My ds (who incidentally has ADHD and Aspergers) is causing real heartache at the moment. The problem is, that he suddenly will NOT stay in his bedroom when it is appropriate. He has never been a good sleeper, but until recently he would go to his room at 19:30 and play for a couple of hours before sleeping, and he would wake early but would play (relatively) quietly in his room until 07:30, when he would come and drag me out of bed.
This has now changed. He will NOT stay in his bedroom, and creeps around the house generally misbehaving.
Last night was a disaster - it has really upset me. We had guests in the evening, so we were all downstairs, and ds was (supposedly) in his room. At about 21:00 he came downstairs and said "Mummy, I've cut myself and it won't stop bleeding". There was SO much blood, and he was panicing and wouldn't let me see what he had done - kept saying he needed a plaster, but wouldn't actually let me see where he had cut himself (his finger). It turns out that he had crept out of his room and into the workroom, taken the toolkit out of the cupboard, taken it back to his room and cut himself on one of the (very sharp) craft knives. It wasn't actually too bad once I got him to let me sort it out, but it was a fairly deep slice to his finger. So he went chastened to bed. However, just to prove that he is not one to let unpleasant experiences daunt him, I went into his room at 07:30 this morning, to find his sat on the windowsill eating ice lollies - he had been downstairs and helped himself from the fridge.
The thing is - he KNOWS that he is not allowed out of his room except to go to the toilet or to get me or dh. He certainly knows that he is not allowed to help himself to things that do not belong to him. And he used to cooperate most of the time - but at the moment he is taking EVERY opportunity to sneak off and play with things he shouldn't have. And I don't know what to do. This night was actually not untypical - although he has never actually hurt hiself before.
I don't know what to do about it. As normal dh and myself are disagreeing about how best to tackle the problem. Once I had persuaded dh that putting a potty in his room and locking the door was NOT the way to go, we are left with several alternatives but we can't seem to come to agreement about which to take.
One alternative is for one of us to get up really early (before ds - which is hard because he doesn't get up at a regular time - so we would need to get up at 06:00ish. At least then he would not be unsupervised in his wanderings. I don't like this one too much though, cos it would be me to get get, and I am exhausted anyway). Or we could set up a reward system - so he could have a Star Wars sticker or something every morning that he stayed in his room nicely until 07:30 (although I am not generally a big fan of reward systems - because I don't think it teaches a child self discipline, just to cooperate enough to get a gift. But this is my favoured option). Or we could just go on and punish him each time he goes out of his room and does something inappopriate (which I think dh prefers). Dh has suggested setting up some sort of alarm system so that we are woken/alerted if ds comes out of his room and can intervene before he comes to harm/breaks anything. I don't think this is a bad idea (though am tempted to use it in conjunction with a reward, whilst dh seems to hope we can just punish quicker) but have no idea where to get something that will do this. Dh is muttering about movement sensors or laser trip wires, setting off some sort of buzzer. Not that he likes gadgets, or anything.
So - anyone got any good ideas? Because I am alternating between being SO cross that he just can't seem to behave appropriately (which is not really his fault - he has problems with checking his behaviour) and so scared that next time he will do somethign to kill himself. He had a lucky escape this time, really, but he doesn't seem to learn from these things.
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Behaviour/development
5yr old will NOT stay in his bedroom! Help! (long)
11 replies
Oakmaiden · 27/06/2003 11:54
OP posts:
maryz ·
27/06/2003 14:07
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maryz ·
27/06/2003 20:34
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