Wife is frustrating son to head banging
23 Sep 2015, 4:44 am
TheSperg wrote:
my son started banging his head on the wall
This subject is particular touchy for me, since I did the same thing when I was a young boy: banging my head on the wall. Nowadays I can joke around: that apparently I did not bang my head hard enough, since I still managed to get a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from a top school. But head banging in children is no joke.
I struggle with what to say to your case. Maybe I can share a few words.
(1) First of all, my sincere congratulations to your wife and you for having an autistic child. These children are special. I know because I am one of them. And I can relay my wife's word to you: she says, if she had a choice, she would still choose to raise autistic children (we have two.) My wife is neurotypical.
(2) As hard as it is to believe, your son is perfectly OK and free of problems. The only problem he has is he is still a child, but from a different species.
(3) All the other problems are artificially created in people's minds.
Instead of trying to raise a child in the neurotypical way, why not try to raise him the autistic way? Trust me, it's much more fun that way.
Instead of talking to your son, draw pictures for him. Get a magnetic drawing board. (TOMY's Megasketcher is a good choice, but its price on Amazon just mysteriously jumped up to US$40. It was like 20 something just a few days ago. I think it was just a bad coincidence. Well, one seller still carries it for $23.99.)
Instead of teaching him to talk, teach him to read first.
You yourself and your wife should learn how to make cartoon-style video clips. If my 7-year old daughter and my wife can learn to do all this, so can you and your wife. Always ask yourselves: if you cannot draw pictures and make video clips, then who are the ones with mental illness and intellectual disability here? Truly, walk in to any kindergarten, and you see all children drawing. Walk into my daughter's school (a public school), and you see all 7-year olds making animation video clips. Android apps you need are: VideoShow, and Sketch Master (a.k.a. Mobile Sketch or Katalk Sketch) by Barilab. After you become more familiarized, you may need "Batch Image Converter" to rotate images as well.
That's it for now. All the other things that you may call "problems," like tantrums, sensory issues, anxiety, all have solutions. Oh, don't bother teaching your son about making eye contact, or socialization. Those things come for free later, when you raise your son the right way. Yeap, hard to believe, but millions and millions of parents have made the same mistakes that you are making, only to end up with their children underdeveloped. Your son is from a different species. He needs a different way of growing up. Accept that fact, and you will end up with a verbal and social child. You don't accept that fact and try to force him to speak or socialize, and you will end up with a broken child.
Tell your wife: unless you have communicated your message visually, don't consider a message delivered. Do nightly bedtime picture-aided talking with your son. The story about cookies is a great story: tell your son what happened, why Mommy got upset, who cried and why, BUT, everything in pictures. And write out the keywords or key sentences, so your son can learn to read. Talk as you draw, draw as you talk.
24 Sep 2015, 12:39 pm
TheSperg wrote:
A couple of days ago after about thirty minutes of a melt down due to my wife refusing to respond to his usual non-verbal communication my son started banging his head on the wall, he has never done this before in his five years and it is obvious it was due to frustration. To me this is making it worse, not better.
He came to her and took her hand and was trying to lead her as usual to whatever he wanted(I think cookies) and she refused to get up and just repeated over and over "I don't understand NAME, what do you want?" "You have to talk, tell me what you want" he even started repeating over and over after melting down for a while "go go go go go go" and she said "no what is it you want do you want a snack?" "say snack or cookie" etc.(go is one of his few words, it can mean get up or leave the house and go into town depending).
I've explained she isn't helping, I have explained til I am exhausted that ignoring his existing attempts at communicating needs is not going to do anything but frustrate him and set back communication most likely.
She is sick of lack of progress with verbal communication, she said she refuses to accept he may not ever speak, she doesn't care if he cries or gets frustrated because he isn't in any pain or trouble and she feels she can frustrate him to speak. She is just adamant he is going to speak period and if this has to be through frustration so be it. She finds me irresponsible and a poor parent for not being behind this, and hates how I just let him lead me to things and let him position my hands for things he wants to happen. She thinks I have let him use this crutch too long, I think at least now it is all he has and meltdowns show that. She refuses to accept he may not be able to communicate verbally, she doesn't care what the reality is. She insists we both go cold turkey on responding to wants with the pulling and hand positioning, of course not with food and essentials but anything else.
She doesn't care about what any professional would say, but I'd like to see if a video or something could get through to her if anyone could suggest something.
EDIT:We tried a version of PECs and he did not take to it, and she to be honestly was not on board. Even now I said we need to try that again now that he is older or the tablet version, hell she programs apps for android and I asked her to make a simple one for him but she is against it as another "crutch" and yes I have explained that it helps with making the communication connection.
