alternative to toilet flushing

[tiredmummyoftwo]

DS (5) who loves flushing toilet (somewhat obsessed)is starting to affect our social life to the extent that we don't visit friends house anymore if we can avoid it (We tend to invite friends instead). Last time we were invited to a friend's house for a BBQ he spent all 4 hours flushing the different toilets they had in the house (here in UAE we tend to have en-suite to every bedroom plus guest toilet, driver's and maids etc, I am sure you get the point about how many toilets in one house). But it's just taking over my weekends as I do all the cooking for all the visitor's (DH will cook happily but it won't be edible). When we go to the mall or eat out, we can use toilet as a reward like if you sit quietly and finish your food, I will take you to toilet afterwards. This works and he behaves, but when we go to friend's house it's a different ballgame. He knows if he does not behave at the mall, we will go straight back home. But when other people are around, he takes advantage as obviously we don't or can't leave immediately after arriving at somebody's house. So he spends all his time flushing the toilets. It's high time we do something about it as it's affecting our life badly (it's unfair on DD who wants to play with friend's children, but because of DS's behaviour we tend to aviod social gatherings).

So please offer me advise on what I can use as an alternative. I can give him all the toys in the world, but toilet is more attractive. Although this obsession about toilet is only about new toilets or new house, we have 8 toilets in our house, he does not go around flushing them.

I think he is using the toilets as an escape from the social situations, laud conversations, he knows he is expected to behave and perhaps speak if he can so the toilets are his hiding place where he substitutes his system with different sensory activity, water flashing.

Sorry no wise advice on how to get him out of the habit but I am sure someone wiser with jump in to your rescue.

any ideas any one that worked or may work?

blueshark, he does not have any sensory problem as far as we know, he does like sensory stimulation. Normally nothing seems to bother him, like loud noise, public places etc.

I have this with my nearly 4 year old, running taps and flushing toilets! The only way I can get him to stop is diverting him with something more interesting. In fact as I type this I can hear him dragging a chair to the sink! Off to divert! :)

Sorry back for a minute can you take games CD's or DVD's with you would that help? If he doesn't like to play with the other children maybe you need to take it in turns to play with him. I think DS does it when he is bored and he finds it difficult to play with toys on his own and he loves the water very much.

Hope this helps a little.

Thanks chuckeyegg, we tend to buy new toys for social gatherings to keep him interested and behave well, but he seems to completely lose it when he sees a toilet and sometimes repeats non-stop "DS, not the toilet". This is from a boy who does not have much echolalia. DH and I try to keep him busy with us, but he seems to change completely when he is around a new toilet.

I do understand the problem, my DS likes to seek out peoples water butts or taps and watering cans in the garden. Hope someone else might have a better suggestion. :)

There is a toy / training toilet style potty (?fisher price) which makes flushing noises. Could it be a diversion? I suppose the other options are an aba style programme focussing on loo rules, or bringing an extra carer to confine ds to a single loo in the visit house / remove him if it gets too much. Extremely challenging issues when you're not in a position to leave / make a scene are common. It's anxiety/ change/ lack of control/ too many people which sets my ds off. I have to say, I just stopped visiting anyone non-essential for 2 years. We're slowly starting it up again now.

I work with an autistic young man who was exactly the same. Completely obsessed with flushing toilets wherever we went, so fixated in fact he would flush them to the point of breaking them!!! He was similar to your DS in that it was generally only new toilets, or toilets in particular places (i.e. public loos in local park), but he also occasionally obsessed over them whilst at home, and he also had sound clips on his computer of flushing toilets that he would listen to for hours and get over-excited and giddy.

It might make you feel a little better to know that he generally appeared to grow out of it after a while. However there were a few things we had in place to try and control it, as it really did get out of hand (he got barred from restaurants and all sorts!). One of the things we used to do was, although it sounds silly, let him flush. We created almost a controlled flushing time for him and gave him countdowns. So we'd follow him to the toilet and after the first flush we'd say "Ok, 3 more flushes then finished"... flush toilet... "2 more flushes then finished"... flush toilet... and so on. When he got to his last flush we'd say (and try get him to look at us while we said it) "ok LAST ONE, then finished".

I'm not going to lie and say this worked every time but it definitely helped. We also used to carry big symbols everywhere to stick on toilet doors. So, symbols saying "Not available" or "NO flush" with pictures of a toilet and a line through it.

Eventually he actually began to ask for a toilet somewhere, and it got to the point where we'd ask him why he wanted it. I.e. Do you actually need the toilet or do you want to flush? And (bless him) of course he doesn't know how to lie, so if it was just to satisfy his obsession he would simply say "Flush!" and we'd tell him that it wasn't available.

It did take a very long time, and like I said he eventually seemed to grow out of it a little bit (he very rarely does it now, and if he does it's only once) but all these things did seem to help.

I hope this helps. Good luck!!

mariagoretti, we used the fisher price potty for potty training and it worked brilliantly. But now he is not interested in noise anymore, he likes watching the water falling. I have asked a friend who is aware of DS's autism to see if we can go around to their house to try to have control over it. It has nothing to do anxiety, new place with DS, it's more the fact that he genuinely like the toilet flushing and watching the water gushing down. We have asked DS's ABA therapist to see if she can help us, but she said DS would not do it with her being around which is true as he is a completely different person when his ABA team is around.

Taysh, we really hope DS grows out it soon as he does seem to go through phases, but this phase is lasting for nearly two years (all his other quirks does not last for more tthan a month). It's him getting over excited at the social situation regarding toilet that makes the situation uncontrollable. In the shopping mall we can control it, because we can say ok let's go and than no more, but at other people's house he is he starts shouting and repeating pphrases about toilet, but I am going to try this controlled approach at my friend's house to see if it works.

Thanks for your advice guys, I really appreciate it.

Dear tiredmummyoftwo,

Is there a way i can reach u and talk about this issue. I know this a decade old issue but i find myself in exactly the same boat..

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