4 year old AS girl, emerging behavioral issues and defiancy

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Hi Mums, Dads and caregivers,

As I write this, seeking advice, or looking for options, I am already reminded that no matter what your kid is diagnosed with, they're still an individual. A newly turned 4-year-old is a little more independent than a 2-year-old.

Okay, so my daughter just turned 4. She's been delayed in a few areas and we're working on the potty training. She was making good progress last week when I provided incentives to try and get her to go. It worked so well for a few days that I didn't need to give her incentives and then, the progress regressed and now she is having accidents because she is refusing to go. I've tried bribing with the less-cool incentives, but it hasn't worked the last couple of days. It got to the point where I would say if she doesn't use the potty, I'll put her in a diaper and send her to bed. She was fine with that. She was doing really well a week ago. It was as if we were about to get this particular portion of her independence figured out for good - at least for #1s. #2s are all still in diapers, but she often has bowel issues and I totally understand that and would rather get #1s sorted as they tend to be more frequent.

Anyhow, she has been starting to exhibit behaviors of defiance and I know that a lot of kids do. Please don't think I'm pinning EVERYTHING about my daughter on her autistic diagnosis. I'm not. But, the defiance has included throwing things and previously, we've gone with the old philosophy of spare the rod, spoil the child and neither of us like giving her a swat on the backside. Sometimes we just say "this or a swat" and it's enough. She's a pretty strong-minded kid. I hardly needed it as a kid. I know some parents are totally against it, but please hold the judgments. Parenting is often dependent on how the child responds to the parenting and corrective action. If something doesn't work, try another approach. I personally preferred a stern voice to misbehavior than physical punishment, but I had an eager-to-please temperament as a kid.

Which leads me to the next thought: the only two options I really see are tough love (which for our daughter I think would be disastrous, to be honest and I spoke with hubby about this this evening), or incentive - positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is always nicer and yes, it might be bribery or whatever, but the point is, in life, if you do well and succeed you're rewarded somehow. And that appeared to be working a week ago. When the incentives ran out, a few days later (it did take a few days after the incentives ran out), the refusal to potty came too. Along came the pretense she'd actually used it! (Right down to flushing the toilet - we have a double toilet seat - one for us and one smaller for her). She has the option to use a traditional potty also, so if there's a fear of a long hole at the bottom of the seat, that can be overcome.

So, I'm wondering: is incentive based training a better way to go? My concern about being tougher is that having a child with anxiety and my loathsome attitude to stick her on drugs, is that being on meds is where she would end up as I hazard that her anxiety levels would go through the roof and we'd actually damage her mentally. I don't want that. I know her amygdala and pre-frontal cortex is responsible for the anxiety. I am aware of that. She is not currently on any medication and I would prefer to keep it that way, but if we can't reign in bad behavior (and I'm not talking about meltdowns - we know the difference), then meds might be the end result. In order to keep her from heading down a bad path. I prefer natural approaches and am hoping another parent who understands what I'm looking at (hope I've given enough description - it's not all about potty training) and can suggest whether to stick with incentive based approaches or try something else. (I was even considering the gold star method, so after an initial incentive, get her to earn 3 gold stars (for potty training mainly) and then she gets her next treat, which are non-food items).

Just a little background on our household. She's an only child, yes a little spoiled and her parents never (and I mean never argue - we're weird, I guess. We never argued before she was born and still haven't found a way to pick a legitimate fight with one another and as individuals ourselves, we are both very different minds. Hubby is probably leaning a bit on the spectrum, where as I am not, but do think a bit differently and have wiring issues - epilepsy, controlled with non-standard epilepsy meds).

Thoughts? Personal experience? Much appreciated.

There is a lot going on here, so I probably won't cover everything in this iteration.

