behaviors

[Guest guest]

Jeanne,

Oh, I know what you mean. I'll give you a thought or two, but I'm sure

there will be lots of other thoughts from the list.

My main reaction is that even though Caitlyn can identify emotions in

books, she may not be fully in touch with emotions when she experiences

them or observes them in other people. She is doing fabulously with her

language, but I hope I am not off base when I say that perhaps the

earlier delays in language have put her levels of empathy a bit off.

Developmentally there may be a lag in this understanding and empathy.

I think that she may just have a bit of trouble recognizing and

responding to emotions when expressed by others and it may make her feel

uncomfortable or a bit nervous - hence the laughter. I personally feel

that sensory integration is a help when these issues are present, but I

know very well that you did early and intense sensory integration

already. I think she is having touble expressing what her emotions are

and it comes across as disinterested or as if she thinks it is

humorous. I think it's more she can't really express herself.

I think the behavior mod the school is suggesting is off the mark in

this particular case (as you apparently do also). Remember how you sang

and talked and did everything in a really complete way which resulted in

Caitlyn's remarkable development? I suggest a similar approach may help

now with the emotions. Bombard her so to speak with information about

feelings and why they are important and remark when she expresses a

concern and give her all the language and or pictures associated. Even

say to her " look at my face when the cake I made fell on the floor. See

my face looks different. It is sad, etc., etc. " Maybe take pictures of

her experiencing happiness, sadness, etc. and make her a book of HER own

feelings.

Although many people try to convince me otherwise, I, in my heart of

hearts also feel that the early medical interventions can sometimes

impede some of the emotional development. Since Caitlyn experienced so

much medical adversity it would make sense to me that it could have

added some delay to her fully feeling in control of her emotional self.

Knowing you, I'm certain that your input will help her overcome this

'delay' if it is in fact one.

You have probably done all of my suggestions and more already, but I

wanted to let you know I'm thinking of you.

Kendra, and Camille's Mom

portland, Or

J McMullen wrote:

> As many of you know, my Caitlyn is an only child.

> That said, I often can't figure out where the CHARGE

> ends, and where normal kid stuff begins, though I've

> known plenty of other kids to think I know.

>

> Caitlyn has always (at least since her cognitive and

> language skills developed somewhat) had a lack of

> empathy when it comes to misbehavior. I know myself

> (when I was little), my siblings, and other kids I

> knew then and now, aim to please mommy and daddy and

> get upset when they get yelled at. I distinctly

> remember if something broke (as a child) going " uh-oh,

> mom's going to be mad " or something of the sort. Yet

> Caitlyn derives great pleasure at seeing us mad. I

> try not to let her get a rise out of me knowing it'll

> get me nowhere, but she just broke her second pair of

> glasses in less than a month!

[Guest guest]

Jeanne,

Yes, other children do exactly that. You are not alone! The only thing I

could add is keep trying and rejoice in what she does that is good.

Sometimes the behavior is to get that attention, though they don't plan it

for attention. Anyway, we tried everything when Patty was little. Every

child is different, so different things work for different children. I

believe I told all here that the only thing that worked for Patty was a water

spot on our wood floor. I called it " the black spot " and had her stand on it

when she was naughty. I did that by accident one day-I didn't know what else

to do. I had tried everything. It was weird, but it worked.

Also, when disciplining her I kept my words as small or short as I could.

She used to turn me off-shut her hearing aids off and close her eyes. I

would wait for her to " be ready. " But sometimes that would be an eternity.

She was stubborn, but so was I. Most important was we had to be totally

consistent. And if she did something like throw her underwear in the toilet

we would have her get it out herself. Whatever she did or what ever mess she

made she had to take care of it. Sometimes it was hand over hand but that

worked. Many times she had to stand on the black spot first (to make sure I

would be calm but I wouldn't tell her that)-then fix whatever she did, even

to approach a person she wasn't nice to and say I'm sorry. And last, I knew

if I yelled, I loose. The hardest part was to keep my voice low. To this

day, if yell, she knows she has got me. And, whatever you do, don't let them

see you laugh.

I am lucky because her misbehavior did not last long. My own mother kept

me on track. She would say that though Patty was cute as a child doing

things when she grew up it wouldn't be cute anymore. Man, I just remembered,

when she was getting ill she was harder to deal with. AND the worse of all

was after surgery or medical intervention. While she was healing she got

lots of attention, but when she got better-Watch out.

Hang in there. You are not alone.

Bonnie

[Guest guest]

Hi Jeanne!

