My 5 yr old is driving me nuts!

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At some point, we just started yelling "banana!" at each other when we see each other. And it just kind of stuck.

That is sooooo stinking cute. I love it! He's very lucky to have you. (And you're luck that you haven't had to change diapers on a regular basis!! ). It's a win for all, including your brother and his wife. Love it!

Though counter-intuitive (much like 1+2+4+8+...=-1), verbal, social, and behavioral problems should be the lesser of your concerns. Parents spend too much energy on these issues, to the point of neglecting to develop the visual-manual skills of their children. Visual-manual skills, once developed, solve all the other issues. You should spend most of your energy in motivating your children to draw pictures or to play with building-block style toys. Let their imagination fly. These activities build the foundational association skills of these children. Without a solid foundation, they may grow up stuck with problems.

As for behavioral/tantrum issues, the moment to deal with them is when they are not happening, at all. You connect the good moments to the bad moments, and vice-versa, and all these issues should be gone. If you keep wanting to solve behavior/tantrum issues only when they are happening, your chance of success is very limited. It's autism, meaning these kids are stuck in an auto-feedback loop of one single thought, without being able to look at things from a different angle. The way to cut into these loops is by starting from the moment of happiness of these children, when they are doing something else totally unrelated. The problem is, parents (and kids) don't remember about the bad moments when they are happy. So, you've gotta keep a note, a picture drawing, or at very least set up a catch phrase. Drawing would be best. (You call it "Social Stories," which is a non-sense trademark. Our cave ancestors have been drawing pictures since 50,000 years ago. I call it "drawing pictures." No trademark there. And people here know my opinion about forcing these kids to do anything social. These kids are not sick. They don't need extra social activities.) However, sometimes a simple "catch phrase" such as "Are you mad, or are you OK?" may work great as well. Remind your son about the "one-more-time" moments when he is happy. Ask him about his opinion, tell him your opinion. Ask him whether he thinks that "one-more-time" was right or wrong. Treat him always like an equal-rights human being. These kids have long memories, and their brains are better than yours. You don't want them to keep a bad memory about you. I kid you not. (My son recently met a pre-school aide he had about 4 years ago. He told her point-blank: "I don't trust you." The lady was so disconcerted and did not know what my son meant. Ha ha.) That's what you do to connect the bad experience to the good experience. Then, next time, when your son repeats his "one-more-time" thingy, remind him about the good times he's had, remind him of all kinds of fun's he's had, and remind him his or your opinion on why the "one-more-time" thing is wrong. Make deals: sometimes I ask my son, do you want to go to elevator ride this weekend or not? The trick is to remember to connect his bad moments to his good moments, and then connect his good moments to his bad moments. You connect the two points in space-time continuum, sort of like a wormhole tunnel, and that allows his positive energy flow to his negative moments. That's how you develop the brains of these children. I always tell me children, yes, life is tough, there is bound to be things that make you sad/mad. But, hey, life sometimes is also fun, a lot of fun. Once they get that, tantrum/behavioral issues are gone, for good.

Trivial stuff, and it's been known for thousands of years. It's what's known as the Three Poisons. Look it up in Wikipedia. It's just that modern people have all forgotten about it, and today no one really understands these things anymore. Kind of sad. Once upon a time in the past, we did have great minds. Here is one of my past postings regarding the "modulation" approach to deal with all issues on autism. (Somehow the video links are working again, that's good.)

Yogurt is yummy, because it has honey (modulation, part 2)
http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=293342

All that being said, don't forget about the visual-manual development of your son. That, is much more important than addressing his verbal/social/behavioral issues. These kids have powerful and pristine brains. For wanting too much to address behavioral issues, parents neglect to develop the bulk of the brains of these children, and when these children grow up, they are stuck with problems, permanently. Parents have to understand that these kids belong to a different species. They have a different way of developing, but are otherwise fine human beings. Better human beings, if you ask my true opinion.

You have to address behavioral issues when they involve harm to self, to other living beings, and to things.

Impulsive kids tend to run into the street/road. This carries a great risk of serious harm. This has to be addressed, or else no more kid.

They also hit other people.

They also destroy things.

As stated above, we must seek to prevent these behaviors.

I am so sorry, perhaps my link wasn't prominent enough for you. Here it is one more time.

Yogurt is yummy, because it has honey (modulation, part 2)
http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=293342

It'll help if you can click on the link and read, before making your statement. It's all been answered there.

Yeap, those behaviors must be stopped, even if it means the children may cry. But that's only step one. What parents forget to do is step two. Oh, what step two, you ask? Read the link and find out. I can't force anyone to read. I can't force anyone to click on the link. But if you refuse to click and read, there is not much I can do to help you. There is no need for any further discussion.

My children are always happy, for a reason. I always remember to complete step number two. Other parents don't. So their children's double-entry ledgers start to pile up with negative points and resentments. The worst part is the parents don't even know. Yeap, people still don't have a clue why drawing pictures for their children is so important. Trust me, kids are perfectly fine the way they are, parents are the problem. Modulation, it's all about modulation. There is nothing in autism that modulation doesn't solve. The answer is blowin' in the wind, as Bob Dylan says. Good thing that he finally accepted the Nobel Prize, after two weeks of silence.

Even with best efforts in dealing with your children's behaviors, if you neglect to develop their visual-manual skills, you are doomed: welcome to underdevelopment. Matter of fact, in my words, you are still raising your children in solitary confinement, and wasting away the full potential of their brains. That's the part that most parents don't get.

Jason - do you have any data on how your methods work with other children? Any studies?

