Yo! Mick here, the one with pointy ears and canine grin!
Thank you well wishers!
I am feeling better and Red’s (aham) out of the doghouse (sorry – I know that was a cheap shot but hey – pull my paw if you don’t like it).
Red earned back half of his two-week sentence by being a good sport and behaving himself while grounded. Go figure – he choose to have the weekends for his reprieve and being grounded on school days!
Red is one smart kid!
I’m sure not going to complain about it because I had a lot of time with him. Without the distractions of TV or games, Red took me on several walks a day.
While I’m not advocating that he get into trouble again – I sure had a good week and then some! Many of those good habits have stuck with him.
I believe habits, daily rituals and those autism rules can be a really good thing or a really bad thing.
I was woofing it up with another acquaintance with autism this week who was not having such a good time. It seems some of his “rules” were not serving his greater good and were actually keeping him from making and keeping friends.
Kids with autism often have a lot of rules.
I’ve cautioned Red before (and will probably have to many more times) about rules – Rules have got to serve you not the other way around.
This poor kid had himself backed into a very lonely corner because one of his rules is, “if someone is mean to me I have to be mean to them back”.
Well, you can just imagine what THAT rule does for his social life!
Sadly, it was his self-esteem and self-loathing that had him so far down in the dumps. Any lower and his ears would drag more than Betty Basset’s.
He’s not a cruel person in his heart - its just his autism rules that drive his choices in behavior that make him appear mean or just plain too scary to hang with.
He and I spoke for quite some time about autism and my number one rule but I’m not sure I could help him.
He’s still rather attached to that rule even knowing that it ultimately doesn’t serve him. Maybe he just needs time to process the possibilities my number one rule has.
My number one rule is quite simple – Here’s my number one, most important rule: I only have rules that serve me and help me grow as a loving soul.
OK – Mum says its bedtime – woof out mates!
3 comments:
Are there any "rules" that Red's been willing to give up, or at least modify somewhat? If so, was this due to some intervention, or did the rule just fade? My boys have so many rules that are not serving them, and no amount of reasoning, natural consequences, incentives, social stories, etc. have made a dent in them.
Red has few rules that are challenging and long ago accepted my rules as trump - these are mostly safety or health rules.
Red has some very specific rules about food and a few about bullies in general or individual.
I don't address the food rules because I really don't care as long as he eats at least one protein a meal and because he doesn't eat well I require he take supplements.
His bully rules seem to mostly protect himself - well with the exception of the mooing thing. If a bully or other kid moos at him - all other rules seem to vanish when he goes reaction all over the place. Knock wood, the bullies have been leaving him alone for the most part and he's matured.
Behavior modification and some de-stressing and calming exercises seems to have been very helpful to Red in determining new rules for dealing with the bullies and the mooing instances.
When we introduced the calming exercises with the aide of a therapist Red was very oppositional and resistant but the therapist taught me how to do the exercises in front of Red and he must have been picking up on them.
Have you tried writing a book of their rules or having them write/dictate the book? I was reading a middle school age book about a girl who wrote rules for her younger brother and the concept intrigued me (darn - can't think of title or author tonight). Perhaps the only rules that make it into the book are the ones that add value and must include a logical explanation of the value.
Always a pleasure to exchange cyber conversations with you :-)
Side note: I saw that you were writing a book about autism for the middle years - if you'd like a reader or sounding board... I'm interested! My BA is Humanities with a concentration in Creative Writing and Social Action.
I'm glad that Mick's better and that Red got himself out of the doghouse. Definitely agree with you about rules only being worth it if they serve you and help you, it's not great to be a slave to rules even if they are of your own making.
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