Discipline??Terrible 2's and PDD-NOS

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2004
Discipline??Terrible 2's and PDD-NOS
3
Sun, 04-06-2008 - 2:15am

Hi there,


We are STILL waiting for Bryce's EI therapy to start, I've been reading...but I still feel like I'm at a loss.


I should start by saying, in the past we've rarely had to discipline Bryce. He's always been such a good little guy, if I told him no once he would obey. My parents home (where we spend 9 hrs a day) is not baby proofed, and it's never been an issue.


He's still a fairly good boy, but we are definitely having some issues! He's all of a sudden decided it's hilarious to disobey, if he touches something and you tell him no, he goes out of his way to do it more. If he's reprimanded, he swat's at me. He's

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2003
Sun, 04-06-2008 - 1:20pm

OK here is the good news: Bryce has started to push boundaries and experiment. This is a big developmental step forward for him.

Of course this means that he will be a pain in Mom's rear end for awhile! With every silver lining comes a cloud... ;)

Some of his behaviours sound like simple misapprehension. I think he started apologizing to the dog because he thought that was what you did, and maybe continues to do it because he likes the reaction he gets from you and dad. (young PDD kids often think that all attention, both positive AND negative is good!).

One thing to do is to lavishly praise him whenever he does something right. Even something teeny tiny. This will start him on the path to understanding that positive attention is better and he will start to strive for the positive.

As for punishments: that is often tricky. the book 123 magic worked well for us, and they recommend a no touching no talking timeout. You may want to check this book out. It did not work for all members, but it worked well for us. Another thing which worked for us was to take my son's beloved lovey away and put *it* in timeout for a few minutes. *That* punishment he got rightaway.

I hope this helps!

-Paula


visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com

-Paula

visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-13-2004
Sun, 04-06-2008 - 6:42pm

Thank you Paula! You're a genius with the Lovey idea!!! That is just about his biggest motivator in life :)...so that will help. I've heard of 123 magic, I just wasn't sure if it would mesh well with ASD's- I'll have to give it a read!


Thanks,


Eris

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2003
Sun, 04-06-2008 - 7:04pm

The important thing for us was he needed to relate the consequence to the action and to understand that there was an element of choice in it for him.

I would warn him once: "Please stop doing that or I will take Pooh away" or "if you hit me one more time, I will take Pooh" and then if he still does it, take it way immediately, -no if's ands or buts. I would keep it in timeout for a few minutes (it doesn't have to be hours) and just before I returned it, remind him again that it was taken away because he hit (or whatever) and that had been his choice.

So eventually he understood that he had a choice on how to behave, and the wrong choice led to a consequence. I still do this with my kids today. "You can clean your room or I will cancel your playdate. Your choice" it works for us.

-Paula


visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com

-Paula

visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com