Re: Grieving and distraught - Why won't he do what I ask?

March 2, 2012

Hi, ~~ Sending a virtual hug ~~~~ Would your son watching the old videos with you help him? Can you say look there's you getting your shoes on....... Wow you sat so well back then..... We tried spankings too, they didn't work for us. For one I think our daughter has a high tolerance for pain. NO we did not spank hard and only on the butt with her diaper on, but she has stubbed her toe and done things that make me cringe and she doesn't show pain (sometimes she has especially when blood is involved even if it is just a pin prick size). Anyways, I tried

reverse psychology. It works sometimes. I will stay calm and when she completes the task I use excessive celebration high five's the chicken dance ect..... After we get in a routine it becomes old hat and usually done without drama. We also started using a reward method, her rewards are silver coins. With that said we still have our moments. Good Luck!! To: autism-aspergers Sent: Friday, March 2, 2012 8:28 AM Subject: Grieving and distraught - Why won't he do what I ask?

I sit here this morning just bawling. And sobbing, and I can't stop. My son, Hayden, is in the first grade. I just keep thinking back to those videos of him at 2 and 3 and how cute he was. At the time, Hayden had a diagnosis of Childhood Apraxia of Speech. He was such a good little boy. All his therapists always put on his evals that he was a "good little worker". Somewhere around 4 1/2 that all started to change. The summer he was 5, we got a PDD-NOS diagnosis after a pretty extensive neuro-psych eval. He worked through most of kindergarten un-medicated, but by the end of the year, we had him on Metadate. Now in first grade, I can't hardly get him out the door to school without pretty much doing everything for him because he just refuses to do what I ask of him.

I was just watching a video of him at three. Dad was getting his shoes on him to get ready to go somewhere. He just sat there quietly, with his hands in his lap, smiling as Dad was helping him get his shoes on. Today at 6, nearly 7, the bus was here waiting on him and I had to practically throw him onto the floor to put his shoes on him - all the while he's squirming and clapping and laughing. Once on the bus (the short bus mind you), he'll be strapped in and by the time he gets to school, his meds will have kicked in and he'll be the perfect little zombie for school. He gets straight A's and barely ever gets anything wrong. Thank God for that.

When he comes home, the meds will be just about worn off and it's back to dancing around, not doing anything he's told, laughing anytime I ask him to do something or am trying to make him do something, and just all over the place. The only time he's quiet is when I let him zone out in front of a video or video game.

I thought we were making progress and now this week he's just worse than ever. We don't have fun as a family anymore. We don't go out, we don't have friends. Well, we do have a few, but it's not like it used to be.

I don't know, I'm just whining and venting.

Okay, so here's the real question. I tend to do pretty well at getting Hayden to stop doing something like, well, I guess I can't even really come up with an example because those things are all nearly gone. He used to slide chairs all around, or upset a basket of clean laundry, or throw a deck of cards all over the floor. He doesn't really do those things anymore for the most part. What worked was taking away screen time or being sent to his room. What I'm struggling with is getting him to do the things I ask. Like, eating his breakfast in a timely manner, brushing his teeth, throwing away wrappers to his snack food, or putting his dirty clothes in the hamper. Taking away screen time doesn't seem to work for this stuff. I've thought about taking it away all together and instead making him earn it by doing what he's told. But I've also heard that if you do that, then you shouldn't also take it away (don't take away something they've earned) - and

that's what I do to get him to "stop" doing a bad behavior. Plus, when I'm tired from all the drama of trying to get him to do something, it's nice for me to have the quiet time of when he's zoning out in front of a screen. And lastly, he already kind of "earns" his screen time as he doesn't get ANY for the day if he doesn't get a "happy note" at school. I guess the problem is that I don't have any other currency for him. Screen time seems to be the only currency I have.

I'll be honest with you all. We were/are a family that spanks. Please, let's not get hung up on the spanking part of it. But here's how it would go. Say he's not moving to get his shoes put on, he's doing something else and we've asked him to go get his shoes on. We'd start counting, and on three he would get a spanking if he's not starting to get his shoes on. Well, it has stretched out into, "Okay, I'm going to count to three. One - you'd better get moving. Two - come on now, I don't want to have to spank. And here comes three..." Start to get up and head toward him, "Thrrr..." and he moves. Or, "Three!" and be moving quickly toward him, when he finally quickly jumps up and he says, "Sorry, sorry, I'm going" and he goes to get his shoes on.

