Do you 'indulge' your DC's obsessions?

[Vagaceratops]

Those are my DH's words, not mine.

DS (5 with ASD) has been obsessed with ITNG for about 3 years. He watches the DVD's and has they toys (mainly Ninky nonks which he loves to play with). I have picked up a new one for Christmas, as well as some DVD's. DH is starting to make noises that we shouldnt indulge this obsession.

I think its perfectly harmless, he enjoys it and if he doesnt have his ITNG, he doesnt really have a lot else.

What do you do? Go with it, or try to distract and get new interests.

Mine has age appropriate focused interests, and the ones that aren't he keeps very private and for home. It doesn't seem to stress him at all, he switches easily.
So no one but us knows about his collection of beanie cats...
He worked out most it by 13, over a period of a couple of years.

I indulge. It drives my ex, his dad, crazy as he (dad) believes ds, at 11, "just" needs introducing to other things, to broaden his mind, and bring him out of himself.

Ds has asd (HF) and OCD.

Forcing him to NOT do "his thing" (and at the moment, it's cars, car reviews, car drawings, car racing, car shows) just heightens his anxiety and reduces his ability to cope with the ordinary stuff we expect him to do, on a daily basis.

I do try and introduce new things. He went through a Team Umizoomi stage, and a mario and total wipeout one too (but mainly because they are DS1's favourite things) but we always seem to come back to ITNG, and it always seems much more obsessive than anything else.

I try to leave ITNG at home, although his favourite Ninky Nonk comes with us as its become like a security blanket. He doesnt have a ITNG lunch box/school bag for example. His echolalia is bad at the moment, but then in other ways it has helped him to communicate because he can use learnt phrases to help him express his feelings.

My ds3 (age 3) loves taxis. We have about 30 or 40 pictures of taxis in a book for him. they are taxi's that are in the local area (taken on my phone) so he enjoys spotting them when we're out and about.
He's also moved on to other vehicles, like neenaws and motorbikes!

He's got a speech delay!

Indulge and use as 'bribes' to get things like homework, teeth cleaning or therapies done. As others have said, maybe try to keep his passions (great phrase) age appropriate in front of his peers. My DS2 has always had rolling obsessions, 2 or 3 on the go at once lasting anything from 3 months to 3 years. The only truly lasting one is my hair which I secretly love. This has lasted 12 years so far, and he's nearly 13.

Dd2 is obsessed with Moshi monsters, she has 100's of moshi monster toys, 5 or 6 t-shirts, trading cards and moshling figures. I probably buy too much for her but she gets so excited when a new toy comes out, we are now trying to tell her 'wait until christmas' as there are a few new play sets out that are a bit to expensive .

Dd1 has just started collecting beanie babbies, we pick them up 2nd hand, i'm hoping she doesnt get too carried away with them. She also obsessed with Harry Potter and has just got fed up with collecting pokemon.

Both my DCs love Moshis, it is the first time an interest has really coincided for them so we are encouraging it as much as possible, they have been doing some great Moshi related playing together over the summer. There is an Iphone app called Lost Moshlings that they both love.

Dd2 love lost moshlings too and the other app (we have it on dd2's i-pad), most playing in our house is based around moshi .

If it's an active doing/making obsession like building lego or mastering a trick on the trampoline then yes I would let ds go for it.

If it's a passive watching/consuming obsession like tv, iPad or buying stuff - then I don't 'indulge'.

The book '21st Century Boys' helped me clarify my views on where to draw the line on consumerism for the dcs.

Having said that, like Ellenjane, consumer obsessions can be used as motivation. They can also be used to inspire, eg drawing pictures of Lightening Mcqueen characters or building pig's palaces out of wooden blocks to be smashed by cuddly 'angry' birds.

Yes. Depending on the obsession. If nothing else, it gives them something to "talk" about. DS1's lego obsession is encouraged as it's far more interesting than his window and lights obsession and he can take it somewhere.