How do you discipline a SN child?

[Megglevache]

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[mum24boyz]

ooh sorry, not got much but will be peeps with some good advice along, i would say on my part though where possible to ignore the sn and yes treat him the same as you do your own ds, apart from anything else there may be problems if not, my 2 are both sn, youngest 1 if not adhd poss add, definate behaviour problems and yes i know what you mean about the big stink when they cant have their own way, he is only 4 but such hard work, we use the naughty step, and ignoring where possible, and praise, so i would say just try the same stuff for the time being, the only thing with the naughty step is that you may need to stand there with him, we do with youngest as he just wont stay there otherwise, but it does usually give him time to calm down so it does work in that respect, hope thats of some use to you, you will prob get some more useful advice along soon, can i just say well done you, your brother and partner prob have no idea how lucky they are having someone so supportive to help, no-one offers to have my boys, good luck with it.

[Dingle]

Can't really give much advice, my DD(5) has Down Syndroem but typical strategies that worked wonders with my older son (NT) just DO NOT work with my DD.

Her needs may be very different from you nephews but one thing that might be useful is some sort of visual system. How old is he? What are his communication skills like?

[Megglevache]

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[Dingle]

With Amelia we tend to have to warn her about what we expect of her so that she is prepared. eg. "5 more minutes then we are going down stairs, 4 more minutes...."

To get her to comply more easily you need to find things that appeal to her and almost use them as bargaining tools. We get her to choose a "reward" (such a ball game,or playing 'shop') then make it clear as to what you want from her. If necessary use little picture flash cards to lay out an order of what is expected, you then keep on going back to that reward IYSWIM. " First you read with mummy, then we can play ball.

WE use first, next, etc a lot. Some children need to use a visual sytem called PECS, but I have no experience of that. BUt search on here for things like visual timetables, it might help!

[coppertop]

It may be that his spoken language is ahead of his understanding IYSWIM. Ds2 (4) sounds like a little professor when he speaks but still finds it hard to understand when people speak to him.

It sounds as though visual methods are the way to go. Maybe have pictures of your basic rules so that your nephew understands what is expected of him, eg a picture of the behaviour you don't want with a red cross through it.

If you want to end an activity then give plenty of warnings and countdowns (as Dingle describes).

A naughty step wouldn't really work for my 2 boys. I think the only time my ds2 could be still for 4 minutes would be when sleeping. Having a quiet corner or room where they can go to calm down when it gets too much is useful IME.

I think the tricky part will be trying to work out which behaviours he has little or no control over and which ones are general boundary-testing etc.

Good luck.

[Megglevache]

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[flyingmum]

The thing we found helpful with both of mine (one sn one not - just a pickle!)is to give lots of countdowns and at the same time reinforce the behaviour you want. So.
"I'll let you have 10 mins on the swings and I will tell you five mins before you need to get off. When it is time to get off what are you NOT going to do"
hopefully the response is "not have a tantrum"
"What ARE you going to do?"
Hopefully the response is "come off first time"
"Yes and if you are good that means that another time we can come again. If you are a nuisance and have a paddy then I won't bring you again." Accompanied with a steely look. Don't ever give a choice and try to deflect and distract if possible - although my eldest would never ever be distracted and could carry on a paddy for HOURS. Naughty step never really worked for my eldest - it just lead to an even more massive paddy - I don't think he really understood it. I usually landed up just ignoring him

You do need to be firm though and get this across in your voice and body language - if he thinks he has half a chance of throwing a wobbly to get out of it then he will.

Good luck!!!

[Megglevache]

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[Joggeroo]

Does he understand 2 part instructions? My ds doesn't so using them for discipline is a waste of breath. just has to be a firm 'No'. My ds also has very short attention so 'countdown' needs to be pretty immediate. Where as dd who doesn't have sn was driving me mad with her understanding of time so I bought a sand timer which we use with with good effect.
Choices in our house have to be very simple and offered with minimum words otherwise it is just too much to take in.
My ds has very immature attention so if told not to touch something but still right next to it, he can't resist, so have to move him or the temptation.