So, it wasn't working and even if we did spank, it still didn't work as he would just call us a meanie while he was doing what we asked - or, worse, he'd laugh and say it didn't hurt and still not do what we asked. Since it wasn't working anyway, I pretty much abandoned it and have been trying not to even threaten (1-2-3) it anymore.

I just don't know how to get him to do what needs to be done when he's not medicated. I guess that's the other part of this is that if he's medicated, he's as compliant as can be - but we save that part of the day for when he's at school.

Last night, I was like this too - just sad and upset and not knowing what to do with him. My husband said that Hayden's gotten worse lately because we're not spanking anymore. So, to test this, just to get him to bed last night (and doing all the things that he needs to do to go to bed), he ended up with three spankings in the course of an hour. I felt horrible, he cried, I cried, we hugged it out and I told him that I didn't want to spank him anymore and that I wasn't going to. He said that he'd be good and we loved on each other, cuddled, and he went to bed.

So this morning was worse than ever. He was testing my limits. In fact, I said to him, "You're doing this just because you know I'm not going to spank you." and he looked me square in the eyes and told me "Yes" and then laughed and ran away.

UGH!!!! What can I do!?!?!??!

I mean, when you have all day that's one thing, but when there are a certain number of things that have to get done within a certain time frame - even getting up early to add an extra half hour isn't going to help. (and we've already done that)

I just don't know what to do.

March 2, 2012

You are not alone. I have two older children from a previous marriage. I always felt bad that I never really got to enjoy their childhood as much as complete families did. So with this marriage, 5 years into it, we decided to have the perfect child. You know that vision, that you would spend so much time with him, go to every sporting event, both parents. Have fun vacations, teach him to fish, and ride bikes together. Of course nothing could be further from that vision. I remember at age 2 or so, saying to my husband (this is his first child) "this is supposed to be fun!" and "my other two were never like this!" and "this is TOO MUCH work!".Sometimes what happens is things become a routine and then a ritual, and what started out as a way to cope, maybe from some sensory issue, becomes a maladaptive behavior. At least that's what our OT says, we are still waiting for our full autism evaluation and further therapies. My son is 4 & 1/2. Every day is a struggle to put clothes on, and when we end up helping him, he hits us. He doesn't sit at the table to eat, and we're usually late. He may run and hide from us. It takes him forever to get in the car, then even more time to get in the car seat. He will sit inactive, stare, or question incessantly. It has become the norm for us. No one is happy over this.This morning for OT, which he was looking forward to, he threw a fit because he wanted his zipper zipped, but wouldn't ask nicely. Took forever to get in the car, and carseat, threw a fit because his cereal bar fell, wouldn't get buckled, wouldn't stop screaming, then the entire way there was crying and saying "You have to help me stop crying" and to each suggestion "that won't work!" When we got there, he wouldn't get out of the car. The OT asked if this happened frequently....ha! It's everyday, maybe not so extreme, but never has there been a day of get up, eat at the table, take the lunchbox, get in the car, and go.What she suggested was to write a social story about what is expected in the morning, then practice it, say on a Sunday afternoon, when it is out of the ordinary. Maybe even have him get into pajamas, get in the bed, and say "now we're going to pretend it's morning and practice what we need to do". She also said that he needs to wake up, take his clothes and him to the bathroom, and not let him do anything until he gets dressed. I told her he could wait us out all day (which he did one time on a weekend when he was to go to a child's birthday party, you'd think he'd want to get ready!), so she said to give him a reasonable amount of time, then dress him. I said that he will probably fight and hit me, and she asked is that any worse than what we have going on right now.So I guess we will try some things. She also said to make it more about how it makes us feel and the family as a whole to help a bit with empathy, and make it more about his job in helping the whole family be happy rather than about him and his behaviors.I can imagine how you feel. We no longer go out to eat, or to friends or even relatives houses. Our world is shrinking, and that's not healthy. Be gentle with yourself.Val

I sit here this morning just bawling. And sobbing, and I can't stop. My son, Hayden, is in the first grade. I just keep thinking back to those videos of him at 2 and 3 and how cute he was. At the time, Hayden had a diagnosis of Childhood Apraxia of Speech. He was such a good little boy. All his therapists always put on his evals that he was a "good little worker". Somewhere around 4 1/2 that all started to change. The summer he was 5, we got a PDD-NOS diagnosis after a pretty extensive neuro-psych eval. He worked through most of kindergarten un-medicated, but by the end of the year, we had him on Metadate. Now in first grade, I can't hardly get him out the door to school without pretty much doing everything for him because he just refuses to do what I ask of him.