I'm not sure I would do a study on that wall o' word-salad.

As for the individual ideas. Yah... they already exist.

It's almost like not every child responds to the same teaching in the same way, and that parents can figure out what works for their kids by being open to working with the child's natural gifts. (Sorry, that was sarcasm. I couldn't figure out a non-sarcastic way of saying that. Of course, we all already know that this is true. Its the basis of the idea of special education, if not the typical execution.)

I'm sorry I didn't see the link; I wasn't able to get it.

Why can't we be friends?

That's kind of where I was going with that.

Jason, you really have to lay off the condescending tone. Nothing that you do is revolutionary. Just because we don't post our output for the world to see, does not mean you are the only one who draws or makes movies, Flash movies etc.

There is an idiom, "Right tool for the right job," that might be instructive. Not everything that suits your sample size of 2, is good for everyone's kids.

I thought we were friends. Ha ha.

But I do have some beef with your view on autism as something negative, and this goes a long way back in this forum. I distinguish autism and underdevelopment. I don't mix them up. Autism is autism, underdevelopment is underdevelopment. I don't think it is productive to view autism negatively. I simply can't see anything bad or wrong about autism. It's simply a different (sub)species of humans. Underdevelopment, yes, that's bad. But that's not autism, that's parents/educators not knowing how to raise this different species of humans. You always try to point out that autistic people have this and that problems, but to me, those are underdevelopment issues. You develop the children, all those issues are gone. I don't see you complaining about neurotypical babies having this and that issues. Babies of course have issues: they are babies. Once babies are developed, issues are gone. Same for autistic children. It's perfectly OK for children to behave differently from adults.

Controversy is daily bread and butter. It's a given. All I have done is to express a point of view.


Hmm, sure, autism is a trivial issue. Seriously. That much we agree. Please search over the entire Internet, and see who else in the world has said autism is one single issue with one single solution: modulation. Also check who has ever linked autism to renormalization. Sure, trivial stuff, because autism itself is trivial. People may think I am joking, but I am not. Once you understand autism, you've gotta wonder why people make such a big deal about it, and why so many children's lives have been ruined, for no good reason.


If you think my approach is only about videos, then you've got it wrong.


Modulation is not the right tool? Go ahead, write up a better approach and tell the world. I don't know how many tools you need, but I have only used one single tool to solve every single issue in autism. Autism, to me, is a trivial issue. The solution is embarrassingly simple. There are more interesting problems out there to solve.

My responsibility is only to write down what I think is right. Whether anyone cares to listen or not, whether people like it or not, it's none of my business. As for the "sample size of 2," you are talking to a theorist. It's no my job to do the experiments. When Higgs wrote his paper, he had sample size of zero. About 50 years later, it was then confirmed by experiments. That's the nature of being a theorist. We don't work with evidences, we work with clues. As I have mentioned many time before, everyone is welcome to wait another few decades, to see whether I am right or wrong. And genomists can continue to scratch their heads on why Autism can be caused by so many different types of mutations. Meanwhile, my children will just keep plowing forward. We already live inside the Technological Singularity. You snooze, you lose.

Wrong. You use terms like, "Snooze, You Lose," and other very condescending language all the time.



That is because autism is more likely a number of different conditions with certain core similarities, but different causes. That is what happens when you have an umbrella term for something, and do not know the source. Even if you are right about some of them being part of a "new, evolved species" we would have no reason to assume they all are.


Yet, this is the thing you constantly harp on and assume we don't do, if our kids need it.



Perhaps you missed where I said I have no interest in posting my output. I also don't have any interest in writing a paper on it. I post my advice, when I think I have pertinent advice to give. That is sufficient for me, thanks.




Being a theoretical physicist gives you exactly zero more insight than anyone else on this board. You also seem to have zero interest in any empirical results anyone else has. If someone says what you do does not work, you assume, arrogantly, they did it wrong, or not to your standards. That is not scientific at all. Never do you even acknowledge the possibility that what you do is not of universal use.

We are all on equal footing here, whether you acknowledge it or not. We are all what you would call, I suppose, empirical autistic specialists trying to figure what works and what doesn't. Obviously, you don't really care about what anyone does or says other than yourself, and your snarky declarations that if we don't do what you have theorized, then we are snoozing and losing and otherwise failing our kids. Preposterous!

This thread has been hijacked, again. So much for modulation.

Oy! Why is it that everyone thinks that if a parent is struggling, they have to be doing something wrong? Parenting is hard. Admitting that is not the same as admitting they are bad, or underdeveloped, or unknowledgeable, parents.

Jason - feel free to post a novel if you discover that your universal method really is universal. You say you're a theorist, but you talk like you're a scientist. I'm a mathematician - you're not talking theory. You're talking like you've proven something, which of course, you haven't.

To ASDMommy's point, by your definition, we are all theorists and we could all posit that anything that works for our children should therefore work for any others on the spectrum. Until you have a study, it's not true. Posting the same ideas multiple times isn't going to make it true either.

With that, I'm just going to scoot on out of this thread. Thanks all, for the thoughtful engagement and helpful recommendations!

We used lots of "Family Links" in the school I work with. I don't agree with <i>all</i> of it but offering choices is often quite useful.

So for example, instead of saying "don't hit your brother" we would say "You can say sorry and do some painting or you can use your hurting hands and go to time out."

Alternatively, if their receptive skills aren't up to it and you think that your child can't control themselves regarding other kids yet, we tend towards distraction.

It's considered very important that the positive choice goes first. Of course, there's always the risk that the child will refuse both choices on all accounts, especially where rigidity and ASD come into play.