A bad morning getting my Asperger's child to school....[blush]

[swanriver]

My patience ran out this morning. He would not brush his teeth, he would not get ready, he was dilly dallying and shilly shallying. I screamed and shouted.
Usually it's fine, just that we organise everything for him. He is 9. School is 2 mins walk away. Today I felt he just needs to take responsibility and stop being treated like a two year old...His twin sister walks to school by herself.

Now I feel completely burnt out by battling to be patient every morning, and not being patient this morning... High school is not far away, and I wonder if all this helplessless is entirely learnt behaviour and he could be soo much more directed if we were tougher..

sounds about like every morning in this house - see my many many many angst ridden posts wailing about mornings. it is exhausting.

Arf Imogen - ds2 does that too, he appears fully dressed and ready every now and then at 7am! I know he can do it.
The rewards thingy works briefly - I'm afraid all rewards tend to lose their lustre and they revert to type

I feel better now - hope your ds feels alright this evening, and eczema doesn't flare up. Thanks and to Carol

Many sympathies. Had to take ds in a taxi this morning as he kept running away, wanted to go "back to the beginning" and then point blank refused to go any further. Was really reluctant to go down the taxi route cos its a slippery slope but didn't have any choice this morning.

Now to psych myself up for the walk home...

Could have written this post a few years ago

Amazingly everything changed when he started secondary school. I think it is because he has to leave earlier and therefore has a very set routine about whets happens at what time

The school used visual timetables with him at primary, showing what happens in what order and what time. These helped. Have you tried them at home? Could use photos of him brushing his teeth, getting dressed eating breakfast etc

You are sadly not alone, and it's fine to get cross

We have been through similar issues with ds - also 9, with AS - I feel your pain and also share your concerns about secondary school.

I think motivation is the key. Motivation to get ready for school isn't great, so we've found he needs something else to motivate him.

We started the process by drawing up a list of things that needed to be done every morning, in the right order. He had to read the list himself, do the task and then tick it off (we did this for both boys, including his nt brother, by the way). The list was sectioned into subsections, so, Getting Up, Eating Breakfast, Getting Clean, Getting Dressed and Being Ready. For each section he completed he could earn an extra five minutes on his Nintendo Dsi that evening. We bought a clipboard and put the lists on there hanging on the kitchen wall, so he could always find and complete his ticks easily.

It worked really well and after a few months we were able to dispense with the list. He slid back a little over the summer holidays and we got out of the habit of doing the 5 minute rewards, but now he rushes to get himself ready so that he can have half an hour on Mathletics before school - which is a win/win, as he's practising his maths and getting ready for school early every day.

Glad you are feeling a bit better :)

DS is 6 and it varies from day to day. I try and split dressing up in two parts and do daft things like races/hunt the clothes to get it done all of which is before coffee lol and so its torture

The advent calender has been a huge bonus in his morning for getting out of bed so I have 20 days left that he will do that lol

Schools being on strike mid week has played havoc with his routine as he doesnt know what day it is. He told me this morning he didnt want dinner at school today so could I come get him early (he is PT) instead of after dinner. Also asked if it was school tomorrow and he has done that for the last couple days because of the strike. To top it all there are plays going on at school and he doesnt like them because of all the people, he is in a panic that they are going to make him sing on stage. So the normal school routine is all over the place too.

dyspraxic ds1 is 5 and scarily similar.

I was hoping he might grow out of it

Guess we're in for the long haul......

I suspect the earlier you try and intervene the better the routine...ds only recently dxed, so we didn't really "get" how to programme him.
I know what I should do, just sometimes frustration gets the better of one.
So, and move forward.

We use a visual timetable, like moose.

Dd3 is 9 and has recently been Dx'ed with ASD. We have been using the timetable for about a year now and it works well.

We use strips of laminated card with bitesized instructions on. They are velcroed to a piece of felt then as each step is done it goes into an envelope.

It gives Dd3 responsibilty and stops me listening to my own voice over and over and over and over.......

It doesn't always work but more often than not she is ready when it is time to go.

At first we rewarded her but now its just part of our routine and we even use it in the hols if we need to go out before midday.

We are in the same position swanriver. Ds1 was only dxed in January this year and we had no idea his lack of self-organisation was anything to do with ASD really.

We did the to do list idea in the last quarter of the last school year and it really helped with getting him to do some things habitually, but motivation was definitely the key for him. Its amazing how the promise of a few extra minutes on the Nintendo can focus his attention on the matter in hand.

I think we are all with you on the frustration taking hold sometimes. I have been lax with the after school stuff this term and its not been good at all. Last year I was in military control and it really helped, but I just don't seem to have it in me at the moment. I think I'm just fed up of everyone having to live to strict rules and hating the feeling of having to have every minute between home time and Nintendo time accounted for and always the same day after day.

I have resolved to redouble my efforts in January and get things back on track - just hoping it doesn't go the same way as many new year's resolutions often do.

mumslife, that is so like my ds1, especially the not seeing why he needs to get washed and dressed at the weekend and setting the time he will do something and it not being able to be a second before, but anytime after said time is fine by him.

I think switching the rewards every now and again is a good idea to keep them motivated. As I said, ds initially did it to 'earn' extra minutes on his DS, but now he's keen as mustard to get ready in the mornings because it means he gets to use dh's laptop to go on Mathletics.

The ace in my pack is his desperate desire to play games on the website, Nitrome - but I keep that strictly for times when maximum motivation is required. It had a dual purpose, in that because we only use it rarely, not only does it send a huge message of appreciation/affirmation for whatever behaviour he's done, the games themselves are also a massive reward for him.