I was just watching a video of him at three. Dad was getting his shoes on him to get ready to go somewhere. He just sat there quietly, with his hands in his lap, smiling as Dad was helping him get his shoes on. Today at 6, nearly 7, the bus was here waiting on him and I had to practically throw him onto the floor to put his shoes on him - all the while he's squirming and clapping and laughing. Once on the bus (the short bus mind you), he'll be strapped in and by the time he gets to school, his meds will have kicked in and he'll be the perfect little zombie for school. He gets straight A's and barely ever gets anything wrong. Thank God for that.

When he comes home, the meds will be just about worn off and it's back to dancing around, not doing anything he's told, laughing anytime I ask him to do something or am trying to make him do something, and just all over the place. The only time he's quiet is when I let him zone out in front of a video or video game.

I thought we were making progress and now this week he's just worse than ever. We don't have fun as a family anymore. We don't go out, we don't have friends. Well, we do have a few, but it's not like it used to be.

I don't know, I'm just whining and venting.

Okay, so here's the real question. I tend to do pretty well at getting Hayden to stop doing something like, well, I guess I can't even really come up with an example because those things are all nearly gone. He used to slide chairs all around, or upset a basket of clean laundry, or throw a deck of cards all over the floor. He doesn't really do those things anymore for the most part. What worked was taking away screen time or being sent to his room. What I'm struggling with is getting him to do the things I ask. Like, eating his breakfast in a timely manner, brushing his teeth, throwing away wrappers to his snack food, or putting his dirty clothes in the hamper. Taking away screen time doesn't seem to work for this stuff. I've thought about taking it away all together and instead making him earn it by doing what he's told. But I've also heard that if you do that, then you shouldn't also take it away (don't take away something they've earned) - and that's what I do to get him to "stop" doing a bad behavior. Plus, when I'm tired from all the drama of trying to get him to do something, it's nice for me to have the quiet time of when he's zoning out in front of a screen. And lastly, he already kind of "earns" his screen time as he doesn't get ANY for the day if he doesn't get a "happy note" at school. I guess the problem is that I don't have any other currency for him. Screen time seems to be the only currency I have.

I'll be honest with you all. We were/are a family that spanks. Please, let's not get hung up on the spanking part of it. But here's how it would go. Say he's not moving to get his shoes put on, he's doing something else and we've asked him to go get his shoes on. We'd start counting, and on three he would get a spanking if he's not starting to get his shoes on. Well, it has stretched out into, "Okay, I'm going to count to three. One - you'd better get moving. Two - come on now, I don't want to have to spank. And here comes three..." Start to get up and head toward him, "Thrrr..." and he moves. Or, "Three!" and be moving quickly toward him, when he finally quickly jumps up and he says, "Sorry, sorry, I'm going" and he goes to get his shoes on.

So, it wasn't working and even if we did spank, it still didn't work as he would just call us a meanie while he was doing what we asked - or, worse, he'd laugh and say it didn't hurt and still not do what we asked. Since it wasn't working anyway, I pretty much abandoned it and have been trying not to even threaten (1-2-3) it anymore.

I just don't know how to get him to do what needs to be done when he's not medicated. I guess that's the other part of this is that if he's medicated, he's as compliant as can be - but we save that part of the day for when he's at school.

Last night, I was like this too - just sad and upset and not knowing what to do with him. My husband said that Hayden's gotten worse lately because we're not spanking anymore. So, to test this, just to get him to bed last night (and doing all the things that he needs to do to go to bed), he ended up with three spankings in the course of an hour. I felt horrible, he cried, I cried, we hugged it out and I told him that I didn't want to spank him anymore and that I wasn't going to. He said that he'd be good and we loved on each other, cuddled, and he went to bed.

