can you help me be a better father?

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I fear that I'm not doing enough for my daughter. I sit at the computer or on the couch while she's watching Blue's Clues or whatever. I might have her sit with me or on me and I'll tickle her sometimes. But I'm getting the feeling I should be playing with her more.

And this house...I'm a stay-at-home parent and you'd think that the 4 hours she's off at school, I could do a bit more around the house. it's a wreck. Her room, our room, the kitchen, the living room all need attention. It just feels so overwhelming to do it all and maintain it. 90% of her toys she doesn't play with but I'd feel guilty if I donated them. That's a big thing right there, she's got toys all over the place and we're using two big bins to store it all.

In short, I feel like I'm neglecting her by not playing with and reading to her and I need to clean better.

Any tips?

You gotta learn to be a kid again! No one is watching you...be as silly as you want! You will find that once you learn to play, you will be happier too!

During these activities you can nurture vocabulary and speech skills. If you have access to items she wants, she can practice asking. Introduce her to new vocabulary in an incidental and fun way.

I would set up mini-activities:

Playdough

Sand/Rice box filled with small toys

Painting (don't be afraid to get messy!)

Manipulatives like blocks, pull-aparts, etc (practice fine motor, patterns, sharing, requesting)

Coloring (great to practice writing skills as well!)


Physical play is fun, reinforcing, and helps build stronger bonds. Spin, run, hop, set up an obstacle course, anything! Go to the park and play together.

Simple science experiments are fun

Read stories...make sure to use all kinds of voices. If she is verbal enough, ask her questions to start building listening and comprehension skills.

If she doesn't play with most of her toys, I suggest rotating them. Have 4 different boxes of toys. Each week have 1 box available. The next week it will be a new box.....and it will seem like new toys to her! Opening the box for the week together can be fun and she will be excited to play with the toys and with you.

Get comfortable being silly. Role play with characters or dress up!

I was a preschool teacher, can you tell?


For cleaning, try concentrating on a room a day until its back to a more reasonable level. This is a great site to start a cleaning routine that is easy and manageable. http://www.flylady.net/

It is really hard to be a parent with ASD, it is hard for NTs to be a parent, too. Maybe you could find a cartoon that the two of you watch together, so you could do that when you want to spend time together but don't have the energy to play.

Donating toys sounds like it might help you out, and it would help out kids who wouldn't have toys otherwise, especially if you donated them to a women's shelter where kids live during tough times in life. Maybe you could choose something from each category of toys, such as three ponies, four stuffed animals, a ride on toy, and four books to donate at once, and then make it a habit to go through and clean out a similar amount of toys every few months so things don't pile up as much and you feel like you have to keep them permanently. The same habit with clothes helps them from becoming an overwhelming pile of laundry. Kids will play with empty boxes and spoons and bowls, there is no reason to feel guilty for passing on what has been outgrown and tossed aside anyway.

Sometimes the only way I could manage to take care of my ex's daughter was to call someone who had more energy to play with her when I was super low on energy. A high energy person can go to the park with you and keep up with the kid giving you a chance to enjoy watching them play without running yourself into the ground. Coloring together is also a good low energy activity, you don't have to impress anyone with your art work, but kids seem to like having help with that.

Housework drives me nuts, too. If you can make a game out of picking up her toys, and she knows where to put them, have your daughter start helping pick up after herself, and learn that if she gets something out, she has to put it back when she's done. It isn't mean to help a child learn to pick up after their playtime.

Hope that helps!

Recognizing the things you'd like to do better is a great place to start

on the cleaning, try to spend 10 minutes a couple of times per day. these little chunks of time will add up and knowing you're only going to spend 10 minutes should make it seem less overwhelming.

Aside from being a Dad, you sound like every housewife who's ever lived. That's not to say that all us house-spouses can't do better, but give yourself a bit of a break: caregiving is very, very hard work.

Prioritize. Create a routine so that you can break away from the TV or the computer (noting that I am on the computer myself right now. Hmm.) Use the computer to make and schedule a task list - but be realistic: don't expect yourself to be doing something all day long. Keep in mind that people in offices have down-time, too.

For instance, if you say to yourself: every day, I will get down on the floor and play with my daughter with her toys for 15 minutes after she's done with her TV. That's more doable than "I need to play with my daughter more." Read her a bedtime story every night. If you find those are doable, you can add more time in other places - but do it in small chunks with breaks. I found it was easier to spend time with my son if I took him to a park or playground, then we were both running around.

Figure out when you're able to do the critical cleaning - meaning, take advantage of times when you are already active. I find that I can get a lot done when I'm already moving: I do the food-related cleaning tasks when I'm still moving from the school pickup/drop off. Figure out the bare minimum needed for basic sanitation and safety, and start with that. Build in a schedule for the stuff that doesn't have to be done every day, but that needs to happen during the week.

Prioritize the bigger tasks (like, for instance, discarding old toys) and do a small amount of work on them each day. Get your daughter involved: if you do it over the weekend, it's a learning experience for her to donate stuff to people in need, or to sell them at a yard sale.

More important: don't let the stuff you ARE doing become invisible. Record it somehow - are you making meals? Buying groceries? Chauffering? Laundry? (even if it's being washed but not put away, it counts - ditto for dishes) Paying bills? Collecting and sorting the mail? Feeding pets? All this kind of stuff gets done by whoever is taking care of household management, and sometimes even if we're doing it we forget to give credit for it.

I am overwhelmed with my responsibilities every waking minute. I manage things by setting daily goals. I have the goals I must accomplish (washing dishes, cooking dinner, etc..) then at least one 'extra' such as sorting the laundry. The next day the 'extra' might be hanging the sorted laundry.

