Re: Obsessions and black/white thinking

[Guest guest]

  Blessings on your desire to do the best thing for your child!  I understand the philosophy of unschooling, but surely all  " children " need to have some parental supervision.  That is why we are the parents.  You wouldn't allow him to play in the street just because you were an unschooler, would you?  If what you are doing now is not working for him or you, it is probably time to try something new.  I  hope you will be able to look at your child, assess his gifts, determine some long-term and short-term goals, and ask our loving, heavenly Father to give you divine inspiration on how to best guide your son.  This has always worked for me - maybe not as quickly or as easily as I would like, but I always eventually see progress when I depend on the Lord.  He created my child, so He knows what my precious one needs more than I do.

 

Praying for your success and a peace-filled home1

 

Blessings!

 

Hi everyone,My 7 yo ASD son has always gotten stuck on things, where he obsesses about them and can do/think about little else.  Our current obsession is playing our new Wii.  He particularly likes the Lego Star Wars game.  He's lost interest in everything else--even in decorating for Halloween, which is (was?) always his favorite holiday.  When he's not playing he just wants to get back to it--when we're taking a walk or visiting friends, he just wants to talk about the game and/or ask when we'll be going back home.

Some of the time he's really enjoying himself and is so excited by the game and his mastery of it, but often he gets so frustrated that he melts down into a tantrum or intense anger.  We are unschoolers and try to let ds make his own choices and set his own limits, but I'm finding that it's not working very well with an ASD child who has very little patience or impulse control and tends to think only in black and white terms.  For example, he'll play until he gets a headache or stomach ache

[Guest guest]

I have found that with my DS, even though I would like to be relaxed and

unstructed in his education- that doesn't work for him. :-/ I have had to

adjust my own teaching style to better fit his needs. My primary goal in making

a determination is, " Will this help him function better when I am not there? "

Because that's what I have to do- teach him to handle his condition. KWIM? Not

only do I need to prevent him from obsessing about a game today (and he does),

but I also need to teach him how to recognize and stop an obession in the

future.

I hesitate to give specific advice because each child and each set of conditions

(we have several) is so very different. But, in our case, if an activity is

interfering with life-functioning, then it gets taken away completely. We talk

about why and I make sure Ds knows it is never punative, but we simply don't

allow him to feed the illness of compulsion to the point where he is out of

control. I want to also note that around age 7 is when we saw a blow up of our

child's symptoms and difficulties. We've now had to start medicating. So it

may be that you are seeing the onset of the " next level. "

Behavioral therapy might be helpful- we are doing this as well. If you've not

done so be sure to check out some books about not only ASD, but also ADHD and

bipolarism in children. The diagnosis might not fit, but I've found that some

of the adaptations and coping techniques the books offer overlap.