So this morning was worse than ever. He was testing my limits. In fact, I said to him, "You're doing this just because you know I'm not going to spank you." and he looked me square in the eyes and told me "Yes" and then laughed and ran away.

UGH!!!! What can I do!?!?!??!

I mean, when you have all day that's one thing, but when there are a certain number of things that have to get done within a certain time frame - even getting up early to add an extra half hour isn't going to help. (and we've already done that)

I just don't know what to do.

=

March 2, 2012

This is so timely for me. You're writing my words- I'm just a few steps ahead of you. My son is 10. and He also does not do what we ask. Consequences, rewards, bribery, reasoning, none of these things work for him. We used to spank- but now he's too big and they never worked any way. I have yet to find something that motivates him, or prevents behavior. He does whatever he chooses to do. Even if it's the wrong choice. When confronted, he just looks at us blinking, like he's surprised we're even frustrated. The stakes are geetting bigger as he grows- he is physically big now and choosing to do bigger things- like forge our signatures on progress reports, not doing school work, disobeying at school and at home.

My husband and I are clueless and feel like we have no control. It is scary to think of the future- will he steal our cars? Will he run away? I sometimes wonder if this is normal for Aspies or if something else is going on that hasn't been diagnosed. i'm sad, frustrated and clueless.

i'd love some advice and encouragement too. and SO appreciate sharing her story as it helps me feel a little less alone. sigh. this is really hard stuff. -heather

I sit here this morning just bawling. And sobbing, and I can't stop. My son, Hayden, is in the first grade. I just keep thinking back to those videos of him at 2 and 3 and how cute he was. At the time, Hayden had a diagnosis of Childhood Apraxia of Speech. He was such a good little boy. All his therapists always put on his evals that he was a " good little worker " . Somewhere around 4 1/2 that all started to change. The summer he was 5, we got a PDD-NOS diagnosis after a pretty extensive neuro-psych eval. He worked through most of kindergarten un-medicated, but by the end of the year, we had him on Metadate. Now in first grade, I can't hardly get him out the door to school without pretty much doing everything for him because he just refuses to do what I ask of him.

I was just watching a video of him at three. Dad was getting his shoes on him to get ready to go somewhere. He just sat there quietly, with his hands in his lap, smiling as Dad was helping him get his shoes on. Today at 6, nearly 7, the bus was here waiting on him and I had to practically throw him onto the floor to put his shoes on him - all the while he's squirming and clapping and laughing. Once on the bus (the short bus mind you), he'll be strapped in and by the time he gets to school, his meds will have kicked in and he'll be the perfect little zombie for school. He gets straight A's and barely ever gets anything wrong. Thank God for that.

When he comes home, the meds will be just about worn off and it's back to dancing around, not doing anything he's told, laughing anytime I ask him to do something or am trying to make him do something, and just all over the place. The only time he's quiet is when I let him zone out in front of a video or video game.

I thought we were making progress and now this week he's just worse than ever. We don't have fun as a family anymore. We don't go out, we don't have friends. Well, we do have a few, but it's not like it used to be.

I don't know, I'm just whining and venting.

Okay, so here's the real question. I tend to do pretty well at getting Hayden to stop doing something like, well, I guess I can't even really come up with an example because those things are all nearly gone. He used to slide chairs all around, or upset a basket of clean laundry, or throw a deck of cards all over the floor. He doesn't really do those things anymore for the most part. What worked was taking away screen time or being sent to his room. What I'm struggling with is getting him to do the things I ask. Like, eating his breakfast in a timely manner, brushing his teeth, throwing away wrappers to his snack food, or putting his dirty clothes in the hamper. Taking away screen time doesn't seem to work for this stuff. I've thought about taking it away all together and instead making him earn it by doing what he's told. But I've also heard that if you do that, then you shouldn't also take it away (don't take away something they've earned) - and that's what I do to get him to " stop " doing a bad behavior. Plus, when I'm tired from all the drama of trying to get him to do something, it's nice for me to have the quiet time of when he's zoning out in front of a screen. And lastly, he already kind of " earns " his screen time as he doesn't get ANY for the day if he doesn't get a " happy note " at school. I guess the problem is that I don't have any other currency for him. Screen time seems to be the only currency I have.

