desperately sick that I put my 7 year old in charge of the girls...no easy task! But he did an amazing job. He kept them fed and out of trouble, reported to me what they were up to and brought me wet washcloths for my head. I even heard him issue a few timeouts that actually worked.

Thank God for our sons!

Today my husband and the kids went to a family BBQ and swimming and my sweet boy was worried about who would stay home with me to make sure I was ok. He even called to see how I was doing.

After they returned from the party, we sat in the backyard and had a fire, roasted marshmallows and popcorn. Boy told us the most elaborate stories about Batman and all of the Batman characters. He truly is an amazing gift.

And who knew The Penguin's real name was Oswald?

the pictures

These pictures were taken within a matter of seconds and capture perfectly the in ability to stay still for more than a second. He is constantly on the go.

He also has a hard time smiling on cue and looking at the camera.



My favorite picture of all is the one below. They got a natural looking smile out of him by making him sing the SpongeBob Square Pants song.

McD BBQ Sauce

I could never understand why people would save the sauces from fast food restaurants, it just seemed like such a waste of space. Could you ever possibly make a meal and think "Darn! If I just had a packet of Arby sauce, the meal would be so much better! Alas, it is ruined."? I could hardly imagine that would be the case. I never thought I would be one of those people...

...However, my son will eat things that he can dip into McD's BBQ sauce. Not things like veggies, of course, but chicken nuggets, hot dogs.

So now I find myself ordering these little sauces with each child's happy meal and stash them away in the fridge for when they are needed. Why do we store them in the fridge anyway? Do we all think that makes them stay fresh?

Bon Appetit!

new appointment update

Live from therapy, already an update!

Our next session will be with just me. For the next week or so I need to journal exact examples of his behavioral problems and bring them in to her so she can give me exact ways to react.

woo hoo, sounds great to me!!

Several weeks in and finally Im going to learn some tricks.

next appointment

Here I am blogging live from our next therapy appointment. I am waiting for the therapist to come get him and then they go back on their own.

I have a few key issues that need to be addressed...
1. he has become very 'mouthy' lately...more so then usual.
2. what discipline methods should I use with him?
3. how do I distinguish between what he can control and cannot?
4. he says he has no friends in school and no one plays with him (i think the biggest reason is because he refuses to play what other kids want to play).
5. ongoing frustration/anger issues.

I hope to start learning some coping skills for him! It's a slow journey as he learns more about his emotions, which is the key to all other progress.
I'll keep everyone informed!

photo session

If you want to do something really funny with an aspie kid, take him for a portrait session! We did this yesterday. It was a little frustrating for me because I did want to buy the pictures, but overall it was pretty funny. He was in a goofy mood and has a difficult time smiling 'on demand'.
The funniest part was that he practiced some poses (while in underwear in the bathroom mirror) that he referred to as his 'man poses'. When he pulled them out the photog laughed so hard she dropped her camera, was crying and had to leave the room.

He's so Mr. Cool!

oh blah

I am not sure if my husband will ever fully understand all of this...

lemme back up a bit...
If a study was done on this, I am sure it would be confirmed that on average each house within a thirty mile radius of us has on average 2.5 Nintendo DS. Except for our house. We are crazy and apparently out of touch with the universe and have on average 0. Im not against them (he can play weekends only though) we just have never thought he would like it. We were wrong.
For the last several weeks he has begged and pleaded for us to buy it for him. He has done several chores and is saving his money.

On Monday my husband made a deal with him that he could get the DSi & a game if he cleaned spotless the basement and his room. Usually he jumps at the chance to do chores and earn $ but this time he procrastinated until tonight. Meanwhile he had it in his head he would get it in time for the weekend...Im sure everyone can guess how my night went...

...and how each day/night will go until he completes the tasks at hand.

We won't give in though...no DSi until the chores are done. Lets see how long I keep my sanity.

self regulation

I was emailed a copy this Self Regulation Information document today about self regulation. I think some of these techniques will work amazingly for my son so I wanted to share them. I especially like this chart of what to do if over-stimulated or under-stimulated.

I will review and comment on what works and does not seem to work.

Let me know if anyone has any feedback!

accomplished

I am feeling super accomplished today because yesterday I made all of the appointments that I have kept putting off doing. Why in the world do I put off phone calls so much?!

Things accomplished:
Food Allergy Testing - scheduled for June 13th
Prescription for Sensory Testing - should be ready in a few days
Dog appt to get neutered - Monday (yes, not Aspie related, but still accomplished!)

Time it took to accomplish them: 18 minutes

Reasons I procrastinate? numerous

nail clipping

Question of the day

How can I successfully clip the nails of the boy who screams and flinches whenever I touch his nails?

...just a slight bit of drama this morning.

The Chart

The therapist has him tracking his emotions daily on a chart. She says this will help him start to associate what he is feeling with the type of emotion it is. I am attaching the chart and will explain it below...I think it will be hugely beneficial and may be beneficial to someone else also.

A few key points about the chart:
1. He has to go through the chart first, before bed. He marks the emotions that he felt throughout the day in a red pen. After, he explains to us what made him feel each emotion and how he reacted.
2. I go through and mark the emotions that I witnessed throughout the day for him. It may be the same emotions or it may be different emotions. The key is to point out the emotions that he missed throughout the day. Then I go through and explain to him when I witnessed each emotion in him and how he reacted.

The other thing that she discussed with him is the idea that Feelings+Thoughts=Behaviors

Feelings - feelings are never wrong, you are not in control of them
Thoughts - thoughts are able to be re-thought
Behaviors - behaviors are in your control, you can change them