It is just a continuation of a long issue with her, she is depressed and angry and the way she deals with it is refusing to accept it. But he is making slow progress, just today she mentioned he studied the picture on a box of a toy where you use segments to build a car track and then he used the pieces to duplicate the specific arrangement on the picture on the box. But she is hung up on the language thing and just won't let it go.
He came to her and took her hand and was trying to lead her as usual to whatever he wanted(I think cookies) and she refused to get up and just repeated over and over "I don't understand NAME, what do you want?" "You have to talk, tell me what you want" he even started repeating over and over after melting down for a while "go go go go go go" and she said "no what is it you want do you want a snack?" "say snack or cookie" etc.(go is one of his few words, it can mean get up or leave the house and go into town depending).
I've explained she isn't helping, I have explained til I am exhausted that ignoring his existing attempts at communicating needs is not going to do anything but frustrate him and set back communication most likely.
She is sick of lack of progress with verbal communication, she said she refuses to accept he may not ever speak, she doesn't care if he cries or gets frustrated because he isn't in any pain or trouble and she feels she can frustrate him to speak. She is just adamant he is going to speak period and if this has to be through frustration so be it. She finds me irresponsible and a poor parent for not being behind this, and hates how I just let him lead me to things and let him position my hands for things he wants to happen. She thinks I have let him use this crutch too long, I think at least now it is all he has and meltdowns show that. She refuses to accept he may not be able to communicate verbally, she doesn't care what the reality is. She insists we both go cold turkey on responding to wants with the pulling and hand positioning, of course not with food and essentials but anything else.
She doesn't care about what any professional would say, but I'd like to see if a video or something could get through to her if anyone could suggest something.
EDIT:We tried a version of PECs and he did not take to it, and she to be honestly was not on board. Even now I said we need to try that again now that he is older or the tablet version, hell she programs apps for android and I asked her to make a simple one for him but she is against it as another "crutch" and yes I have explained that it helps with making the communication connection.
It is just a continuation of a long issue with her, she is depressed and angry and the way she deals with it is refusing to accept it. But he is making slow progress, just today she mentioned he studied the picture on a box of a toy where you use segments to build a car track and then he used the pieces to duplicate the specific arrangement on the picture on the box. But she is hung up on the language thing and just won't let it go.
My son also does not speak and is 3. I think many people give advice for kids on the upper end of the spectrum but it might not apply so easily to our kids. My kid doesn't have the attention span to look at pecs. Eikona bridge commenter has a very good point in his book about processes vs pictures. Buy kid won't look at static pictures for long he prefers motion. Your wife wants to push your son to talk so her intentions are good. Our Aba teacher made my son make a sound upon prompt to get a reward. Every time he wants something he takes us by the hand and screams to get what he wants we don't respond to screaming and he has to make a sound. You guys should push him but not to the point of meltdown. He has to get used to working with both of you and not feel like he is getting punished. Reward him when he makes a sound or even makes an attempt. Of he doesn't reward for any progress such as being calm. Take baby steps but I think you can't settle and say he'll never speak that's who he is. Don't give up, be consistent, reward and praise him and make him feel good about himself even if the progress is as small as him opening his mouth or making eye contact.
24 Sep 2015, 12:43 pm
Bkdad82 wrote:
TheSperg wrote:
A couple of days ago after about thirty minutes of a melt down due to my wife refusing to respond to his usual non-verbal communication my son started banging his head on the wall, he has never done this before in his five years and it is obvious it was due to frustration. To me this is making it worse, not better.
He came to her and took her hand and was trying to lead her as usual to whatever he wanted(I think cookies) and she refused to get up and just repeated over and over "I don't understand NAME, what do you want?" "You have to talk, tell me what you want" he even started repeating over and over after melting down for a while "go go go go go go" and she said "no what is it you want do you want a snack?" "say snack or cookie" etc.(go is one of his few words, it can mean get up or leave the house and go into town depending).
I've explained she isn't helping, I have explained til I am exhausted that ignoring his existing attempts at communicating needs is not going to do anything but frustrate him and set back communication most likely.
She is sick of lack of progress with verbal communication, she said she refuses to accept he may not ever speak, she doesn't care if he cries or gets frustrated because he isn't in any pain or trouble and she feels she can frustrate him to speak. She is just adamant he is going to speak period and if this has to be through frustration so be it. She finds me irresponsible and a poor parent for not being behind this, and hates how I just let him lead me to things and let him position my hands for things he wants to happen. She thinks I have let him use this crutch too long, I think at least now it is all he has and meltdowns show that. She refuses to accept he may not be able to communicate verbally, she doesn't care what the reality is. She insists we both go cold turkey on responding to wants with the pulling and hand positioning, of course not with food and essentials but anything else.
She doesn't care about what any professional would say, but I'd like to see if a video or something could get through to her if anyone could suggest something.
