Cassian loves us again!

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-24-2004
Cassian loves us again!
2
Fri, 07-01-2005 - 4:45am

One of the things that has been stressing Cassian is that I put many of his books in storage (for just a few weeks), while we were painting his room. He is moving to his "big boy" room before Tristan is born, and he is very excited about the change. DH Tim is making him a castle loft bed, and the room may eventually have a slide and elevated reading nook (designed by moi), if Tim can get around to building it (scheduled for Xmas or so).

Anyway, we have painted a lot of rooms before and liked the results, but I used a Disney paint color scheme by Behr this time. The colors were much bolder and darker than we have ever used, and it looked got really hormonal and cried to DH that I hated it, and we painted the whole thing over with white. Now we are going with a predominantly white with primary color accents design. We even had to repaint the ceiling, which had been converted to dark blue. It took so many coats of primer and paint to cover the dark colors, and it took about 2 weeks to get this all done. The job was initially only supposed to take us a few days. DH was a saint throughout all this by the way. I cannot believe he didn't complain once - - just laughed at me and kept painting coat after coat. Tim nicknamed Cassian's new room "The Room of Ill-Repaint" (meant to be a pun on house of ill-repute).

As you can imagine, poor Cassian was beside himself without his books. As a hyperlexic, books are his major obsession. Every morning, I caught the brunt of his displeasure. He told me he hated me multiple times, despite my many attempts to explain that the room was being done for him. I am sure this was a major contributor to his mood issues these past few weeks. Well, finally we are finished with the painting part of our project - - at least enough so that we could unpack the beloved book collection. Oh was Cassian ever happy. He kept saying, "And I don't hate you! I love you, Mommy! I love you, Daddy!" over and over. He ran around ecstatically hugging and kissing us and reading to us from his books. He became super compliant last night as we unpacked, doing everything we asked - - a totally amazing behavior change for him. It will be interesting to see how long this lasts.

My main concern now is that it is going to be hard to pull him away from those books and get him to do other things during the summer. I am keeping a schedule of events that we will do each day (posted in our family room), and we have been getting so much stuff done (fine motor work, good floortime sessions, outings, etc.). Despite Cassian's complaints, we have actually had more productive days these past few weeks than we might have, if his personal library was available. We'll see how it goes from here on, though, as I am also not willing to remove the books entirely from his life. Of course one benefit of this expereince is that now when I threaten to pack up his books and put them in the attic, Cassian has a real life experience to draw on, whereas before I don't think he could imagine what it would be like to have his books really taken away for a period of time.

Suzi

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 07-01-2005 - 10:48am


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iVillage Member
Registered: 10-03-2004
Fri, 07-01-2005 - 2:11pm

Dear Suzi,

I won't be surprised if you already do something like this, but we have used Malcolm's love of (and stress-reduction while) playing Playstation and computer games for management of his time and behavior. He has 2 hours a day max of total "screen" time (TV, game boy, Playstation, etc.) and misbehavior deducts from his time. Serious offense can result in all time gone for a weekend. Then, if he really loses the time, I enforce that, but offer him challenging ways he might earn it back.

On a school night, he only has one guaranteed hour of screen time, but if homework gets done without squawking and all therapies attended to with good participation (and no squawking) and room picked up and dinner completely eaten etc. etc. AND then if there's extra time before bedtime ... well, he can earn more. Any time over 2 hours must be played interactively with his dad, though, actually that's not a problem as they play together lots. It's actually been a long time sice Malcolm's really gotten in more than 2 hours in a day. And very little of his screen time these days isn't interactive unless Dad is at work, I won't learn those games, ugh. Guy thing.

As Malcolm is 8:30 - 4:00 in Day Camp (and then therapy time every evening, Fri off) all summer, we only have weekends to fill with activity and THEN we have lots of his friends to fit in on playdates, so he actually has very little time for screens these days. He hits the screens hard after dinner and bath, Day Camp is stressful and he is earning his time every day all day as far as I am concerned.

I only thought to write this because maybe you can now use it for time management for your summer, ie. half hour of books in AM, then pick 2 outdoor adventures, ie. playground and playdates, etc., earn more book time in the evening. Malcolm now really takes pleasure in earning screen time.

I am happy for you that your sweet boy is loving you again ...

yours,

Sara
ilovemalcolm