Naughty behaviour & consequences

[BabeRuthless]

My ds is 4 1/2 and has autism. He's behaviour has improved massively over the last school term due to the fantastic amount of help they've given him though he still has his moments.

This morning he was playing a game on my phone when I told him to finish up. Gave him plenty of advanced warnings & he knows he drill. He kept hankering for "one more go" until I told him firmly no more at which point he threw the phone (just on the bed, no harm done) and hit me on the arm. At this point phone gets confiscated & I tell him no more for the rest of the day & the tele goes off.

He keeps asking for the tele to go back on & when I try & explain why it's off he just doesn't "get it" and keeps asking to turn it back on. Im trying to explain there's no tele because he hit me but now he's gone off to play with something else like nothing happened,

Majorly frustrated, any tips on this? I really don't want to cause a big scene cos I've got a really nice day planned & don't want to start with a meltdown.

hope you get some replies with this as i am struggling with this kind of behaviour too (DS 7 suspected AS).
im sure your lovely day will still be lovely and ((hugs)) hun xx

Hi, just a thought. Did you warn him in advance what the consequence would be if he didn't stop?

He needs to learn to connect the action with the consequence, so the message needs to be reinforced both before and afterwards. Its also useful to regularly reinforce basic rules like 'no hitting' and what the consequences will be for it, just through regular chats and talks about appropriate behaviour . (Apologies if you already do this.)

My ds1 has AS and is quite a bit older than your ds, but when he has a punishment/consequence he objects at first, often has a meltdown, but then suddenly seems to accept what's happening and then its as if nothing ever happened. He will literally switch from screaming and shouting at me and telling me how horrible I am and the 50 million reasons why he shouldn't be having the consequence enforced - to sweetness and light and calmly reading his book in a matter of seconds. I think he just lives in the moment a lot, once he's processed what's happening its over and done with and he moves on.

That ties in with what we were told about never punishing him at home for things that have happened at school. To him the matter is over and done and dealt with and raising it again just confuses him and makes him anxious rather than teaching him anything.

If your ds isn't able to understand why the tv is off on this occasion, is there something else he likes to do that you can distract him with until you get going today so that it doesn't keep being an issue and spoil your plans?

Final thought is to perhaps try a social story? Just a little story about a boy who gets angry, hits his mum and throws her phone so the tv gets turned off. When my ds was younger he used to like me to draw silly cartoons (and I am no artist believe me) of the people in the story and speech bubbles as we went along, so that might be worth a try?

Thanks for the replies & hugs

moosemama Thanks, there's some really good ideas there. The main issue is that I don't think he connects the hitting with the tele being off. He probably doesn't remember hitting me he just knows that the tele is off.

He's a big lad & towers over everyone else in nursery so I'm especially mindful (sp?) of his physical presence & do try to come down on hitting quite quickly. His nursery teacher mentioned social stories the other day, we were going to do some for things like sitting down time so I'll try some behaviour. Thanks for the tip about not telling him off for behaviour at school, I'll definitely put that into practice.

Things seemed to have calmed down now so Sunday is not lost!

Moosemama, I do the cartoons thing for Ds1and they are very helpful. He loves his cartoon folder.

Moosemama has said it all, really! My DS has to have an immediate consequence, and he's 11 and quite HF. He really needs to associate the consequence with the action, and I try to be careful that I give consequences that I am happy to follow through with. No telly for the whole day would be too severe, IMO, partly because it would cause me as many problems as it would him! It's hard to pre-warn about hitting if it's out of the blue, but trying to have some set consequences for set behaviours which you can reinforce with a social story sound like a good idea.

Good point there Ellen. I've shot myself in the foot by warning ds if he continued on his current path he'd lose ds time today. Now I have one very angry 9 year old with nintendo withdrawal on my hands - doh!

Thats the tough thing, cos his rewards are a little quiet time for me too.

I think that's something we all have problems with to be honest.

The things that motivate them the most, are the things that are most likely to keep them quiet and at the same time, give you chance to take a breather and have five minutes peace, but there the only things that they care enough about to work as a consequence. Its a constant balancing act, life would be much easier if the 'naughty/think-about-it step worked - my ds used to actually enjoy going on the step though.