EDIT:We tried a version of PECs and he did not take to it, and she to be honestly was not on board. Even now I said we need to try that again now that he is older or the tablet version, hell she programs apps for android and I asked her to make a simple one for him but she is against it as another "crutch" and yes I have explained that it helps with making the communication connection.
It is just a continuation of a long issue with her, she is depressed and angry and the way she deals with it is refusing to accept it. But he is making slow progress, just today she mentioned he studied the picture on a box of a toy where you use segments to build a car track and then he used the pieces to duplicate the specific arrangement on the picture on the box. But she is hung up on the language thing and just won't let it go.
He came to her and took her hand and was trying to lead her as usual to whatever he wanted(I think cookies) and she refused to get up and just repeated over and over "I don't understand NAME, what do you want?" "You have to talk, tell me what you want" he even started repeating over and over after melting down for a while "go go go go go go" and she said "no what is it you want do you want a snack?" "say snack or cookie" etc.(go is one of his few words, it can mean get up or leave the house and go into town depending).
I've explained she isn't helping, I have explained til I am exhausted that ignoring his existing attempts at communicating needs is not going to do anything but frustrate him and set back communication most likely.
She is sick of lack of progress with verbal communication, she said she refuses to accept he may not ever speak, she doesn't care if he cries or gets frustrated because he isn't in any pain or trouble and she feels she can frustrate him to speak. She is just adamant he is going to speak period and if this has to be through frustration so be it. She finds me irresponsible and a poor parent for not being behind this, and hates how I just let him lead me to things and let him position my hands for things he wants to happen. She thinks I have let him use this crutch too long, I think at least now it is all he has and meltdowns show that. She refuses to accept he may not be able to communicate verbally, she doesn't care what the reality is. She insists we both go cold turkey on responding to wants with the pulling and hand positioning, of course not with food and essentials but anything else.
She doesn't care about what any professional would say, but I'd like to see if a video or something could get through to her if anyone could suggest something.
EDIT:We tried a version of PECs and he did not take to it, and she to be honestly was not on board. Even now I said we need to try that again now that he is older or the tablet version, hell she programs apps for android and I asked her to make a simple one for him but she is against it as another "crutch" and yes I have explained that it helps with making the communication connection.
It is just a continuation of a long issue with her, she is depressed and angry and the way she deals with it is refusing to accept it. But he is making slow progress, just today she mentioned he studied the picture on a box of a toy where you use segments to build a car track and then he used the pieces to duplicate the specific arrangement on the picture on the box. But she is hung up on the language thing and just won't let it go.
My son also does not speak and is 3. I think many people give advice for kids on the upper end of the spectrum but it might not apply so easily to our kids. My kid doesn't have the attention span to look at pecs. Eikona bridge commenter has a very good point in his book about processes vs pictures. Buy kid won't look at static pictures for long he prefers motion. Your wife wants to push your son to talk so her intentions are good. Our Aba teacher made my son make a sound upon prompt to get a reward. Every time he wants something he takes us by the hand and screams to get what he wants we don't respond to screaming and he has to make a sound. You guys should push him but not to the point of meltdown. He has to get used to working with both of you and not feel like he is getting punished. Reward him when he makes a sound or even makes an attempt. Of he doesn't reward for any progress such as being calm. Take baby steps but I think you can't settle and say he'll never speak that's who he is. Don't give up, be consistent, reward and praise him and make him feel good about himself even if the progress is as small as him opening his mouth or making eye contact.
Also an approach we started trying is short bursts of Aba. We count down from 10 so he knows he will have it work soon, then do an activity and then let him do whatever he wants. Then repeat. This is all not in a chair so he can run spin jump whatever he wants. It's a lot less stressful than traditional Aba.
24 Sep 2015, 12:49 pm
When I was little, my mom made me speak when I was language delayed. She wouldn't follow my commands unless I tried using words. It did work alright. A kid isn't going to learn to speak unless you reinforce it. But for a parent it can be very hard to see their kid in emotional pain and being very frustrated but we have to be strong.
EDIT: This method is also done on NT kids too and it's so much easier to not speak but that is how they are only going to learn. Your wife seems to think that autism is environmental because she is blaming herself. My mother also seems to think it is too because she has told me how autistic I would be if she didn't teach me how to talk or didn't work with me and if she left me in a self contained room and didn't take me out of there.
I am not saying everyone should make a kid speak when they are not capable of it because we wouldn't try to make a one year old speak or an infant but when they are at least two, we do and if you are both working on speech therapy, then you reinforce it by trying to get him to try and speak. I am not saying he needs to be perfect or use complete sentences, he should be using what he is capable of saying like single words like up or down or juice or come and the more progress he makes, the more you add to his expectations for language.
_________________
Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.