Some kids respond well to traditional discipline and some don't. My child doesn't. We scrapped it pretty quickly, though both my husband and I were raised in more traditionally authoritarian homes. For more standard dispipline issues we will use rewards and incentives, b/c those will often work in easy instances. If there is is a more complicated component, it doesn't. We have to fix that component-

If your child is stressed by the potty training or by something else that could be a source for non-compliance. Non-compliance jumps for us under stress. If it is stress, rewards or punishments won't necessarily work, even if one or both usually do work. You have to fix the stress. Often times you can do that by scaffolding or otherwise reducing the stress level for the child. Sometimes you can give your child coping skills, and that can help too. Sometimes it improves from a developmental jumps where your child can now tolerate things s/he could not before.

The other thing that jumps out at me is your mention of meds to counteract bad behavior. Meds can fix chemical issues or create chemical docility (and it can help with stress, depending on the med) but I would not look at it as a fix for bad behavior per se. You really have to figure out the cause to know how to try to fix it. There are cases where meds help,so I am not criticizing the use of meds. But obviously it is not a panacea and not necessarily appropriate or helpful for everything that is not instantly fixable with traditional methods.

Many of us have had some success with Dr. Green's, Explosive Child and his other books. That may be something that might be helpful to you, if you have a child that is not helped (or gets worse) with traditional authoritarian discipline. It involves collaboration with the child, and is therefore a pretty big paradigm shift for most parents.

Regardless, of the method you choose, the important thing I would try to do first is see if you can identify the triggers for the behavior. This can be tricky as the most recent thing may only be the proverbial last straw in a string of things that were upsetting, and the major cause may not be immediate. Sometimes keeping a journal can help track the stressors, and looking over it after the fact, might help you troubleshoot it. Sometimes changes that don't seem like a big deal to you but are to the child are the culprit. Changes in routines or expectations can be a very big deal.

Do you think the issue is potty training is the issue or do you think there might be something else?

I know when my daughter was that age the thing that worked best was positive reinforcement. Charts with stars and rewards, etc. (She was dxd at 4 1/2 with AS, but is now a teenager). We never had potty training issues, but daughter was strong willed and had a mind of her own and so there was a lot of negotiating - there still is! My daughter is also an only child born to two parents who were wellbehaved rule followers so we were perplexed as to how to parent a child ready to go to the mat and argue over things. I remember at 4 when she got her dx we started to let things go. We knew she was dealing with issues (from sensory stuff to social stuff at preschool) and just decided to not make a big deal out of anything if we could help it. Basically to try not to engage and get into a battle of wills over things. That being said, maybe potty training is an issue you feel you have to tackle (a preschool requirement?) - in which case I'd stick to positive reinforcement. I wish you the best of luck!

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Yes, I totally understand that change is a big deal to our wee girl. We moved house about 1.5 months ago (out of an apartment) and she developed a transient tick. It's gone now, but I believe it was the stress of going from the known to the unknown. But now she has a backyard, so that's good and she appreciates that. When I mentioned meds, trust me, that is a total last resort. I was put on meds for epilepsy when I was 9 and they ruined me in so many ways and they didn't work. I mention that because it's a wiring issue also.

I was raised in a pretty typical household back in the 70s-80s and if you misbehaved, you got a verbal warning and probably another couple from Mum and then if you didn't comply, you'd get a whack on the butt. But, I don't recall being spanked, so it can't have happened often! I didn't go through the terrible twos or threes either (was a polar opposite to my brother and my husband - both different people, I assure you!) So, I'm not opposed to conventional methods, but if it doesn't work (and it doesn't work on everyone), then you look at what might. I think the potty training is an issue for her. She's now avoiding liquids, or hasn't had much today. I work and Dad stays home and takes care of her during the day. So, now we have the issue of "if you drink something, then you can go potty and then you'll get a treat" and she's not buying into any of it (although she does want a treat lol). Dad had to bribe her just to eat her lunch today. I have read of some children who get this odd behavior where they don't want to part with their bodily waste. I'm not sure if that's her, but I'm open to possibilities. It's however, not healthy.

I got home this evening and she's as bright as a button, all happy and while she's not drinking or going potty, she's in a good mood. So, I think going back to positive reinforcement and Dad's taking a different tack with how to respond to difficulties (I will also, but whomever has the most time is typically going to offer the most influence). As for pre-school, unsure if there are issues there. She made a friend there and she came to her 4th birthday and it was a lot of fun. I know many AS kids can find it difficult to bond etc, so it was wonderful to see her playing with another girl around her age.