The motivation thing is all basic behavioural theory really. I remember from when I was studying dog behaviour that all rewards become jaded after a while and therefore become less motivating. Eg if every time you pulled the lever on a one-arm bandit you won the same amount of coins, eventually you wouldn't bother anymore, whereas if you don't know when or how much you might win and sometimes you get nothing at all, the drive to pull the lever (ie the motivation to try harder) is stronger. You need to change the rewards about, up the ante sometimes and ultimately only reward the best behaviours in order for it to continue working.

With dogs you have several levels of reward, with A grade being the thing they desire most in the whole world (for my dog that is her squeaky ball which she is rarely allowed to play with) and that's the one you use least often, but make sure you throw in occasionally to keep their interest up - in my ds1's case, his A grade reward is going on Nitrome.

Sorry, I'm being boring now. I'll stop.

Been there. We used a countdown method, but it took us years of different methods to find one that worked for all three.
Up at seven, and tell them breakfast in five minutes, then a two minute warning. We will be getting washed in five minutes, again, two minute warning, then five minutes is up, go brush teeth please, again with dressing etc.
I don't know if it's something to do with not being able to process things in real time, but it worked, and is still working. We started this around ten, they're 15 and 16 now.

I recently bought one from a catalogue for playgroup but it was just the background that you stick the instruction cards on to and it has pockets underneath drop the cards into.

You would still need to make your own instruction cards though, I will have a look later to see if I can find you a ready made one.

I will look for the catalogue tomorrow when I go to work..

Imogen, the reward needs to be strictly specified and understood, in that they need to know that they have earned precisely X number of minutes on the DS or whatever and then they're off with no arguments. In our house, refusal to come off the DS results in loss of ten minutes DS time the next day for every objection and total loss for a meltdown. You would need to explain this and make it very clear before starting and in my experience, you will probably still have to go through the pain of them actually having to lose minutes a few times before it actually sinks in.

There really is no reward for going to school or bed, so that's where they earn something they do want (eg extra DS minutes) for being willing, getting ready properly and going anyway.

Another idea, again from dog training is to occasionally give a 'super reward/jackpot for exceptionally good behaviour. So for example, when ds was ready for school by 7.30 with no prompting because he wanted to go on Mathletics, he was given double the normal amount of minutes as a reward. This sort of intermittent reward is incredibly motivating.

As for getting him of his beloved DS. For normal day to day DS time with no extra minutes earned, he knows he only has an hour and we give him a ten minute warning, then five, then two, then its off, no arguments. We used to have problems with it, as he would never start saving his game when we started the countdown and then he'd end up having a meltdown because he'd lost data etc. We've worked on that though and now he starts saving at five minutes.

It's been very interesting to read everyone's ways of dealing with deadlines/delays.

Moosemama I know that in our house rewards did work for a time but then dramatically lost their impact/motivational power. Also we found it difficult to be so regimented. The totting up of pluses and minuses drove us crazy! And led to further arguments if we weren't careful. I suspect that part of the struggle is to find something that works for you as a family, not just for that child.
After reading that (dreaded) book called "How To Talk So Children Listen", I found my self thinking a lot about behaviourist approaches versus the approach they advocate. Which I do think works, when I remember to follow their advice!
I know my child finds it easy to follow routines, so in a way making things too complex and reward based sort of increases his agitation because he is not quite sure where he stands. Or whether he'll get his reward or not. Unless it is very simple relationship between bad behaviour and leaving the room, yes that works.
That's just us. We find rewards hype him up in a bad way if they are used on a long term basis. Even some treat (like this weekend we went Go-Karting) meant we spent all week saying silly things like if you are not good you can't go Go-Karting, which if you think about it, was not a very good way to deal with bad behaviour long term

I suppose I just need to start the routine a bit earlier and talk him politely, gently through it, get him more involved. And what's wrong is that I am a fly by the seat of my pants sort of person in the morning...

I've also found that telly in the morning is IMPOSSIBLE to switch off, so we not longer have it, except at weekends. It is difficult enough to stop him playing with his cars.

imogen we never have ds at bedtime or in the morning, it just never works. He goes to bed without trouble because he knows the routine is a bedtime story only. Otherwise I would say he is a screen addict, honestly he is. I know we have to be much more vigilant than if he was a NT child, even taking into account the calming beneficial effects of tv....

Was beginning to think I was the only parent in the world who had to intersperse everything single bit of the morning routine with something odd. Thank goodness for this thread.

Example: wakes at 5am [awaiting dx for hyperactivity also] turn on 'how it's made' [current obsession]. "When it gets to the adverts you will eat your breakfast"..."brush your teeth"..."wash your face"..."put on your school clothes"..."do your handwriting practise".

All works fine, until the one morning in a blue moon when he actually sleeps until a normal time and I wake up so gob-smacked as I can't believe it, but then there is not enough time to watch enough episodes to get enough advert breaks - cue screaming meltdown!!!

You can use tokens to physically represent time (there's a whole load of research into Token Economies and AS, but I've only used it in residential education where it worked!)

Make sure you have control of the computer/games console - a lockable cupboard (car?) to put the power lead is a good place to start! Then you need some fake coins, either made or use plastic play money. The value on the coin = the number of minutes the child can have the power lead for. Any deviation or arguments about handing the lead back mean that tokens won't be accepted for 24 hours.

Then you just need to decide how much each job is worth - eg, teeth cleaned 2 minutes, dressed by 8am 10 minutes/dressed by 8:30am 1 minute...

this morning we had a very calm exit, apart from a small spat over a birthday card at 7.45, and a 2 min spat over the amount of Lego he was taking into Lego club DH and I were both in a good mood, which made it a 1000 time easier to stop any tantrums escalating.