9a. Re: My almost four year old Aspie son...

[Guest guest]

Dear Sharron,

I am hoping that your reply to Beth was written

hastily because it comes off a tad nasty. JMHO.

Dear Beth,

When I read your initial post, I had to call my hubby

into the room and read it to him. We could have

written it! Our son with AS turned 4 in January. At

that time, he was really at the height of this

behavior.

He is not so much " trashing " things as he is

" building " things. But the building does involve some

trashing, as he might want the bin that all of the

trucks are in so, he just dumps them out and takes the

bin. It makes me crazy. For example, he might take a

Rubbermaid pitcher, a spatula, three wooden blocks, a

bin, my cooling rack and a section of yesterday's

paper, put it all together in a certain stacked way in

front of the cold air return in our dining room, and

say, " Look, that's my furnace. " Keep in mind it

doesn't really look like a furnace...but it does to

him.

He'll also build a " garage " where he'll basically just

pile things up and call it a garage (*that* looks very

similar to our garage which is used for storage .

When I can't find something, he usually has it and the

good thing is that he knows exactly where it is. The

hard thing is trying to get him to give it up. It is

very frustrating to not be able to find things when we

want them. But on some level I guess he is using

creativity to make these things.

I was very frustrated about a month ago because we

were considering selling our house and realized that

we could never have anyone come in to look at it!

Luckily, we decided to stay. But again, it was

depressing, because it's something that I don't think

the other moms at his preschool are dealing with. And

that can be overwhelming sometimes if I think about it

too much.

I wish I had a solution to offer you. We just let it

go for a while. If I couldn't stand looking at the

stuff anymore, I went into the other room and looked

at that stuff. A friend whose daughter has autism said

that they eventually started telling her that she had

to keep anything she wanted saved in her room. And I

have said, over and over and over again, if you want

to be able to find your stuff, you have to put it

away. Thank God for Mr. -- my son loves him and

he mentions how he puts his stuff away so he can find

it again. So I try to say, " Remember what Mr.

said. " Maybe your son has something he likes with an

episode about cleaning up?

I think time and a little maturity has helped him,

too.

I'm not saying something magic happened now that he's

four, but I have started to have those moments again

where I look at him and say, " Wow, how did you get so

big? "

It has also always been my goal to label all of our

bins and things with pictures of what goes in them,

but I've never had a chance. I'm not quick with the

digital camera and getting things printed. I know that

that would help. I also would like to be able to only

put out a few toys at a time and rotate them. I'm

working on that. It's hard because I want them to have

lots of choices, but OTOH too much is overwhelming.

One never really knows what one's child is going to

love. My older could not care any less about the train

table, and my younger could stand there all day. I

don't want to get rid of things before he's had a

chance to try it out!

Good luck, Beth, and I hope I've said something

useful. Check back in and let us know how it's going!

Amy

9a. Re: My almost four year old Aspie son...

Posted by: " SHARRON WILLIAMS " Sharron8428@...

shabby3856

Date: Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:22 pm ((PDT))

Why put your child in day care? It will just matters

worse. As stated

above. Get involved in your child's behavior. Use the

ABA , TEAACH or

Floortime Prinicples. Has your child participated in

Speech, or

Occupational therapies? If not get him therapy

sessions not day care. If you

can't deal with your ASD child what makes you think

day care can.?

Sharron RN, BSN

Founder of InfoPAC-Information for Parents of Autistic

Children

www.informparents.com<http://www.informparents.com/>

Re: My almost four year

old Aspie son...

have you tried a behavior therapist or ABA therapist

to help with

these behaviors?

On Mar 5, 2008, at 8:20 PM, Beth wrote:

trashes the house when he plays. He gathers things

in bags and

boxes

relocates and dumps them. Dumps blocks, train

tracks, hotwheels and

legos. Launches crayons by the hundreds, these are

fireworks. Takes

cushions off the couch, dumps trash cans,

relocates furniture and

builds walls out of books. He refuses to clean. I

have taken away

most

of the Lincoln logs, tinker toys, legos and

blocks. He doesn't seem

to

care. But he just finds new collections of things.

Spoons,

tupperware,

dog toys. He trashes more than I can clean in a

day. I am thinking

of

putting him in full time daycare, which he hates

(too loud). What

to

do? I am so over this.

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