We are starting a new routine with my son-looking for advice

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Yeah, my boyfriend says I've just entered "drill sergeant mode" and need to continue it until he folds and decides to work with me rather than against me.

By the way, I hope I didn't sound like I was blowing you off or anything... any advice or experiences are always nice to know I'm not the only one dealing with things like this.

I've never found taking things away to be a good thing either-even in normal children.

These people had charts they handed out to us for "just in case this situation arises, this is how it will be handled... if that doesn't work, try this, etc." and gave us TONS of them so we can keep books full of all of this information for anyone who may wind up dealing with our children. They were absolutely amazing.

The ONLY part I didn't like about them, is I told them I'm an Aspie.... they had one day that was to teach the parents what it feels like for a child with autism at times in certain places, and intentionally overwhelmed them. I tried to get out of it several times, but they would not let it go. So they start it up.....

We had burlap sacks on, marbles in our shoes, socks on our hands, LOUD BLARING music going, someone started flickering the lights on and off, and we were supposed to be listening to a lecture at the same time. I lasted about 5 seconds before I was curled up in a ball crying and humming, rocking back and forth.

The lady didn't do it intentionally, of course, as she probably thought I was just trying to get out of it, as I'm sure a lot of people just don't want to try it out or it's just too uncomfortable or whatnot. She ran up to me, stopped everything, helped me stand up, my hands just flapping all over the place, and walked me over to the door and asked me "would you like to leave the room until this is overwith?" I nodded yes, and it was kind of cute in a way, because she told me, just like she told my son with things "You did a very good job using your words to let us know that you needed to leave the room." Then she went on a walk with me for about 15 minutes just talking and apologizing over and over and over while making sure I was calm enough to go back into the building.

He's never been too competitive really, lol, as he just says "oh, Libby's gonna win. She's crazy and hyper-she moves around too fast for me to win."

BUT I have gotten him to clean things up by making games out of it like I make a color chart, or find a game with a spinner with different colors on it, then announce "Okay! First you need to clean up all of the red items!"

It used to work much better when he was younger, but he still gets into it from time to time.

Another one I came up with was I'd sit in the room and count, and we'd keep score of how fast he did each chore. I counted the entire time he was cleaning and he'd try to do the next thing faster.... boy did my throat hurt afterwards though, lol.... that was a LOT of counting.

I didn't think you were blowing me off. Each kid is different and responds to different things and have different temperments. I'm just big on positive. These kids, and being AS you know, have a lot going on as it is and stressing them out to me is counter productive. It takes forever sometimes to teach my son something going the positive route, but it gets done and he's happy at the end. I can't go at him directly...it just make things worse. I've learned to be the master of manipulation, letting him think he's in charge when he isn't really and it works most of the time.

You're a good Mom and you have a lot of great ideas. I may try some of them myself.

I didn't read every word of the thread so some of my comments will be moot, I'm sure.

my son is NLD and similar issues started cropping up about the same age. this is what I've learned about him:

- he needs decompression time when he first comes home from school.

- rewards and punishments never worked very well because if I wouldn't give it to him, his dad would, so my son got really out of control. when I could keep my ex out of it things worked better. I would give my son just a few things to do, then give him the choice of earning the reward (in his case it was daily computer time, plus every successful day added an extra hour to his weekend computer time).

- don't argue about chores. on days my son decided not to do them, no computer time. I told him that was his decision. he still had to brush his teeth and take a shower though. I told him he could do it himself or I'd have to wash him which would be horrible for both of us. I always had to check to make sure he'd actually wash, though, because he'd run the shower for 10 minutes, splash a little water on his hair, and pretend he'd washed. uh uh. I was brutally honest and told him I would not hug him because his hair stunk. then I'd send him back to take a shower.

FWIW I would never, ever allow my son to choose what we have for dinner for every day he completed chores, because what if he was choosing every day? my life would suck. I think I'd give him a coupon for each day that says "save 5 to choose what's for dinner" or "save 20 to buy new legos" so it's a combo of immediate and delayed gratification with easily obtained goals.

Oh no! Sometimes I think it's so incredibly hard to be a single mom with my 2. My son really isn't too terribly hard to deal with, as he and I think the same way about a LOT of things. My daughter on the other hand is very whiny, VERY dramatic, a bundle of emotions (both fake and real, lol)... she would be awesome as one of those main slightly psychotic manipulative ladies in a soap opera, no joke. I'm not saying that to be mean... she is just very wild in general in her mannerisms.

It's hard as a single mom... because I can't trade off and get time to myself very easily when things do get to be too much. On the other hand-things like you experienced... I feel I'm lucky in that aspect with having no one else using a different method or interfering with how I am doing things.



I would love to be able to make the chore thing his own choice, but with both of them, I just can't. The messes are all the way throughout the house by the end of just one day. I rarely leave the house, so I would just be sitting there staring at it for days on end, it would drive me nuts-which is what sparked the incident last night in which they wound up losing everything and having to earn it back. I don't work currently, have no babysitters, and not a ton of help at all with the kids. My son is one who could easily entertain himself with nothing if need be, and they also have each other to play with, even without items. So the choice would be obvious-they just wouldn't do anything, lol, and would spend their evenings harassing one another and driving me nuts instead. I am all for giving him options and choices, but I also have to watch out for my own sake as well, so they have to do the chores... and for his sake as well. He strives for structure and routine. 5:30 rolls around and if dinner is 2 minutes late, he's all of a sudden "starving to death" and interrogating about what is going on with the dinner, lol.

