A few days ago I’d had a bad day with my son, and blogged it. Since then I’ve heard from a friend of mine. He is the oldest of four children, the youngest of whom is autistic and far less functional than our boy. I hadn’t stopped to think that he would have been given charge of his youngest brother, but clearly he was. He sent me a long e-mail, telling me things that worked for him in dealing with his brother, making suggestions of ways to get a point across in a way that also defuses the confrontation and the unacceptable behavior. Most of them were indirect. Indirection doesn’t come naturally to me; I had not thought of using it.
I just got his e-mail yesterday, and have already had multiple opportunities to test his advice. Basically, it involves absurdity (making the kid laugh, which breaks the repetitive behavior pattern) and focusing the “discipline” on an object rather than the child himself, which takes away the resistance factor. The kid isn’t being bidden to change his behavior to meet some incomprehensible norm; he’s being asked to change the “behavior” of a thing – without realizing that to do that his own behavior has been changed. I know the man who came up with this reads this; the e-mail was in direct response to my expression of frustration. So I say here that he is brilliant, probably far more than he knows. And here, in this very public forum, I say “thank you”. You’re a wonderful friend.
Glad that this approach seems to work for you, at least some of the time. Give J a big hug for me.
And this is another example of your own innate class in your acknowledging of valuable help.
You may actually be so cool as two yummy pizzas, my dear.