I second coppertop with trying to work out what behaviour he has control over,\
Also , what do his parents want you to do to be consistent with him. for example, we have no naughty step in our house and I'd be horrified if any relative of mine tried to put ds on one as he just wouldn't understand (or sit still!)

[Dingle]

Sorry for butting in...where is a good place for a cheap sandtimer please? I have seen some in educational catalogues but they are about £10 each!

[Megglevache]

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[Dingle]

The sand timer is more visual for SN use, where a timer that just shows numbers etc, may not actually mean anything to some children with SN!!
I often use our kitchen timer even with my 7 yr old NT DS!

[Megglevache]

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[Joggeroo]

no idea where you can get a cheap one, but it was worth the £12.50 inc postage (ouch) I paid and I figured if there was anything left of it at the end -seems pretty indestructible, I can put it on ebay. Was worth the money to have a more harmonious house!!!!

[nannynick]

Cheap sandtimer: 2 drinks bottles, cork (with hole through middle), dry sand, sticky tape. I hope you can work out how to make it. Alas it can easily be destroyed.

The Ballotini timers from Ocean are great, have used those with a child with ADHD in the past. The child could not destroy the timer. Alas they are quite expensive, but they do last - so long term they are cheaper, if you see what I mean.

With a child with ADHD, have used a timer for time-out, used the 1 minute and 3 minute timer, depending on what they did to need the time-out. The key I find is that you need to make sure the child understands what is happening and why. You also need to be very consistent.

[gracej]

I guess every child is different, but with DS 2.3 (who know understands everything although he doesn't speak) the naughty corner works wonders. But we have to close the door behind us. It really worked for us.
Can I just say, what a lucky brother you have, so nice of you to help him.

[ShinyHappyPeopleHoldingHands]

Whereas we, on the other hand, have recently been told by the behaviour specialist that "time out" is useless re our DS (6) unless we HAVE to use it because he is physcially hurting someone and won't be distracted. She said he won't understand why he has been removed from the scene of the crime and will feel sad and confused because he won't relate his wrong-doing to the sudden removal of company.

She was very good. It's like could see into DS's head. We are trying to use her advice (and keeping an "ABC" diary of his bad-behaviour events.. it quite length already!!) but it's hard.

All kids.. so certainly all SN kids.. are different. There is no generic advice unfortunately.

[KarenThirl]

Proactive time-out can work well with mine (8, with AS). If I can see the signs that he's getting stressed out and getting ready to blow, I quietly suggest he might like to have five minutes with a book or the computer just to help himself settle down. We've been doing some good anger management work lately and he can see now that this is sometimes the right thing to do, and is getting quite good at it. Sometimes he can even recognise for himself that he needs time alone to calm down, but it's been several months of hard slog to get this far.

Discipline after the fact can be difficult. Behaviour 'experts' will say that you should never withdraw a reward or remove favourite toys, yet that's exactly what my son will respond to best. However, I would stress that J is capable of understanding that you gain rewards for one type of behaviour but might lose them for another, and is able to differentiate - not all SN children would be able to do this. And we're having a very successful back-end of the week after I took away his entire Lego collection, including precious Bionicles (after several warnings, mind you), and he's now earning them back one by one for more positive behaviour.

Positive reinforcement is definitely the way to go if it works for the individual child, but some, mine included, do need to see the negative consequences of negative behaviour before they can behave appropriately. It's like a reward-based strategy in reverse, in that he's getting an earned prize each time he behaves well, but he had to lose the lot before he was able to comply.

General day to day stuff works best for us with reminder charts, lists, timetables etc. Social stories are going down well just now, particularly the positive ones about achievement - always good to refer to when things are going pear-shaped.

Just my tuppence-worth.

