Discipline, re-visited

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I am taking the previous post about how to discipline a child with aspergers and dividing it into two separate posts. The first, this post, is an open discussion as to how to constructively discipline, or correct, or instruct, a child, with or without AS. I would like to request that in responses, please respect the fact that different children have different needs and levels of emotional maturity and understanding. There is no one approach which will work with every child. Likewise an approach which may be excellent for a particular child may be considerably detramental to another, this does not mean the approach nor the parent should be censured but that everyone needs to keep their own childs individual needs first and foremost in mind.

I will begin with an example from when my now 4 year old was about 2.5. I can not change the past, but I do welcome constructive criticism that I may become a better parent in the future. Please excuse my verbosity in that I find it hard to adequately describe anythiing without maybe too much words.

When my elder daughter was about 2.5 and my younger daughter was about 1 year, the elder daughter decided it was very exciting to unbuckle herself, leap out of the stroller, and run into traffic then throwing herself into a lying down screaming will not be moved tantrum. She would only do this when there were grocery bags on the back of the stroller. Due to the construction of that particular double stroller I would need to spend some seconds repositioning grocery bags or the stroller would tip over with the baby still in it. Purchasing a new stroller was not a financial option. Foregoing walks to the grocery store was not feasable.

I explained to my elder child that all choices have consequences and that poor choices result in poor consequences. These were discussions which, up to this point, had proved sufficient in terms of steering her away from negative behavior. As my daughter saw it, running into traffic created the consequence of chaos, she loved that the cars all screeched, strangers screamed, etc. Also, she found it to be hysterically funny that mommy's face "changed colors."

I tried to explain that cars could, and would hurt her if they got out of control she did not change her behaviors as she had never been seriously hurt in the past and never quite grasped the concept.

I then explained that this was a negative choice and would have a negative consequence. I explained that a negative choice is worse than a poor choice in that a poor consequence can be fixed, but a negative consequence is forever. The negative consequence would be that if she did it again I would get rid of a toy. She lost, in total, one "One Step Ahead" catalogue which she was in the habit of reading in the strolller, one stuffed penguin (which I donated to a local elementary school), and one soft toy dog that had previously been a "stroller toy" as she only played with it on rare occasions. the loss of these toys taught her the meaning of Negative Consequence. I have never had to remove another toy, and will never need to resort to any other form of discipline as extreme in the future.

With my younger child, who is as far as I know NT, I will never need to do such a thing. My younger child reacts with fear when I have a fearful expression. She is not entertained by my face "changing colors". My younger child also reacts with appropriate fear in appropriate situations, she would not find it amusing to watch cars come screeching at her.

Please note, in the above example non of the toys lost was a particulary favorite, the penguin in question resided in the closet as it was very large and my child greatly prefers small toys.

Last edited by PenguinMom on 22 Jan 2010, 1:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I know how your eldest feels. I have no idea why, but I was always running into the street as a child, I remember having a fascination with the pavement, the cars and actually being in the street as opposed to being on the sidewalk. I was severely punished for doing it, every time, though. (please don't empathize or sympathize but I was vigorously paddled, smacked in the face or one time jerked up by my ankles and tossed over my uncles head to get me out of the street) I learned that the only thing that hurt me in the street was people who came to get me out of it.

When I was older, I would get drunk and wander out onto the interstate highways and hold up my hand at the cars. I got a reaction that way, let me tell you! In my mind I was Sonja the Red, fighting mighty battles with the on coming mechanical beasts. . .But the reaction was not what I was looking for, it was like wanting more ice cream or being very thirsty and the street was water. Hard to describe why I had to do it.

anyway, I obviously didn't die, not that I recommend this behaviour for anyone, I am just saying I thought when they said to me "it is better to be safe than sorry" I thought it was a CHOICE I could make, not them telling me safety was better.

I lost that need to be on the streets when I started driving on streets.

anyway, your post made me think of it, and I have been Asperger's Syndrome autistic all my life.

Merle

I think your eldest child is more fun.

Heh. Well, it certainly sounds like she is better at giving her mom heart attacks! If you can't get it across to her that she might die if a car hits her, you're quite justified in taking away a (less-favorite) toy as a consequence. And hey, it worked.