We are in the same boat with . He usually thinks that it is funny if we

are mad at him for throwing his food, etc.. The one thing that does work for us

is time out in the guest bedroom. He now behaves himself after a timeout and

sometimes will correct his behavior when we sign and say " No throw or time out,

which one? " If he persists with the misbehavior, we sign and say " time out " and

off we go. Fortunately, he hates time outs and now seems more eager to please

(by correcting his behavior) and be rewarded by " good listening. " : )

Cheryl, , (6), (4, CHaRGE)

MI

P.S. I thing that this is a CHARGE thing as our daughter never did this.

>>> jemscat@... 06/14/00 10:03PM >>>

As many of you know, my Caitlyn is an only child.

That said, I often can't figure out where the CHARGE

ends, and where normal kid stuff begins, though I've

known plenty of other kids to think I know.

Caitlyn has always (at least since her cognitive and

language skills developed somewhat) had a lack of

empathy when it comes to misbehavior. I know myself

(when I was little), my siblings, and other kids I

knew then and now, aim to please mommy and daddy and

get upset when they get yelled at. I distinctly

remember if something broke (as a child) going " uh-oh,

mom's going to be mad " or something of the sort. Yet

Caitlyn derives great pleasure at seeing us mad. I

try not to let her get a rise out of me knowing it'll

get me nowhere, but she just broke her second pair of

glasses in less than a month! How can I possibly not

scold her for it?! And yet when I did, she openly

laughed in my face! She thought it was hilarious. I

went downstairs disgusted knowing I was getting

nowhere and sent my husband upstairs to deal with her,

and I hear him yelling " Why did you throw your

underwear in the toilet?!......What do you mean you

don't know?! It's not funny!! "

I realize that throwing underwear in the toilet is

probably a typical mischievious type of thing, but how

do you discipline a child who doesn't care if she gets

yelled at? Our wraparound team has us using " negative

and positive reinforcers " (bribing her with junk food

for good behavior and taking away junk food for bad

behavior) but it doesn't work well. She doesn't care

enough about anything else (not even Barney) to care

if she gets it or has it taken away so we have to use

food. And even food she doesn't care enough about.

So we're really not making a dent in her behaviors.

My question is this: Do any of your " typical "

children laugh in your face when getting scolded and

don't care at all when you're angry with them? Do

your CHARGErs do this? Any suggestions?

BTW, she's well aware of what happy and sad and angry

etc are, she identifies them correctly in her books.

Jeanne

__________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Jeanne,

I had experiences with

that are similar to what your dealing with. too would laugh and still

does at times when he's corrected and even at inappropriate times. As far

as the laughing when being scolded we learned early on it bothered

to loose our attention in the situation. What we did was remove ourselves.

Not just let him go on his merry way but create time out and not give him

our presence to the situation if he laughed. You see? He needed our participation

to continue. We refused to participate. We tried not to yell ( believe

me I know this can be hard...) . We would make him stay in his room. The

first time would be 5 minutes then we would approach him in his room and

try to talk about the situation if he laughed we would leave and it would

be 10 minutes time out. Now not wanting it to become time consuming after

the 10 min. If he still laughed we would end it then but would refuse to

talk with him for a set amount of time. We would tell him we were upset

by his behavior and didn't want to talk with him right then. He didn't

like not getting our attention when he wanted it. We created a situation

that we had control of. He couldn't make us talk with him. Although it

didn't stop the behavior entirely the frequency of it slowed down.

As far as

breaking her glasses or similar behavior. Maybe you'll have to resort to

taking something of hers (that she really likes) away from her. Explain

before what is going to happen than follow through. Make it that a certain

amount of time must go by without the glasses being broken again before

she can get the item or privilege back. You could even set an amount of

times for the bad behavior to be repeated and she will loose her item for

good. The trick is to be firm and consistent. Don't say it if you're not

going to hold with it. A weakening in your resolve will put you back at

square one.

With our consistency

allot of the destructive behavior did stop but with 's age I know

now that some of it he just can't help. I don't know for sure where it

comes from CHARGE, deaf issue, or mental retardation. I've been consistent,

done all kinds of patterning if he hasn't learned by this point I know

that he can't help allot of the behaviors. For whatever reason is

not in touch with his own emotions entirely with that being the case we

can't expect him to be aware of all emotions in others. Things like pain,

sadness are the hardest for him. I believe a large portion of it has to

do with his early life. Just having my heart surgery and the impact it

had on me emotionally I can't even imagine what emotional effect his early

medical crises had on him. His mind didn't even have time to get over one

before being faced with another and another and another. Most life threatening.

It's a miracle that he can relate at the level he does. I've learned to

rejoice for where we are today.

Just a little

info on our experiences. Hope some of it helps.

Vicki mom to (24)

J McMullen wrote:

My question is this: Do any of your "typical"

children laugh in your face when getting scolded and

don't care at all when you're angry with them? Do

your CHARGErs do this? Any suggestions?