[frillyblouse]

I have never posted a message here before but I need advice from someone. We lost our home about three months ago and found a private rented home in a block of five ex council houses. I have become friendly with the families of all the houses and regulary spend many hours with the other mums as we all have small children. One of my neighbours has five boys 13 11 7 5 and three months, she is very strict with them, the 13 year old has severe learning difficulties and is doubly incontinent so she has her hands full although we all help with the care of her son especially as her husband is HGV driver and is away most of the time. However the other day I was at her home it was half term and two of the other mums were there also. Her 11 year old came in and started to mouth off at her we were all in the kitchen sat at the table suddenly she got up slapped his face and pulled him towards her. She undid his trousers pulled them down and pulled down his pants then lifted up his shirt and then began slapping his bottom quite hard. I was quite aghast but the other mums just looked on as if they had seen it all before many times. The lad must have been very embarassed as he was using his hand to try and cover his bits as well as sheilding his bottom. After about 6 slaps he ws sent to the corner of the kitchen and told not to pull up his trousers for ten minutes, to which she then turned to us to carry on talking as if nothing had happened ignoring her son who was later sent to his room. I have been very disturbed by this i have never seen behaviour like it from an adult although the others have never commented. If I report this it will be known who reported it and I will be virified by the others, I told my husband who told me to ignore it and move on but I would like some advice from someone, can anyone comment please

[ShinyHappyPeopleHoldingHands]

Oh God,that is abuse. Sorry, am rushing now, but had to comment. That isn't right at all. I don't know what to advise you to do. I think I probably would have said at the time "No.. stop.. that isn't right.." and had it all out in the open that I was objecting, but I appreciate that you were shocked; it's a difficult one.

Something needs to be done though. That poor child.

[frances5]

Our child development centre has a child pschologist who works with special needs children. Prehaps you might be able to access something similar.

With strageries a lot depends on developmental age, the frustrations the child faces, intelligence as well as communication skills.

We found that the child pschologist help us when my son was little. He had poor communication skills due to deafness.

[magsi]

frillyblouse, that sounds very harsh indeed to me!!. As I was reading it my jaw was dropping. I think the slapping the face thing is wrong, never mind the standing with his trousers down [shock!!!]. Whats that all about?!!. I don't know how friendly you are with the family but I can see you are in a difficult position. I think you have to ask yourself is your friendship with the family more important than the wellfare of the little boy. It must be a really tough decision, but you must feel like you have to do something because you wouldn't be so confused about it. The mother must be very very stressed and is obviously not coping at all. Is there any way you could perhaps talk quitely with her and say you were shocked to see how she disaplined her son, or are you not that close. Maybe she doesn't realise how extreme her disapline has become and with you saying how shocked you were it might wake her up a bit. You will soon tell from her reaction to you asking what she thinks about it. She obviously needs help of some sort. I get really frustrated sometimes, I have 3 children, the eldest having cp and it is very testing sometimes but I would never slap round the face and what is the trousers thing all about??. It really is bad don't you think. Its easy and understandable for your hubby to take the approach of forgetting all about it, but I would be inclined to report her, even leave it a few weeks. Or maybe spend a bit more time with the family and get some more incidences to help you make up your mind. It won't be long before the boy will be hitting his brothers and sisters the same way he gets hit will it?

[Joggeroo]

Frillyblouse, that brought tears to my eyes. Such indignity. Please seek further advice and if you can find the courage, perhaps discuss with a Duty Social worker.

[jenk1]

oh no thats awful it IS abuse and its got to be stopped.
its humiliating the child and not teaching him anything other that he,s bad and thats the sort of thing he deserves, especially in front of others and the not pulling the pants up

how many times does he need punishing?
slapped face, smack on behind with trousers down then not allowed to pull his pants up and then sent to his room?

i couldnt be friends with someone who did that to their child, im going to stop now cos this is a subject thats close to home and i have seen first hand what happens to children who are subject to this sort of abuse.