Batshit to brilliant- how would you rate this parenting technique?

[Thistledew]

DS is just 6. He is suspected of having some ADHD traits. He is a smart kid but has some behavioural issues that we are working on. One example of big flashpoint is getting him to put down his tablet and come and eat dinner when we ask him to. If he is tired, or otherwise overloaded, a request to come and eat can be met with rudeness, refusal to do as asked and tears. We are trying to deal with this by letting him know that the transition is coming up, and consistency of expectations and consequences.

An idea has been mooted that a trusted person (grandparent, who visits weekly) should share a code word with DS and will use this code word when DS is getting overwrought, and it will signal to DS that he needs to calm down and do as he is told straight away. This is to be a secret between DS and the grandparent and not shared with DH and me.

So,

IABU - batshit
IANBU - brilliant

What do you think?

It's a tablet, not a crack pipe

It may or may not be too addictive for this particular child to cope with - only OP can answer that really. I will say that my ND child at 6 found all kinds of things "too addictive" to allow for non-traumatic transitions into mealtimes and other less attractive activities. The main culprits at 6, iirc, were his London Underground map collection, his Highway Code book and his illustrated Gray's Anatomy. Happy days.

My point is, the tablet isn't the cause and removing it won't solve the problem. This child is likely to find transitions challenging, especially forced, inflexible transitions of the kind that feature all day in KS2 and throughout secondary school - so it's a better idea to have strategies in place to help him manage them that don't just involve taking away the things he likes.

I tell DD to give me some 'Bob Ross' and she knows I mean for her to wind down 🤣 She's obviously not a robot so it can take some time but she knows what I mean and starts to settle down/find something to occupy her, sometimes she even puts Bob Ross on and is asleep way before he signs off 🤣

It makes zero sense.

A code word isn’t going to make him magically calm down any more than being warned directly. He’s getting exactly the same warning, just in different words. What’s the point?

Unless his grandparent is there 24/7 this weird code word system is going to be useful about once a week, so how does that help when he’s misbehaving at any other time?

He shouldn’t be encouraged to have secrets from you at this age.

Absolutely batshit OP. You are absolutely right for all the reasons you suggest.

Batshit!

For kids with ADHD and ASD it's easy to hyperfocus.

How would you feel if you were watching your favourite programme/football match/film and some just switched off the TV?

In addition to counting down the time left, I find it helpful to "enter" into what they are doing, which breaks the focus. So ask questions about what they are doing, drawing their attention to you. A gentle "that looks interesting, how did you do that!

It doesn't need to be war and peace, a few simple questions, and it gets them back in the room. with you, and slightly more receptive to changing activities.

As others have said, it’s not just because it’s a tablet that he struggles with transitions- bouncing on the trampoline and building Lego are two of his favourite things and are if anything harder for him to transition away from. At least with his tablet I can tell him to finish the episode that he is watching, but with Lego or trampolining he could build or bounce for ever and there is no natural pause.

8 times out of 10 he will be fine to come away with a bit of help through the transition- I warn him that I’m about to lay the table, then that dishes are being put on the table. As others have suggested, watching a minute of whatever he is looking at and talking to him about it really helps him to be able to disengage and come away.

Honestly OP, it's a terrible idea for all the reasons you outlined in your previous comments.

For transparency, I have two DC who are autistic and have various associated disorders. I suspect DD of having ADHD but she's not diagnosed with that, just autism and language processing disorder.

I am also autistic and have ADHD and let me tell you now, transitions are a bastard. I can sit for an hour in the bathroom trying to get in the shower and not being able to do it because well, who the fuck knows.....it just doesn't feel "right" even though I really want to.

I have children, a good career, a long term relationship, a mortgage, a dog.....you get the idea. And yet sometimes I can't manage to get a drink or feed myself for literally hours because transitions....

As a PP mentioned (sorry, forgot your name!) time blindness is a real difficulty with ADHD. LOTS of regular (calm) reminders and countdowns will help to break the difficult with getting moving. It needs to be more often than every 5 minutes for a 6 yr old. Very frequent reminders will be disruptors and can provide sufficient motivation to be able to move.

My DS and DD present very differently. DD struggles more with transitions and needs extra time to get her butt to the table. Can you factor this in? Start calling him earlier? Allow him to bring the tablet to the table until his plate is in front of him?

Also, my top, top tip is don't get drawn into discussions, disagreements etc. You can let him know that dinner is 4 minutes away, and then walk away. If he's cross, you don't need to engage with it. Deliver the information in a calm and detached way, with no judgement regardless of his response. Walk away. Back one minute later "dinner is three minutes away - can you come to the table please?" And so on. Calm, non-reactive, non-emotional, non-judgemental delivery of information. He's over-stimulated and overwrought and you need to be the predictable, calm rock face that's consistent but clear.

You might want to consider visual aids too. Lots of visual aid systems include either a traffic light system or a smiley/sad/neutral face system that the child can use to communicate how they are feeling. A visual timetable might also help with dinnertime - you could use it to show the countdown and when he needs to move. Visual aids aren't just about communicating for understanding - they're extremely reassuring to children with autism/ADHD and provide a tangible anchor. For ADHD kids the time blindness can be such a problem that a visual timetable can really help to ease stress.