BTW, she's well aware of what happy and sad and angry

etc are, she identifies them correctly in her books.

Jeanne

__________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

Jeanne,

My typical 5 year old daughter doesn't always respond to being

punished. It usually takes me 4-5 times before she will respond, and

then, will continue doing her misbehaving. However, if her father

scolds her, she is much more sensitive. I have to be honest though, I

do have very good kids, I have no idea why or how they got to be like

that. My 5 year old niece and nephew are rotten kids. They talk back

horribly, lash out etc., so I don't think your daughter's behavior is

all due to her disabilities.

As far as , my 3 year old CHARGER, he laughs when he is being

yelled at. What works with him is TIMEOUT. When I put him in timeout,

he is put in his room by himself with the door shut. He really really

hates being removed from everyone. Once he is finished with timeout

(which is 3 minutes - 1 minute for each year), he is much better.

completely understands timeout and the connection between the

inappropriate behavior and timeout happened on the first time he was put

in timeout. I don't know why, but at first I didn't think about using

timeout. He is treated just like my 5 year old.. I treat him as if he

was any other kid, because he is. Sometimes we forget because of the

language delay, and his means of communication is a little different (he

signs and talks but his talking isn't always understood). I always have

to stop myself and say, " right, he IS 3 " . 's abilities are very

much like a 3 year old, with variations. Good luck.

J McMullen wrote:

> As many of you know, my Caitlyn is an only child.

> That said, I often can't figure out where the CHARGE

> ends, and where normal kid stuff begins, though I've

> known plenty of other kids to think I know.

>

> Caitlyn has always (at least since her cognitive and

> language skills developed somewhat) had a lack of

> empathy when it comes to misbehavior. I know myself

> (when I was little), my siblings, and other kids I

> knew then and now, aim to please mommy and daddy and

> get upset when they get yelled at. I distinctly

> remember if something broke (as a child) going " uh-oh,

> mom's going to be mad " or something of the sort. Yet

> Caitlyn derives great pleasure at seeing us mad. I

> try not to let her get a rise out of me knowing it'll

> get me nowhere, but she just broke her second pair of

> glasses in less than a month! How can I possibly not

> scold her for it?! And yet when I did, she openly

> laughed in my face! She thought it was hilarious. I

> went downstairs disgusted knowing I was getting

> nowhere and sent my husband upstairs to deal with her,

> and I hear him yelling " Why did you throw your

> underwear in the toilet?!......What do you mean you

> don't know?! It's not funny!! "

>

> I realize that throwing underwear in the toilet is

> probably a typical mischievious type of thing, but how

> do you discipline a child who doesn't care if she gets

> yelled at? Our wraparound team has us using " negative

> and positive reinforcers " (bribing her with junk food

> for good behavior and taking away junk food for bad

> behavior) but it doesn't work well. She doesn't care

> enough about anything else (not even Barney) to care

> if she gets it or has it taken away so we have to use

> food. And even food she doesn't care enough about.

> So we're really not making a dent in her behaviors.

>

> My question is this: Do any of your " typical "

> children laugh in your face when getting scolded and

> don't care at all when you're angry with them? Do

> your CHARGErs do this? Any suggestions?

>

> BTW, she's well aware of what happy and sad and angry

> etc are, she identifies them correctly in her books.

>

> Jeanne

>

> __________________________________________________

>

[Guest guest]

Hi Jeanne,

Larry is exactly the same as Caitlyn and he is 17, I have found time out to

work the best and 1....2....3......

Interesting he doesn't get upset when I tell him off but he CANNOT cope if

someone else tells him off ie school that when he flips out.

Jan Hewitson Mum to Larry 17 chaRgE

Perth West Australia

>

> __________________________________________________

>

[Guest guest]

Sue

My daughter had behavior problems from the moment she

was born. Instead of being colicy for up to 2 hrs a

day she was colicy for about 5-6 every night and on

and off most of the day. She had 2 modes: sleeping

(rarely) and colic. It was h---. Her colic lasted

until age 24 mos when we started to sedate her every

night to sleep. Once she was sleeping at night she

was more pleasant during the day.

In addition to colic, she has always had severe

sensory integration problems. She has always been

easily overstimulated by activity, upset by certain

textures, etc. When she started walking we expected

her to be running around a lot and waving her hands

(we thought it was for balance--you know a " high

guard " they call it) but now it is more like

self-stimming.

So she's always had behavior problems it is only now

that we are considering medication because it is

apparent that she's not growing out of any of them.

And btw, at age 4 1/2yrs she finally hit the " terrible

2s " and is finally demanding to get her way all the

time. That's the only behavior I'm grateful for and I

have to keep myself from laughing when she does it.

Jeanne mom to Caitlyn age (almost) 5 cHaRgEr

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