But she was obviously making the choice to run out into the street, if she was capable of making the choice not to do so. Things would have been different if she had been running out onto the road in that impulsive way that some autistics run--hard to predict, too fast to inhibit--when they are truly frightened or overwhelmed. If it had been that, you would have had to go about solving the problem a completely different way.

Thanks for the responses. I am glad you are amused by my child. I am frequently amused by her and everyone who meets her just loves her to death. This, however, was not my initial intent. I was very touched by Vivienne's post asking for advise to help her stop her son from jumping on the bed. In her circumstances the sons jumpoing on the bed was just as unnacceptable as my daughter's running out into traffic. Furthermore she should be commended for NOT resorting to physical dicipline, particularly in the face of having Jamaican friends who do not understand her situation. It is increadibly stressfull to make a break from cultural traditions on child raising! The responses to her post, while providing a nice insight into how AS people felt about being diciplined as children, did not offer her many constructive suggestions. Furthermore, as a parent, I would like to NOT cause my child lasting psychological damage through poor dicipline. At the same time dicipline must play some role (even positive reinforcements is mode ofdicipline) in raising a child who is able to monitor his/her own safety and respect the safety of others.

What I would like to hear is
1) What are some expamples of dicipline which have worked for you. (If you are raising an AS child)
2) If you have AS, what are examples of dicipline that worked for you?
3) If you have AS, what are examples of dicipline which you would advise other parents to Never try and why?
4) Please explaine whether your examples/modes of dicipline are referrign to verbal/nonverbal or aggressive/nonaggressive children etc. The level of the child's ability to understand, as well as the child's motive for misbehaving plays a significant role.

Hiya, and thanks for the cudos.

Let me get to it;
When my son was two, there was an incident in a grocery store. While nowhere near as severe as what your daughter was doing (I would have been piss-scared! omg) it was FAR beyond the behaviour I was willing to accept.

I've been lucky in that my son has always understood language, if not other things.

So basically, he pitched a fit in the grocery store for some candy. He was not getting the candy. When I say that, I mean it , and he was NOT getting the candy. His tantrum started, and he kept it up all.. the way.. home.

Winter in Canada, snow to haul through, groceries to pull along, screaming fighting child trying to pull away from me and run.
It was on this day that I made my rule - which I told him.
He is NOT allowed to run away from me in public.
He is NOT allowed to put himself in danger.

Being young, and well before I knew he had Aspergers, I still did understand him to a point, and I spoke very simply (something I still do).

"What you are doing is dangerous.
I am your parent, it's my job to keep you safe.
I can't let you do this, you wouldn't be safe, you could get hurt, it's my job to protect you."

This has become a theme with us I discuss with him weekly. I always ask him "who am I?" and "what is my job".

He understands now that sometimes I have to do things he doesn't like to keep him safe. I think he feels safer knowing I'm "on the job", even if his emotions or impulses get out of control and he resents - at the time- my interference.

So my advice is, speak plainly. Let her know "I love you. I am your parent. It's a parents job to keep their child safe. I can't let you run into the street where you can get hurt. Help me do my job. Don't run into the street."

1 -
Logic. If the child is verbal, and explanation that makes sense to them works better than violence or consequence (which they don't see coming, even if warned). Logic can be very basic. As in my above post.

2 - I consider myself to have AS, or at least many many many traits of it. My mother never disciplined me. In fact, I can remember asking her to discipline me when I was 10, feeling like "something" was missing. I got grounded once, but other than that I don't remember any other attempts. I do not feel like I benefited from having no discipline.

3 - Never try delayed consequences. For example "because you did that, you can't go to Jennifers birthday party on Saturday". By Saturday, the child will have no idea why they can't go. Consequences in general are dangerous ground. Unless you're taking away a special interest - which can lead to tantrums - the usual response is "so what?".

Never use verbal insults. Don't say the child is 'bad' or 'rotten' or 'evil' or 'horrible' or 'selfish' or 'stupid' etc. Often the problem behaviour/incident is based on a miscommunication. The child thinks they behaved logically. You think they behaved in an emotional/social mean way. Calling names isn't fair if you don't understand the reason behind the action.

4 - Verbal children. Aggressive and non-aggressive. Although I'd add that aggressive children seem to have a higher sensory intolerance than non-aggressive children. That's my personal experience, anyway. Something to think about.
I have no experience with non-verbal children so I can't give an opinion on that.