Door & light switches - how should i respond?

[monkey2010]

Hi,
My DS is nearly 2 and is very obsessive about opening doors and switching switches. I think ASD but others aren't sure. Should I try and stop him doing this or let him get on with it?
Any experience of what happens to these behaviours with age?

Hi there monkey :) doors in our house are fire doors so close automatically and have to be wedged open, dd is a master at prising the wedges out to shut the doors :) I let her do it in her room but do stop her in the lounge and kitchen cupboards are a definate no! She has free reign in her room so opens and shuts to her hearts content.

Lights are a nightmare she has blown loads fuses! I'm a bit relaxed about this as the more I object the more she does it! However itdrives dh mad and he does tell her off so of course course she then tantrums as she hasn't done it ' enough times'. Not sure what the answer is really. We in same boat as you with regards asd, some think maybe some thinkx not. , x

Is it possible to distract him monkey, if he has a toy or something that he really likes you might be able to re focus him to play with that instead of the doors and switches.

My Dd3 is 9 and she loves to open and shut doors and will occasionally flick light switches too. I used to allow her to play with the kitchen cupboard where I kept all the plastic plates and stuff but not the other cupboards. Since we had a new kitchen with soft close doors she doesn't bother with them.

It is rare for her to fixate on these things now and I can usually move her on without it becoming a problem.

Do you have any other concerns about your LO?

This is a good place to ask questions..

When DS was that age I made a sort of kitchen in his room with a cupboard and a dummy light switch on his wall :) If he played with ours we used to direct him to his bedroom.

Try him with a torch, which may fulfill the same need as the switches but more safely. You can get toy ones, or real ones tbh.

As coff33 says, set up some sort of cupboard or toy kitchen or similar where he can open or shut to his heart's content, or put some locks on some of your kitchen cupboards but let him work away on the others. Its less about 'stopping' what he's doing, more about setting up places where its safe to let him continue, without driving you up the wall as well!