Does he need a consequence for hitting you?

You are trying to teach him that hitting is wrong - but does punishing him teach him that?

does it teach it to him more effectively than just telling him he hurt you and hitting is wrong and he must do it?

Sounds like he's forgotten about it already! Quite understandable, he doesn't want to keep drawing attention to his hitting you I suppose.
Tried star charts?

I dunno any good remedies really; my youngest doesn't even watch telly so no point me threatening that. He doesn't play with anything either so can't take his toys away. Food is the only thing he's really interested in but I can't say I'll take food away cos I'd have to do it immediately or he'd forget, and it's not always time to eat!
I tend to focus more on his good behaviour, sometimes works, not always but he likes praise. And he has a star chart (home bargains £1.99!)

I'd also love to hear any ideas.

I think consequences are needed if you've tried social stories etc, are sure they understand what they are doing is wrong, but choose to do it anyway.

My ds is fully aware of the house rules, but will choose not to obey them if they don't fit his own agenda. He understands that if he makes a wrong choice and breaks one of the rules that are set in stone, then there will be a certain consequence.

We ask him to stop, ask him to remind us of the rule and/or remind him if he's being evasive, if he does it again he gets a warning that the specified consequence will be the outcome of his actions and then if he still chooses to break the rule we put the consequence in place.

Obviously, smacking as a consequence would be completely wrong, as would putting in place a consequence without him being aware of a) what he was doing wrong and b) what the consequences of breaking that rule would be.

If he's going to live within our society, he needs to learn that certain consequences are not only unacceptable, but also incur consequences. If when he's older he decides to punch someone who he perceives is winding him up (like he did at school this week) he needs to understand that he will most likely be arrested for it.

In the case of my ds, he always needs an explanation of the reason to do or not to do something and we always take time to explain things. However, he often sometimes doesn't agree with our reasons and will carry on doing something he is not allowed to do regardless. I promised myself I would never say the immortal phrase my mother used to use "because I told you to", but when you have been challenged for the 50th time that morning - eventually your patience wears a bit thin.

In the OP's situation, I could tell him till I'm blue in the face that hitting is wrong and he musn't do it, but that wouldn't stop him doing it if he felt justified in hitting.

Ds loves to get praise when he's done something good and we do try to focus on that, but in his case start charts simply don't work. The reward isn't instant enough.

My DS really isn't bothered by social praise. He's always needed something more concrete. Horses for courses....

ds is 5, and doesnt quite understand the whole consequence thing yet. in school, they do all these different things with him. some of which they created a home version off, really good. however now hes off school for the summer, hes like a totally different child, constantly having tantrums n meltdowns, all the behaviours that have almost disappeared have resurfaced with a vengeance. some good points on here, will take note. roll on sept lol

Remember when youngest was about 4 and kept swearing at school. They showed him a red card and apparently it worked well.
We tried it at home and he told us to F**k off

He also struggles with instand rewards; if I give him a star in morning for getting dressed he expects a biscuit and doesn't understand he has to get 5 stars and can have a biscuit at night.

Your little one is young so he's still learning Babe, if you stick to your guns he'll probably get the hang of it; it will become part of his routine, bad behaviour=consequences. Just stick with it.

DS2 is 4yo and has to have instant rewards or consequences as well. And he responds much better to rewards than consequences. He can be rather persistent and I suspect would try the patience of a saint (and I am certainly not a saint!!)

Calally You could be talking about my ds there. Last summer was a nightmare, he'd been going along happily at nursery since that April & looking back I wonder if he thought nursery had finished for good. His behaviour got worse over the summer & culminated in a nightmare bank holiday weekend which ended with him being put to bed at 5pm!

He's had a brilliant term at nursery but I'm bracing myself for the summer. Going to plan loads of stuff for us to do & I'll try and make the mornings for activities & afternoons for playtime. Best of intentions eh?

good luck with that babe lol. ds doesnt know whats going on. i work part time, and dont have hols till end of july, which just so happen to co inside with his summer scheme. so between now and then hes being passed between dad n granny, and anyone else who can deal with him. so when i get in from work, hes either completely hyper, or in foul form, cue lots of screaming and tantrums. all the time asking when he can go to school. 8 weeks is far to long to be off lol