Son just diagnosed. We're lost, need HELP!

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one of the best ways I've found to deal with the poop thing is to make them help clean it up. My son did this ever morning for over a year one I made him help with the cleaning he found in not ot be as funny or as fun to do. Also you might want to get some things that are ok for him to play with in this way. Finger paints, shaving cream even pudding on a plastic table cloth. You might want to get a lockbox for the things your afraid he'll hurt himself with it or things you dread having to clean-up like paint, worked well for me when my son was doing simlar things.

A couple of things that worked for us when my daughter was that age (she's 6 now):

For sleeping...we started giving her melatonin 30 minutes before bedtime..helps a lot with the sleep and it's a non harmful herbal sleep aid. Also we have a very rigid routine that starts 1 hour before bed. Having consistent specific steps leading up to bedtime has appealed to her need for order. We never skip a step..even if bedtime is running late. We do every single step in the same order that we've done it for almost 3 years. One of the steps is putting on a CD for her that increases relaxing brain waves, by the way, and having that CD combined with the melatonin helped tremendously.

Discipline...I think this is so counter-intuitive, but our most successful discipline has been positive reinforcement with her. We had a sticker chart with prizes labeled after a certain number of stickers earned. Ive seen other parents use marbles. But the important thing is that at first, we would give her a sticker for something as simple as letting us get her dressed for preschool without throwing a fit. As time has gone on, we've been able to step up to really noteworthy positive stuff. Also, making sure that she understands and is able to explain in her own words why there is a rule works. If she knows that we aren't being arbitrary and making rules to be mean, she follows them pretty well.

With my son now 12, and reading the excellent ideas from Java and Number5, I'm realizing just how much I've started to forget about those years ... still, I hope I can add something useful.

I totally agree that safety is first. Period. You will get rid of the gate when you are sure your child has matured beyond needing it. Maturing is not something you can force; it will happen in it's own good time. Let go of any preconceived notions you (or those around you!) may hold about what should happen when; you do what needs to be done for your unique child.

The absolute most effective discipline for an AS child is getting them to understand and buy into the "why" of the rule. That can be a tough one, especially when your AS child is also AHDD and unable to engage in the discussion for long. Don't give up on it, however. Always keep working on that as part of a multi-faceted approach. It's all going to take time; be patient.

I think you should give some thought to your son's feelings about his room, and/or being alone, if you haven't already. I'm reading that he really doesn't want to be alone in his room, and will do anything to show that. My son loved his room but not at night and not in the dark and not alone. We had to tackle those fears and feelings to make progress with bed time issues. My son also takes a long time to fall asleep, giving him, when he was young, lots of time to be keenly aware of everything that made him uncomfortable at bedtime. It was all stuff he couldn't express; he'd just act out. Once we became sensitive to it for him, things improved. Spend some time seeing if you can ferret this sort of thing out, and come up with some ideas to make it all more comfortable.

Some AS kids are also extremely precise with the clock when it comes to bedtime, so try to be more exact about what happens when, and see if this helps. Write it down and post it.

One thing that can frustrate AS kids when it comes to attempts to discipline is that they are so literal. They truly do not understand how certain rules and instructions apply to different situations. Make the effort to clarify this before issuing consequences; you can give a warning, for example, along the lines of: "I see that as hitting. If you do it again, there will be consequence X for hitting." If your son is like mine, the first reaction you'll get is, "no, it's not hitting." Which means its time to clarify the rule. I can't even begin to tell you how many exchanges we've had over the years on what rules mean! He really, really doesn't see it. But a debate is far better than a meltdown, and also an effective learning process. So be willing to invest in this; you will find it helps quite a bit.

Best of luck.

I'm sorry I haven't posted in awhile. I've been reading just havent had time to post. We have been having a very challenging time around the house. Headstart ended for the summer on June 2nd and I went to the school board about having my son put back in a special ed prescool just for the summer(only summer school for his age here) until kindergarden starts in the fall. If my son is without school for long periods of time, his behavior deteriorats rapidly. We can get through school breaks (2 weeks) fine, but by the end of the break, he acts like he has lost his mind. I think its the big change in schedule and the change of his routine. It will only get worse until he starts school again. The school board said he wouldn't be helped by the preschool and instead upped his speech to 5 times a week and gave us a special ed teacher that will come to the house twice a week. I could not get them to understand he needed school.

On a good note, he has stopped pooping in his room, but is still peeing in there. His fits and arguing are getting worse. We are doing as people suggested on here and explaining everything to him and discussing things with him. It worked for about a day and now he lays down and closes his eyes and says hes asleep while we are talking (he'll do this anywhere) or begins hurting himself because he knows it distracts us. He tore his gate(did I mention in the pevious posts that this gate is 4'x5'1/2. There are outdoor gate hinges holding it on the wall and an outdoor gate latch to shut it. This was the only gate that would keep him in, its practically a door.)out of the wall 3 times this past week. My husband put it up again with extra bracing this time so hopefully he cant tear it down. Last night he spent 3 hours finding different things in his room to stack in front of the gate so he can open it. He thinks its a challenge to get by. He's not like this during the school year. He's a challenge then, but its very easy to work with him then.

