Guest guest Posted July 3, 2008 Report Share Posted July 3, 2008 I just joined a few weeks ago and love all the posts. Now that my son is entering kindegarten I can relate to many posts and can see things emerging that I would never have thought possible. I'm currently struggling with a problem. We get our services from our local regional center. It isn't much but with what he gets its free and within the past year there has been over 200% increase in all skills. An awesome adaptive skills trainer/behaviorist all rolled into one comes to our house once a week to work on things mainly behavioral at this point. Our problem is his obsession with what he calls "creatures". It is mainly snakes, amphibians, spiders, insects. We have recorded programs on it, there is some creative play surrounding the topic on top of a lot of repetitive/scripted play, lots of talking about it, meltdowns over a missing snake (toy) or a book that he "needs", a lot of rejecting other activities that doesn't involve this topic. Going to the park ends up being a nature hike and flipping over rocks to see what is under there. LOL Describing it doesn't sound too bad but I'm hoping that with all of your experience in obsessions you can understand how it could take over everything. It is a constant thing. He even talks about it in his sleep. LOL Onto my problem.... I complained about it to the therapist who comes and she has witnessed the whole thing. Our meeting the other day ended up with her advising my husband and I to get rid of the "creatures" for most of the day and only bring it out during down times. I'm struggling with that despite the fact that I know the reasons and sounds great. Partly because he incorporates creatures into all daily life so not sure if I should ignore him when he talks about "creature" hunting when we go to the park. Then if I do I feel horrible because I love seeing him interested in something APPROPRIATE. There was a time that spinning towels was a favorite past time, kwim. Anyone deal with this? Currently I'm trying to sort of gently force different activities that would be difficult to involve "creatures" like a board game, computer game. Before I forgot my other problem with cutting it out is I use his interest to get him to do other things like going to the park, painting, playdoh, reading books, etc. Not sure what to do or think at this point. Thanks for any advice or comments Brittin, Proud Mother to Rebekah (11-7-98) Adam (1-16-03) Ethan (2-16-06) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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