For her, the anxiety is typically adult strangers, sometimes stores, the typical separation anxiety when Dad drops her off at special ed pre-school (and we have her there for socialization). Sometimes she just doesn't want us to look at her and I know that's a sensory thing, so we just don't pester her when she's like that, because she may be experiencing an overload (typically first thing in the morning, if that happens). I might look at that book you mentioned. Both of us (Mum and Dad) want the best outcome for our child, as all parents do and we don't want to be doing the wrong thing - but then I'm reminded there's no handbook for parenting (although many have tried).

Our daughter is also an only child and is also very strong willed. The potty training isn't so much a pre-school thing, but it will hold her back from other extra-curricular activities later and will get mighty expensive if she's still wearing them when she's a little older. She knows how to use the potty and she doesn't like being 'wet' and she has options when it comes to a potty or a smaller seat built into the toilet itself. So, I guess I'm just not sure exactly whether it's a battle of wills, or some kind of fear.

We always praise our kid for even the smallest things she's done well because it's the little things that end up meaning the most. But Dad says today that with a new approach, despite not really using the potty much because she hasn't been drinking that she has been in a pretty good mood all around. Most people respond well to positive reinforcement, right?

Most people probably do, but my son - pre-verbal, 6 years old and developmental delays - did not. I lost my sh1t when he was around 4. I honestly think 2012 / 2013 were both "annus horribilis" for me, THE WORST years of my life, when I realized that "this" (the autism) wasn't going to go away. In hindsight, it wasn't the autism but the toilet training. We were doing everything we could to get him out of diapers, and he absolutely, stubbornly refused to get trained. He would "be good", stay dry and pee on the potty for several days in a row, and just as we were beginning to relax and think he had "got it", he'd regress and have a dozen accidents a day. It was a nightmare and no amount of ABA-type "reinforcements" worked. I was exhausted, overwhelmed, and depressed. Eventually, for the sake of my sanity, we gave up, and tried again 6 months later.

He is now 6, and becoming more consistent. I am not saying that your daughter won't be TT-ed until 6, but some kids take longer than others, and as the physicians like to say, "they'll be trained when they are ready."

There is really nothing that you can do to "make her". In fact, if she already has challenges with anxiety, forcing her before she is ready might backfire. She's still really young, and while I don't have any "useful" advise, I do suggest not trying to push her. I know that's hard -- been there, done that -- but when there is no pressure / no stress / no push, she'll probably just train herself, with or without reinforcements, with or without ABA.

Good luck !

Although it may seem counter-intuitive, a lot of psychological research has shown that physical punishment tends to increase defiance rather than reduce it. Kids tend to resent adults who hit them or threaten to hit them, so it can damage the parent-child bond. And a strong parent-child bond motivates kids to behave simply because they know Mom/Dad will like if they act that way.

The most effective discipline, once the kid is verbal, is to explain the rules and why they're important, and let them face either natural consequences (what happens if parents don't rescue them from consequences) or logical consequences (if the natural consequences are too dire or are worse for parent than for child, choose something logically related).

So, for example, if she has an accident, does it bother her to be messy? If so, don't clean her up right away, wait until she's really uncomfortable (don't make it clear you're doing this as a punishment, just act too busy to respond immediately). If it doesn't bother her to be messy, or if you can't stand the mess enough to leave it for awhile, make her participate in the clean-up as much as she is able. If she refuses, then take away something she likes 'because it might get dirty', or tell her she can't do a fun activity because she hasn't cleaned up yet. As soon as she helps you clean up, she gets to get the toy back or do the activity.

All of what you said makes sense, but I wanted to highlight this. Might be worth a shot - although she's started using the potty a bit more the last couple of days. Yes, I also agree about the punishment not always being good for the parent-child bond. I know it can create fear and resentment. But it depends on how your child responds as to which is the better way to go. I don't believe one size fits all. Never have. We're all different