I'll be honest with you all. We were/are a family that spanks. Please, let's not get hung up on the spanking part of it. But here's how it would go. Say he's not moving to get his shoes put on, he's doing something else and we've asked him to go get his shoes on. We'd start counting, and on three he would get a spanking if he's not starting to get his shoes on. Well, it has stretched out into, " Okay, I'm going to count to three. One - you'd better get moving. Two - come on now, I don't want to have to spank. And here comes three... " Start to get up and head toward him, " Thrrr... " and he moves. Or, " Three! " and be moving quickly toward him, when he finally quickly jumps up and he says, " Sorry, sorry, I'm going " and he goes to get his shoes on.

So, it wasn't working and even if we did spank, it still didn't work as he would just call us a meanie while he was doing what we asked - or, worse, he'd laugh and say it didn't hurt and still not do what we asked. Since it wasn't working anyway, I pretty much abandoned it and have been trying not to even threaten (1-2-3) it anymore.

I just don't know how to get him to do what needs to be done when he's not medicated. I guess that's the other part of this is that if he's medicated, he's as compliant as can be - but we save that part of the day for when he's at school.

Last night, I was like this too - just sad and upset and not knowing what to do with him. My husband said that Hayden's gotten worse lately because we're not spanking anymore. So, to test this, just to get him to bed last night (and doing all the things that he needs to do to go to bed), he ended up with three spankings in the course of an hour. I felt horrible, he cried, I cried, we hugged it out and I told him that I didn't want to spank him anymore and that I wasn't going to. He said that he'd be good and we loved on each other, cuddled, and he went to bed.

So this morning was worse than ever. He was testing my limits. In fact, I said to him, " You're doing this just because you know I'm not going to spank you. " and he looked me square in the eyes and told me " Yes " and then laughed and ran away.

UGH!!!! What can I do!?!?!??!

I mean, when you have all day that's one thing, but when there are a certain number of things that have to get done within a certain time frame - even getting up early to add an extra half hour isn't going to help. (and we've already done that)

I just don't know what to do.

March 3, 2012

You've gotten some great suggestions from some of the other fabulous folks on here. I just have a few questions for your think about as you move forward.Have you talked with anyone to get support/suggestions about dealing with his behavior? There are a wide array of people out there who can help -- ABA folks, parenting coaches, therapists, etc -- you don't have to go it alone.

Have you talked with his doctor, psychiatrist, or whoever it is that prescribed the medication? It may be that this medicine is not the best one for him or that this medicine needs to be combined with something else to work better. It often takes a good bit of trial and error to find the right combination for your particular child (we seem to have just recently found ours and we've been working on it since our daughter was 5 -- she just turned 9. But having found it has made all kinds of difference for us.)

You mention the negative consequences you give for not doing the things you ask, do you also offer rewards when he does do things? Some kids simply respond far more consistently to the positive than the negative. Are the expectations you have for him very clear? And are they consistent? It can be a total pain in the tuchas, but without those two things many of our kids on the Spectrum simply can't or won't adjust their behavior. With this, it may be important to make sure that you and your husband have reasonable and achievable expectations. Getting his shoes on certainly seems reasonable and achievable given what you've said about your son, but maybe some others aren't? It can be hard to move past our ideas as parents of what our kids " should " be, but until we are able to meet our kids where they are, and recognize what they may never be, it is really, really hard for them.

Lots of hugs and wishes for good luck and increased success!

I sit here this morning just bawling. And sobbing, and I can't stop. My son, Hayden, is in the first grade. I just keep thinking back to those videos of him at 2 and 3 and how cute he was. At the time, Hayden had a diagnosis of Childhood Apraxia of Speech. He was such a good little boy. All his therapists always put on his evals that he was a " good little worker " . Somewhere around 4 1/2 that all started to change. The summer he was 5, we got a PDD-NOS diagnosis after a pretty extensive neuro-psych eval. He worked through most of kindergarten un-medicated, but by the end of the year, we had him on Metadate. Now in first grade, I can't hardly get him out the door to school without pretty much doing everything for him because he just refuses to do what I ask of him.

