Listening

My son's selective hearing is very frustrating to our family.  We had his hearing tested & it's normal.  He can hear conversations that are none of his business.  He can hear crinkling in the kitchen that inspire him to investigate.  He can purposefully hear some silly  musical twists that make lyrics of songs hysterical & distorted from the original interpretation (I do that too!).  "You can call Me Al" is an old 80's song, can't think of the band right now, but I've always heard it as, "You can call MEEE--owww!"  Lots of people do this to lyrics, it makes life more fun.

When it comes to everyday jobs of getting ready for school, the bus, bed...  Well, I can ask him, did he brush his teeth?  He will either reply, "Okay"  or "In a minute." & continue reading comic books or building Lego.  He has done the social pattern of answering the question, but skirted compliance.  Let me tell you, this is really maddening when pushing 10pm & school the next day.  Time doesn't stop or wait, jobs still have to be done.  We've done all the parent tricks:  asking, repetition, yelling, begging, pleading, guilting, removing privileges, swearing...  Do not pass Go, do not collect any dollars.  Hold that thought, meaningful tangent coming.

Not that long ago he liked singing a really annoying song, repeatedly.  Did I mention repeatedly, in a horrible falsetto voice?  regardless of telephone conversations in progress, headaches, parent fatigue, REPEATEDLY.  The song was, "chicken wing, chicken wing, hot-dog and balognee, chicken & macaroni"  With the addendum of "Hanging with my homies" later on when he understood what a homie was (slang for a friend).  I have a really high tolerance for all things annoying.  I learned a long time ago that if I ignore the annoying current trick, it fizzles out because it has no effect. Didn't work this time, drats.  So, after putting up with this for a few weeks, it occurred to me, he needs to sing, he needs music, he needs reaction & attention.  I have never been great at playing by dictator rules, I usually duck & navigate my own way until the tyranny abates.  I finally had a "duh" moment, and thought, I can fix this, change the lyrics to words he doesn't like.  Well now, here's the new & improved lyrics: "Sexy things, sexy things, penis and vagina, boobies & _I forget the last word_."  We have a winner!!!  Every time the chicken wings song came out we would chime in with the new lyrics right over top, louder.  It took about 2 days, but it worked!

Back to the selective hearing topic.  My son was having trouble with stopping his preferred task of reading Calvin & Hobbes to get on task.  Who doesn't like Calvin & Hobbes? Thats great reading, normally a parents job is to encourage reading.  Its also somewhere in the unwritten job list to get children to comply on their own, to take ownership & responsibility for everyday tasks.  Now when I get the dreaded reply, "in a minute" or "Okay" I ask him again, with really syrupy sweet names.  "Honey Bunny, are your teeth done yet?" "C'mon sweetheart, its time to go!"  "Sweet'ums, get out of the tub please."  The more saccharin the better!  Now its a challenge to come up with sweeter & sweeter phrases with the added ante of saying, would you like me to open the front door for the whole neighborhood to hear?  Compliance achieved!  He got quite mad about this until I explained it to him this way.  He's dabbling between little kid & teenage independence worlds.  If he chooses to behave like a little kid, then I have to treat him that way.  If he wants his independence, then he should prove it by cooperating with these basic everyday jobs.

Read my face

Most people would say this cat, Boomer is mad about something.  Doesn't matter what really, but it looks like he's going to say, "If you don't stop RIGHT NOW, I will bite you!"

We learn to read faces with experience.  Temple Grandin writes that Ausperger people typically focus on the mouth, not the eyes when reading faces.  It has to do with paying attention so hard to what is being said because of listening challenges, that they miss other cues.  Regular people know to look at the eyes of a face first & factor in what the rest of the face says.  This is teachable, but if you don't understand the features of each emotion, its extra tough.

So, look again, see Boomer's pretty smile & nice teeth, its kinda funny looking isn't it, makes me smile, such an interesting face.  See how his eyes crinkle, its a big smile.  See his ears tip like he's going to do something fun?  OWWW!!! I just got bit.  How did that happen?

Prepared

I try very hard to keep prepared & to teach my son this skill.  It affects everything, from cleaning up after yourself, to having everything ready to go to get out the door.  As we all know, if you don't put away your breakfast dishes, they will be there waiting for you later.  "I'll do it later," is the common thought right.  Well, then later comes, you have other chores to do, and other commitments to run off to.  Later never comes.  Next thing you know its tomorrow morning & there's the stinking dishes from yesterday, still sitting there.  This is typical action & consequence in real life.  Being prepared to get out the door has its own obstacles.  I have found that I have to break it down, every day, to the essentials.  If I leave it open to guess, stuff gets missed, like lunch.  The natural consequence for that is to go hungry and to play on your friends generosity to share their lunches.  When there's a lack of friends because of exclusion practices in play, who's going to share their lunch?  Then it snowballs into a hungry morning since there's nothing to snack on.  Then a hungry grumpy lunch time with nothing to do or eat while everyone eats their lunches.  Other kids can sense he's on the brink of not coping, so they tease his last nerve because thats what kids do (and its kinda fun to push him around a bit, power play stuff).  Then the afternoon is where the struggle really shines.  Being outside on the playground is usually okay, outside is nice, there's other things to think of and do.  Class starts again & the hungries set in.  This wouldn't bother a regular kid the same way because they would've mootched of their friends lunches.  My auspie kid didn't.  So now there is learning to do, behaviours to keep in check.  Again with other kids zeroing in on this, they quietly but steadily take turns bugging the last nerve.  It doesn't take long for a full on Mad to erupt, this ends the learning, the concentration, and the coping that was on thin ice anyway.  Off to the school office, where the Mad is out of the classroom, but needs to be vetted somehow.  No adult seems to know how to communicate or address the Mad, or defuse it.   Enter Yelling, and what looks like Uncooperative arm & arm with Defiant.  Or thats what it looks like to any adult that has no knowledge or comprehension of the backstory.  See, autism is invisible now.  My son has been punished like this multiple times every school year.  Despite multiple communications, extra snacks stashed in the backpack, and repeated occurrences, it keeps happening from time to time.  Sometimes it happens if he was busy minding the social interactions in play during lunch between his classmates.  Sometimes he's way off task & no one was around to check & cue him to get on with it, eat your lunch.  The fallout overflows to the school bus ride home, where other kids, even much younger ones, enjoy poking the last shreds of nerves.  Then if he's really lucky, he can't communicate it to the bus driver because he's so overwhelmed & fed up, HE gets punished by the bus driver with a disciplinary warning bus note.  Next transition is coming home, bang the front door, with Mad & Unpleasant in full power.  The cats know to hide.  I know that he needs to calm down but there's no way he's gonna snack at this point.  On goes happy cartoons, with my direction, "
on the next commercial, go wash your hands & face so you can snack."

This is just one day, that can happen several times a week.  I've seen it happen enough to know the whole sequence.  I've done the "sleuthing" the "planning" and the "problem solving."  It doesn't do any good to hide him from daily interactions or events.  Life isn't fair, or easy.  If an auspie kid is never made to go through the everyday challenges, how will they ever learn to figure it out themselves?  We've had lots & lots of problem days, similar & different to the one described today.  Sometimes all the planning & preparedness just goes out the window.  Thats life isn't it.