When things pile up, such as when every room is a disaster, I set a goal to do one area of one room each day. One day might be clearing the kitchen counters. I might have a goal to put all common items around the house in piles one day, then put them in place the next (e.g. collect all toys in one pile, all dirty clothes in another pile, all papers in another pile, all tools in another pile, etc...).

I know it doesn't sound like a lot but all of this is after a 10 hour day and added on to managing my son's homework, taking care of the pets, etc...

After a week of having at least one 'extra' goal each day, it adds up to be quite a bit accomplished.

I understand! I'm a stay at home parent and while my spouse works full time and we have an agreement that my priority is our son, I still struggle with the responsibilities.

My son goes to a special ed preschool from 11am (he gets on the bus) to 3pm (he comes home from the bus), 5 days a week. That seems to be a lot of time for me to do stuff. Problem is, I end up trying to "work" from home too (I used to run a consulting business before we had our son). I end up tired by the time my son gets home and he's ready to play (he has a lot of energy and very tactile).

Our house is relatively neat but can use more dusting... but I hate doing house work and it's very easy to get on the computer and suddenly hours have gone by.

It's a balancing act and I'm very much an unstructured person. I can't give you any advice because I feel very much like you!

I would also point out to anyone in this position: there is nothing wrong with getting help. If you can afford a weekly or monthly housekeeper, by all means do: you've got more important things to worry about. If you can't afford that, look into respite care for your child - many states and places provide it free of charge. Check with the local autism society.

Hi
You sound exactly like me...weird because I always thought I'm the only one in this situation.

Yep I'm a stay at home father with a 6 yr old ASD girl who attends school 4 hrs a day. I'm currently spending far too much time on the computer and not enough time playing with my daughter.

My tip? I'm going to try something myself and I;ll let you know.

Good luck

One idea I'm thinking about for my 4 year old son is to write a list of activities that I can do with him.

It's easy for me to get lost on the computer when I have no idea what I can do. Also I'm at the stage where I'm using the computer for numbing whatever pain and fear I may be feeling.

Maybe we can come up with ideas together. Some 15 minute activities I can think of:

Building (legos, blocks)

Painting

Reading a short story/book

Arts & Crafts (my son likes gluing paper)

What do you like to do? Is there any way to translate that into an activity your daughter might like to do with you? When my daughter was little we did lots of coloring, painting, and nature walks. I had a blast rewatching all of the Sesame Streets. You gotta let her be herself but you also need to be yourself too. There is a middle ground.

And cleaning... I'd be glad to take any helpful hints from there as well... I know that most people don't LIKE it but that doesn't help motivate me to do it either. The tv show Hoarders may help keep you on your toes in that respect though. I know I take a much harder look at clutter than ever before because of that show.

I've never been great at "playing," either. So I translate this into "enjoying ourselves together." I try to focus on positive interactions, which means finding things we both enjoy and expressing my appreciation of sharing time. We both love going to the movies, so that is a special treat. Otherwise, it is cuddling up and watching a video or a movie on tv. If I'm not exhausted, I like reading before bed. I find a cup of tea helps me make a concentrated effort to relax and enjoy this time.
This thread has been so useful for me! I am sure other parents at home feel much the same way as you do.
We need to pat ourselves on the back more often!
J.

we all know that schedules usually work really well for kids, sometimes we forget they work just as well for adults, too. make yourself a schedule, put in time for play, housework, computer time, etc. or even just a list of things to accomplish that day. i have spent years as a SAH and now my SO is a SAH dad, and yes the work can be overwhelming, even more so for someone (like my autistic SO) who has executive function issues. often he simply cant see where to start. a schedule or list helps keep him on track and takes away a lot of the difficult decision making.

for activities, incorporate your child in what you are doing. cooking lessons while you make lunch, life lessons on how to sort laundry or load the dishwasher. introduce her to the computer if you enjoy it yourself, there are free websites with fun educational stuff for kids, like starfall

when i was a SAH, i used flylady for a while to help with getting organized and keeping the house better. she will even send you emails daily (works great if you have email notification on your cell phone, or a computer program that will do pop ups) reminding you to do certain things. i got a ton of useful tips from her site, even if i didnt follow everything to the letter. as with everything, read it all, take what you want, leave the rest. sometimes i still like to shine my sink, but i always refused to get dressed to my shoes, because i prefer being barefoot to shoes.

I'm not a parent but I know of several who cycle through their child's toys.

i.e. Leave out their absolute favourites but pack some of the others away and swap them over after a few months. This way you keep all the toys, but have more floor space and encourage them to play with them all.

Just a suggestion, is all.

LOL. My Aspie has an internal inventory of every single scrap of paper he's ever owned, none of my toy-removal strategies worked, until we explained to him that he wasn't allowed to get new toys until he got rid of an equal number of old toys. It is a huge struggle for him and I hate it, at first we softened the blow by donating them to the kids' room at our local Y where he'd spend time at the time...but now he's too old for that. It's tough.

I saw this article on Parenting Magazine's website and thought of this thread. http://www.parenting.com/article/kiss-m ... e?page=0,0

Not all of it applies: some of this stuff doesn't work for kids or parents on the spectrum, some of it is pretty mommy-centered, but it does express what I was trying to say earlier about cutting yourself some slack and recognizing all you do already. I am very, very glad to see Dads in this discussion - I think we're blessed to be the first generation where "stay-at-home" Dads number enough to be measured and studied - we've got many at our school.