I was just watching a video of him at three. Dad was getting his shoes on him to get ready to go somewhere. He just sat there quietly, with his hands in his lap, smiling as Dad was helping him get his shoes on. Today at 6, nearly 7, the bus was here waiting on him and I had to practically throw him onto the floor to put his shoes on him - all the while he's squirming and clapping and laughing. Once on the bus (the short bus mind you), he'll be strapped in and by the time he gets to school, his meds will have kicked in and he'll be the perfect little zombie for school. He gets straight A's and barely ever gets anything wrong. Thank God for that.

When he comes home, the meds will be just about worn off and it's back to dancing around, not doing anything he's told, laughing anytime I ask him to do something or am trying to make him do something, and just all over the place. The only time he's quiet is when I let him zone out in front of a video or video game.

I thought we were making progress and now this week he's just worse than ever. We don't have fun as a family anymore. We don't go out, we don't have friends. Well, we do have a few, but it's not like it used to be.

I don't know, I'm just whining and venting.

Okay, so here's the real question. I tend to do pretty well at getting Hayden to stop doing something like, well, I guess I can't even really come up with an example because those things are all nearly gone. He used to slide chairs all around, or upset a basket of clean laundry, or throw a deck of cards all over the floor. He doesn't really do those things anymore for the most part. What worked was taking away screen time or being sent to his room. What I'm struggling with is getting him to do the things I ask. Like, eating his breakfast in a timely manner, brushing his teeth, throwing away wrappers to his snack food, or putting his dirty clothes in the hamper. Taking away screen time doesn't seem to work for this stuff. I've thought about taking it away all together and instead making him earn it by doing what he's told. But I've also heard that if you do that, then you shouldn't also take it away (don't take away something they've earned) - and that's what I do to get him to " stop " doing a bad behavior. Plus, when I'm tired from all the drama of trying to get him to do something, it's nice for me to have the quiet time of when he's zoning out in front of a screen. And lastly, he already kind of " earns " his screen time as he doesn't get ANY for the day if he doesn't get a " happy note " at school. I guess the problem is that I don't have any other currency for him. Screen time seems to be the only currency I have.

I'll be honest with you all. We were/are a family that spanks. Please, let's not get hung up on the spanking part of it. But here's how it would go. Say he's not moving to get his shoes put on, he's doing something else and we've asked him to go get his shoes on. We'd start counting, and on three he would get a spanking if he's not starting to get his shoes on. Well, it has stretched out into, " Okay, I'm going to count to three. One - you'd better get moving. Two - come on now, I don't want to have to spank. And here comes three... " Start to get up and head toward him, " Thrrr... " and he moves. Or, " Three! " and be moving quickly toward him, when he finally quickly jumps up and he says, " Sorry, sorry, I'm going " and he goes to get his shoes on.

So, it wasn't working and even if we did spank, it still didn't work as he would just call us a meanie while he was doing what we asked - or, worse, he'd laugh and say it didn't hurt and still not do what we asked. Since it wasn't working anyway, I pretty much abandoned it and have been trying not to even threaten (1-2-3) it anymore.

I just don't know how to get him to do what needs to be done when he's not medicated. I guess that's the other part of this is that if he's medicated, he's as compliant as can be - but we save that part of the day for when he's at school.

Last night, I was like this too - just sad and upset and not knowing what to do with him. My husband said that Hayden's gotten worse lately because we're not spanking anymore. So, to test this, just to get him to bed last night (and doing all the things that he needs to do to go to bed), he ended up with three spankings in the course of an hour. I felt horrible, he cried, I cried, we hugged it out and I told him that I didn't want to spank him anymore and that I wasn't going to. He said that he'd be good and we loved on each other, cuddled, and he went to bed.

So this morning was worse than ever. He was testing my limits. In fact, I said to him, " You're doing this just because you know I'm not going to spank you. " and he looked me square in the eyes and told me " Yes " and then laughed and ran away.

UGH!!!! What can I do!?!?!??!

I mean, when you have all day that's one thing, but when there are a certain number of things that have to get done within a certain time frame - even getting up early to add an extra half hour isn't going to help. (and we've already done that)

I just don't know what to do.

March 3, 2012