Maybe I'm looking at all of this wrong and just need to change my way of thinking with him more. If so please tell me and any other suggestions would be much a ppreciated. We have very few resources for him where we live. The one major place for autism and aspergers seems like kind of wishful thinking and nothing that will truly help. They change the diet (I have heard some good things about the diet change), give antifungels, antibiotics, antiviruls, ssris and other meds to "treat and cure" austism/aspergers. They say its caused by a faulty immune system. I think that it would be more hurtful than helpful or at the very least do nothing. I need a real way to reach my baby. And he is my baby.

Exactly!
I had physical disipline as a child, while it made me respect my parents as athority figures more, it was negative reinforcement. I was the kind of kid that needed a reason why I should not do something, but my mom would just tell me to stop something without explination.

A classic example was when I was in girl scouts. We had a guest speaker, and I was a chatter-box, I asked tons of questions. My aunt told my mom about this and she told me not to do it again, nothing about manners. When the next guest speaker came, I was completely silent, my aunt tried to entice me to ask a few questions, but I was too scared to say a peep because I was afraid that if mom found out, she would give me more negative feedback.

I always felt like there was a spy around me, and as the years went by, I grew apart from many people, and colder.... I felt I was always doing something wrong but I did not know what it was, like people where out to get me.

I cannot stress the importance of positive-reinforcement... if your child does something wrong... TELL them what it is, and explain WHY. Make sure they look at you and understand what you are saying. Aspie children are a lot smarter then you think, and once they know what you are talking about, the child will keep it in memory, and also take with them the fact that you have respect for them..

That is something I never had, the negativity my mom spread to me still impacts me to this day, don't let it happen to your kids.

If preschool isn't available, have you considered signing him up for a summer day camp? My kids, too, seem to need the routine of going somewhere everyday, and summer day camp fills that for them. My AS child has always done surprisingly well with it; I would have worried that the new place, new faces would be difficult but he goes into it with no expectations and that seems to work for him. He really THRIVES during the summer, doing day camps on topics of interest to him. This week my AS son and my NT daughter are both at a Shakespeare day camp and I recognized one of the other campers as being part of the county day class for more severely autistic children, so camp does seem to be open to kids who may not be as high functioning as my son. It's also really fun looking through the options and picking something together; I know it's late in the summer and most are full, but it would be worth a try. Consider it an experiment. If it fails, you've lost some money but at least have a better sense of what may or may not work for your child; if it succeeds, you've scored.

Various difficulties my poor parents had with me, and how they sorted them out.

Your child loses his temper, and smears excrement?

When he's NOT angry, you give him positive feed back about being clean. When I was a kid, my Mum didn't give me attention when I was throwing a wobbler, but she did give me positive attention when I was doing the right thing. So, when I threw my poo at someone, she ignored me, but when I started crying she'd give me a hug, then gave me big pink rubber gloves, so I could help clean it up.

When we were cleaning it up she told me why people don't throw poo, and why it should go down the toilet, and not be hidden under the mattress or in Daddy's wellingtons.

That problem was sorted quite quickly.

The other anti social problem they had to contend with was that I couldn't figure out why people always wore clothes. If it was cold, sure... but when it's hot? What's the point of that?

One dinner party with the parish priest in attendance, I woke up, and came downstairs buck naked. (It was past my first communion, so I must have been at least seven.) I wanted to talk about what I'd been reading, and remember that I couldn't figure out why everyone was so upset. The priest had given me the Narnian tales to read the year before, then suggested the Hobbit... which I loved. I'd just got stuck on the first chapter of Lord of the Rings, but wanted to talk about it... yet for some reason, everyone was cringing with embarassment and ignoring me.

When my Dad carted me upstairs he refused to answer my question of "why everyone was so red and not talking." He said, "you know," and marched out. I went to bed very sad and confused, because I didn't understand. The next day my Mum, who was more subtle, explained to me that some people have "taboos" about nakedness. I was really surprised, and said, "that's not logical"... she agreed, but said that it's common in most cultures, and so there's a rule that we should wear clothes.

After that I never crashed another dinner party in the nude!

So my advice is... if he's throwing a strop, don't try to explain to him, because he won't understand. But when he's calmed down, just calmly explain to him a rule, and why it's a rule.

When you see him obeying the rule, reward him with praise. But don't do what my Dad sometimes did, which is stand there saying, "what's wrong with you, why can't you be more normal!"