Sorry, bit of a brain dump here! I could go on but don't want to create the world's longest post haha! Sounds like you're doing a really good job OP - the talking about the game as a means of distraction and refocusing his attention is an excellent approach. Much better than the code word!!!

My daughter has ADHD and the 5 min/1min warning works best for us. I often set a timer with Alexa as she is immune to arguments about how that can't possibly be 5 minutes

Who is suggesting this code word thing?

I would have thought that 'rudeness' and 'tears' from a tired 6yr old about stopping a fun activity (tablet), is pretty normal, also does not = "meltdown". From what i can tell of adults, they also struggle with expectations & unexpected transitions.

Am also voting batshit. Don't believe my 6yo DC had SN (least of all ADHD) & yet they would struggle with self-regulation, code words didn't magically help them find self-discipline.

Did this idea come from someone saying "Well in my day all kids just did what they were told" : which is A) not true and B) not true.

Anyone remember one of the paragraphs in Little House (Ingalls Wilder) books about her lazy cousin chronically not doing as he was told. Strangely enough, this problem existed in 1870s, too !!

A secret word isn't going to make him calm down, and why the grandparent? Odd

I agree

i wouldn’t give him an iPad. My son is 4 and neurotypical and we noticed similar iPad to dinner behaviour so he doesn’t get the iPad anymore. We didn’t frame it as a punishment - just a new rule (although I did add that screens make people grumpy)

now he’s never allowed iPad but he is allowed tv. Initially it was only after dinner but now we can trust him to turn it off and come to dinner calmly so he can have it before.

So not just tablet but trampoline and transitions generally. Then this is a problem. What are you doing about it? About addressing the core issue? Self regulation is hard. But we all have to learn. So what are you doing to help him with that?

How about get him involved in dinner instead of giving him his ipad?

**dinner making process I mean

I do sometimes get DS involved in cooking, and he does enjoy it and is actually usually pretty helpful. The only problem is that his 2yr old sister always want to do what he is doing and cooking with both of them typically doubles the length of cooking time! I’d love to hear any suggestions as to how to make cooking with children an efficient and pleasurable experience, but at the moment my nerves can’t cope with it being anything more than an occasional thing.

Give the 2 year old busy work to do for cooking.
Get mer making something with play food on the floor or wherever, she can stir it all up in a mixing bowl with a big wooden spoon etc

Not sure I'd be entirely comfortable with a child being introduced to the concept of a Safe Word and a secret that can never be shared with Mummy.

I think you'd have more helpful replies if this was in the SEN bit of MN.

My DS is 8, autistic and thriving in a mainstream school. We let him have his tablet while he eats on weeknights - it's the decompression he needs after a full day at school and he's slim so we'd rather he ate well. He doesn't have it at breakfast, and at weekends we all eat together with no screens (though sometimes with a lit candle on the table - DS finds that really calming - even when it's easy Saturday pizza dinners we get out the candlestick!).

When DS is using his screen, DH will be sitting with him at the table and chatting to both him and his little sister as they eat, and DS' table manners are fine.

Our rule of thumb is "we have surprises, not secrets". DS knows that the only information he should keep from me or DH is nice surprises like birthday presents. I would not be introducing secret code words with grandparents or anyone else, it sounds like a safeguarding nightmare.

Who had suggested this please?

I work with SEN pupils and am aware of the code word strategy but not in this context.

If your child is ND, it is unlikely to work any better than 'calm down' would.

Many more effective strategies have been discussed on this thread IMO - use of countdowns, timers, warnings in advance of the transition.

I don't think it'll work, keeping a secret is a bad idea too.
I do know where you're coming from with horrendous transitions though. I have a teen DD who always struggles. Screen time allocation never helped as she'd still have a meltdown. What seems to help is me literally telling her she needs to make a change from x and over to y and can we work towards it gently. Drives me nuts but it keeps the peace a little more.

I think for all reasons given its a bad idea. It does just sound like a grandparent trying to forge a special relationship which I suppose comes from a good place. They don't appear to have understood the difficulties your DS has.

We had similar issues with the tablet but ours were solved using parental controls. DS never had an issue with the tablet switching off automatically but would if we told him to come off of it.

If it works its brilliant, if not you successfully found another thing that does not work.

Turning stuff into a game is a good idea if you can. I found it helped to get lo cutting up vegetables and arranging them on a plate and then telling him he needed to go and tell people to come to dinner. For mine as soon as he was the boss of the transition he was happier "is the table ready now?" Where are you sitting?"

You can have it as an open secret ie Mummy tells son to chat to Gran about some secret code word.
However for ADHD there is zero chance of this working. If genuinely related to ADHD symptoms they will be almost entirely outside your 6 yr olds control whatever code word granny gives.
But try it, why not.

The best way to transition children off screens and back into the real world is to go and sit with them, and get them to explain to you what's going on in the game/video. Also, it lets you get a feel for when is actually a "good point" to stop. I find this works so much better than a 5 minute countdown/reminder.