Won't take a break

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Won't take a break
3
Tue, 12-27-2005 - 1:14am

This is a biggest problem we have been having at school and home. Mike will get overstimulated or angry but he will not take a break even when prompted or asked. To get him to take a break you have to threaten him with significant consequences and still he will continue to escalate and often will not calm. Sometimes he will calm at school though what happens is he will refuse to take the break, and they will tell him he has to calm down or go take a break and he will hold it together (though barely) until some natural transition which will work as a break. But he will not change activities mid activity no matter how angry he is getting. He will absolutely not use it independently. So what tends to happen is that he continues to escalate until it turns into a huge behavior problem though usually what really happens is I end the activity for him, so if we are out somewhere we leave, if at home he will get prompted for a break and usually gets sent to his room. It takes a threat of losing electronics for not listening to get him to go. He will continue to escalate, sometimes I will make up trips out and take him just to have that natural transition to interupt the behavior. It can be overstimulated hyper or overstimulated angry.

I have tried social stories, intervening in advance, sensory strategies, etc. And it isn't working. He won't step away from what he is doing if angry and if he is hyper he become oppositional or often just checks out and you can't get him to even hear you. Actually, often when either angry or hyper he gets to the point where he completely checks out and you can't even get him to hear you.

Any one have any other ideas. It is getting really really old. I can't just keep him home obsessing on legos and video games with no interactions from other people (including family).

Renee

Photobucket
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-17-2003
Wed, 12-28-2005 - 8:11am

Hi Renee,

We have had the same problem with Rodney. We used to have a timer that we set to remind him to take time out to breathe. We taught him some simple breathing techniques and cool down strategies and whenever the timer went off he had to pick one to "work on". He thought he was just doing it for practice, but we were actually doing it to get him to release his stress and anxiety. When we first started his timer was down around 5 minutes and we could gradually work it up to an hour. Whenever he would start getting more difficult I would just set the timer back down a few minutes, introduce something new and tell him he needed extra "practice" because we were trying something new. This worked for us because it was an expected "cool down" and I didn't have to get into fighting with him to try and relax.

Good luck
Beverly

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Wed, 12-28-2005 - 10:20am

You are a GODDESS!

I bet that this is the problem. Mike does NOT do unexpected changes in routine at all so one thought to change activities to take a break is likely anxiety causing as well. Won't do it. But if it is scheduled in already then it will be easier to get him to do. And you sneaky thing, putting in new ones and setting the timer more frequently when he was extra stressed.

I am so telling his teacher.

BTW, is there anywhere you found all these exercises to do? Any books or online resources. I probably can come up with a couple myself but it would be easier to have a list.

Thanks,

Renee

Photobucket
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-17-2003
Thu, 12-29-2005 - 8:10pm

Renee,

Most of his relaxation techniques have come from yoga, his OT and his own imagination. They are all pretty simple - like put your head down and count to twenty in time with your heartbeat, get up and take a slow walk and think of "your happy place", we have even done take five sips of water and swish it around your mouth kind of stuff. Anything to take his mind of the problem at hand and refocus to something completely unstressful. As he got older we had a list of 5-6 things that Rodney decided worked to help calm him down. We would revise the list every couple of months just to keep it from getting stale and repetitive.

Rod has had a sensory diet since forever and there are alot of things on it that we use for stress release.

Beverly

PS - Stress balls = really bad idea, regardless of whatever the professionals may say. For some reason they just turn into projectiles, I suppose that relieves his stress but it sure doesn't do anything for mine.