Obsessions & tantrums

[Sorcs]

My 5yr DS has always been obsessed with Thomas, he eat sleeps & breathes it! So when he decided last week that his new obsession was octonauts we were relieved a bit but as he has no actual octonaut toys he wants to watch it constantly on whatever device he gets his hands on.

There is no way of getting him off watching it & if we do he does everything in his power to either get the remote or iPad back, including hour long tantrums, kicking, hitting, spitting my husband & I as well as potentially hurting himself by climbing up very high on furniture to find remote/iPad!

As he has a ridiculous amount of Thomas toys I’m loathe to go out to buy him any octonauts toys because we’ll just end up with more shite all over the house!

Any advice on how we can control the obsession with less agression & upset for him as I absolutely hate to see him get so upset about it all. We are currently waiting for him to be assessed for ASD.

At 5, I presume he is at school ? (although I don't know what country you are in so he might not be).
What happens there?
How is he persuaded to do things at the times the school wants him to?
Does he respond to structured timetables ? Now & Next / First & Then boards ? Pictoral symbols ? Visual timetables ?

If there is something that works well, then it would seem sensible to keep that consistency.

Yes he is in school and yes they do use all of that but he also has his own 1-1 TA with him all the time.

She has all the time all day to manage all his transitions & upsets without having to worry about anything else. At home it’s a bit more difficult as we’ve also got a 15 month old, dinner to make, homework to do, baths to do etc so it’s very difficult to keep on top of him!

We’ll just have to try harder I guess! Why is something so simple so difficult to deal with

Are you saying that because he doesn't have the toys he needs to watch the programme? Was he playing with the Thomas toys instead of watching the show?

We have one of those magnetic drawing boards you can wipe and we spend quite a lot of time drawing my ds's favourite characters. Or drawing them on paper and cutting them out or making them out of play doh.

To be honest we let our ds watch quite a lot on the iPad as it really reduces his anxiety. It's really hard if you have a younger child too.

Yes he would play all day with his Thomas train and track but as he has no octonaut toys his only outlet is the tv. His only imiginitive play without the tv is running around the garden acting out the scenes!

I like that idea of making the characters, thanks.