I don't stand over them and force it all day though-if they are being lazy about them and don't do it, they don't get anything for that day and they know I am disappointed about it. I will give them reminders to help keep them focused once they start, and praise as they finish each chore, even if I've had to remind them 10 times to keep them on task. They do not have the choice to flat out say "no"-as they ARE going to do their chores. From that point on, it's their behavior and attitude about it that either makes or breaks them getting the reward... but they are working on it all day long, and it's not an option to just stop unless you want mommy bugging you about it again.

They get nothing but the basics out of me unless their chores are done. It might sound harsh, but it is simply this way until it becomes routine for them. I know it's always hard in the beginning, but eventually, as long as I am consistent about it, patient, and persistent, they will cave and it will become normal every day routine.

My son NEEDS routine. Before summer, I let him make the choices and all, and he was more out of control than ever. I started small, now we're up to this-which is a pretty big jump considering I finally just had enough of it over the summer when his behavior got about 10x worse because he didn't have routine. Nothing happened at any particular time aside from lunch, dinner, and bedtime for the most part. The rest was kind of random.

lol, well, the dinner thing would not be an every night thing at all. He has his specific things I'll pop in the microwave if he won't eat what we eat, but as far as it being a reward, I kind of plan of using all of these things, mixing them up like a deck of cards, and having them be pulled at random (if they choose the "mystery prize" over the other rewards they can actually see).

So it would maybe be a once a week, once every 2 weeks type of thing, and he's so easy it'd just be something like making a pizza, or popping some toasted ravioli into the oven. He's so picky, and I am as well, so we don't tend to get too terribly fancy or tedious in what we have anyway.

There is no way I'd let him pick every night though... I don't think I could do chicken nuggets or frozen burritos every single night. I'm picky, but we do have different things every night, lol... if it was his way, we'd have nothing but burritos in our fridge for a month most likely.

My plan basically is using index cards. Four different colors of cards. It will be a pile though, some of the rewards will be more common in the stack than others, so there would be no way I'd be making a special dinner every single night unless he's incredibly lucky in choosing out of a random pile. I'll shuffle them up, then fan them out for him to pick one.

What my system-all the reward ideas are basically (so far)....

Yellow index cards with things that could actually be done during the week, all only occurring if chores are all finished up:

1/2 hour on the DS

1/2 hour on the computer

choose what is for dinner

choice of a game for the family to play together

picking a favorite story to be read at bedtime

being able to help mommy make dinner

choice of music to listen to while going to sleep

being able to paint nails (for my daughter, obviously, not him, lol)

(and maybe some others as I think them up, or as I find out which ones work and which ones don't as far as motivation goes)
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Pink index cards are going to be the weekend rewards (a little more special than the dailies) since they have a LOT more time on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as a few extra chores per day (which they are oddly excited about finally-we'll see how excited they are once we actually start working on them, lol):

being allowed to "camp out" in the living room and watch movies (which is bringing mattresses in for them to lay on and the whole 9 yards pretty much, or making a tent from chairs and blankets if they want to)

1-2 hours to play the DS

1-2 hours on the computer

Control over the TV for the day (as long as it's reasonable and they aren't picking stuff their sister/brother doesn't like purposefully to make them angry or miserable)

Arts and Crafts time

Choice of movie we watch as a family before bed-with popcorn and slushies included

1/2 hour to play the DS as well as picking another reward choice

Getting ice cream from the Ice Cream Man (as long as he's coming around, when he's not, we have a dollar store near us that sells pretty much the same exact stuff the Ice Cream Man has for only $1 rather than $3 a pop, lol)

Getting to go to the park for an hour or two to play

Having a BBQ at the park for dinner

My boyfriend (his mother obsessively records movies and has TONS to choose from) getting a specific movie for them

Getting to pick the special snack for the week when we go to the store
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Green index cards will be the coupon cards-cards they can choose to keep and save to let them add up, or use whenever as long as chores are completed.

10 minutes on the DS

random amounts of money (like $0.50, $1, $1.50, and $2.00 coupons that they can save up to get a game they want or something)
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...and I'm really not sure what else I could use that would interest them as far as coupons and saving time/money could go for anything... maybe... and it's a BIG maybe, I'll do small ones like:

"Get out of laundry duty: redeem this card to not have to help put away clothes for the day"

But I would definitely overload the pile of coupon cards with the other things for sure, that way they wouldn't be getting out of things all of the time, lol, or saving them up so they get away with an entire day of no chores.
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By the way, I'm not sure what happened, but today was the first time in a week that they completed all of their chores! I was so proud/excited for them, lol.

Last edited by anxiety25 on 22 Aug 2009, 4:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

My NT wife has learned the same trick. I've long said "I'm the king of my household and my wife allows me to believe that".

I think I like your wife!