Six-year-old refusing everyday tasks without obvious trigger, any practical advice?

[TheQuickSloth]

I fully expect the response to be "he'll grow out of it", but after a tricky day I thought I'd ask if anyone has any useful solutions they've tried in a similar situation...

DS, six, is a lovely kid. But he has a real tendency to just refuse to do certain tasks for reasons that are never obvious and often never determined. Not always - sometimes he's the most proactive, helpful child you'd hope to meet -but often enough that it causes regular friction in the family.

Example: He just decides he won't leave the house to go to school.

No tantrum, no argument, just says no and sits quietly in a kind of calm sulk. We obviously ask him why but he won't/can't explain. There is usually no obvious trigger to this (such as being reminded it's gym day, or he's got packed lunch or whatever else might set a six-year-old off), and he can go from full of joy to this state in the flick of a switch.

A caring approach doesn't work, a firm approach doesn't work, there's no reasoning and no statement of consequences (e.g. no TV) or offer of a treat of any sort that works. We've tried everything we can think of to see what he reacts to which might give us more of a clue on a proper strategy for dealing with it, and it really seems to just be that he doesn't want to do that thing at that point.

Now, 90% of the time this isn't an issue. We make sure he's safe, we ignore him, and he sorts himself out in one or 30 minutes. But when it comes to getting to school (or other appointments / time sensitive things), we obviously just have to get him to where we're going, especially as his DS2 (8) is then impacted and starts to get stressed about being late (for the record, when he isn't happy to do something it's always very obvious why so we can tackle that head on!).

We don't think these refusals are anything to do with his brother, or attention from us, or illness, and he loves school (but we may be wrong of course). The best we can come up with is he's got in his head something he can't articulate that he's worried about and needs to work it through to realise that actually it's something he's OK with, if that makes sense. But when there's not time for that, he ends up having to e.g. literally be carried up to school (we aren't far thankfully) which is less than ideal.

I know this isn't unique, we see plenty of kids each day reticent to go into school for example, but it's the lack of obvious trigger and the fact he isn't really upset or angry or emotional in any way that makes us feel powerless to bring him round. And while I've used the school example, this also impacts him in other situtations e.g. deciding to come to dinner at the table, or to get ready for bed, or leave the park, or go round the shops or any of the things that require him to follow an instruction he's not already 100% on board with.

Now, I know there's those of you out there thinking "well just don't give him a choice!", or "make him understand the consequences!", but my question I guess is... how?

To reiterate, in these circumstances he doesn't respond to rewards, isn't phased about losing privileges, doesn't want any attention and isn't emotional about the situation. He's just not going to do it, until he decides he is!

I'll leave it there. Wisdom appreciated!

PS. Just to add we've also: used visual timers, playing games / being silly (like us putting on school clothes, or hopping races to get out the door etc), giving plenty of choice with the non-negotiable (e.g. leaving by the back door instead, what to wear, route to school etc) some of which work some of the time, but not often enough to feel like actual usable strategies beyond just working through everything until something works or, more often, all options are exhausted and nothing has worked!

Are you following through on consequences, or is it just a case of, "well he's sorted himself out so we'll crack on as normal"?

I think you're right that there will be something bothering him that he can't articulate properly. I wonder if you can add in time for him to sort himself at the end of the event e.g. saying that you know he doesn't want to go and needs time to sit and think because he feels funny inside, right now there isn't time but when we get to Grandma's/the park/Tesco he can sit in the spare room/wait in the car/hold onto the trolley and not talk so that he can think? And then when you get there you honour it even though chances are he'll be fine by then.

Does he show any signs of autism. Sometimes change of any kind, even just coming for a meal can be hard for autistic kids?

You say you have tried a timer but I'm not sure how you've used it. Have you said "In 5 minutes you will need to put your shoes on to go to school, .... now it's 4 minutes to shoes time .........3 minutes etc?"
Have you tried a visual time table? Perhaps with family photos to illustrate each 'task'. You could give a small reward for each completed step. Rewards can be things like a sticky star, or a marble in the jar, when the jar is full a pre-agreed reward happens. The marble jar usually works well with under 7s.

Absolutely whenever there are consequences mentioned, we'll follow through, but he genuinely doesn't seemed fussed! So if we've got to the point where we've ended up saying "No TV this weekend unless you do X" or whatever, in frustration (which we really don't default to as don't think it's a very helpful approach long term) then he has no TV but quite happily occupies himself and seems to get that's the trade off.

Yep, that's a good idea of something to try, I think there's definitely an element of taking the pressure off him that helps

I did meant to cover that, and he doesn't (but his brother does - shows signs, awaiting further investigation that is - so we're well versed in considering that), but we did consider that early on.

We do countdowns like that, and clear communication of the time changing, and have a visual time table for getting ready too but I guess we could have one for e.g. leaving for school and a clear trigger. One thing now I think of it, that works quite well is both kids know they have to get out of bed after 'Wake Up And Win' on Heart Radio - of all things - just after 7.30am each morning. Something similar, at least for leaving for school might help!

Tricky one!

In the moment I would narrate the situation and what's going to happen for him e.g. "I can see you're not ready to come to the table for dinner yet, that's fine, I'll leave your dinner on the table and you can have it when you're ready" or "I can see you're not ready to leave for school yet. We need to leave for school now or we will make big brother late. I will hold your hand".

I would then try and tackle this through play at a time when he's calm and able to communicate with you. You can try just talking it through. Or role modelling/imaginative play using teddies/superheroes/Lego people. You could look for books that deal with emotions and how we can express them. You can try getting him to make emotion cards (angry, sad, scared, bored etc) and then see if he can produce a card when he gets like this or just before (or even after). You could try asking him to draw how he feels at different times (start with positive times and build up to these incidents).

You could also try keeping a diary to see if there is any connection between the incidents, maybe one that you haven't noticed before. Perhaps when you've had a very busy period or there has been upheaval like a holiday/change in routine or he's coming down with something or he's tired/bored/overwhelmed. Are these incidents preceded or followed by questions/conversation that might indicate he's worried about something etc.

These are great ideas, thank you for sharing. We do the first (narrating the situation) for the most part, but it could probably be more of a default to try and get ahead of things.

Love the idea of the cards (he was making red, yellow cards - like in football, but also blue and black cards which he gave some detailed actin to that I can't now recall, so worth jumping on!)

And the diary makes sense of course, good idea.

You are doing a brilliant job to keep trying to understand, I've only 49 months between all my 3 and the work done when young all seriously pays off.
I had maths GCSE day for youngest on A - level day for middle.
Complete refusal from youngest. Defaulted completely to what worked for that child and embedded in primary. It was so weird as hadn't had to use the same tone of voice or measured manner for years!

Calm. Will take your sib to school for their exam, will come back and you will be ready. And he was!

Worth every minute of the years of relentless "the same" every day. He was super stressed, very teary, but defaulted to being ready and did very brilliantly when he was there.
Apprehension is a curse!