obsession topic -getting the balance right help!

[frustratedmom]

Ds has had obsessions over topics particularly space and sharks. He is a single topice preference child. We have put work in to broaden his scope and interests but have not got the ballance right between encouraging Space favouritisim and generalism. He desperately wants to be single topic but struggles to let himself indulge his passion as he thinks it is a banned topic. How do we go about getting this balance right? Help.

how old is he?
Is he quite little?
I'm asking because ds's was basically your 'train boy' untill 7 and then we realised he was slowly broadening his horizons.
We also found that if we focused on what it was that he liked about one particular thing..then we could suggest other stuff.
Once he realised it was 'ok' to like lots of things (that he could handle it without getting stressed)...he seemed to go with it more.

He's four and space and sharks have been his big thing for over 2 1/2 years. other temporary obsessions have occured but have done so in a different way. With these topics they are all encompasing obsessions and we starting noticing a problem with a 2 week rotational habbit between the 2 topics that lasted for over 6 months and occurred to the exclusion of food and sleep.
At worst point suggest book on fishing (something he loved to do) and he refused to get any books out library if not sharks or space.
Have balanced him a little and now interested in anything science (thank the broadcasters for myth busters!) but there is an obvious internal struggle when he wants to return to space. He is OCD with lights, and hand washing, and some small routines so thing that might be to do with struggle but stuck how to help him.

Could you give him a time each day where he can talk about his favorite subject (you could set aside an hour after dinner where he can discus sharks and an hour before bed to talk about space/look at the stars ect..)

Dd2 is non-verbal and still very little (3.2) but is obsessed with shoes, i let her play with her box of shoes for half an hour a day and then they get put away.

Could try. it works with the hand washing. once in each public toilet he sees when out and once only. See what happens tonight.

Does he ever get overloaded with his obsessions (all sharked or spaced out?) and seek other things himself?. Ds did get a little stressed about his train thing when he was little tbh...particularly when he started school and there weren't enough hours in the day and he felt that the rest of the world were trying to stop his obsession happening.
I've never tried to curb the obsessions as such...(other than the normal curtails of everyday life). The Train thing is still there btw...but he has lots of things he really likes now.

Not sure. obsession was so encompassing that had to deal with fairly quickly after it was noticed. Play school says he always picks the same space book when they go to the library and just sits in corner and reads. Not interested in the stories they do. but will explain in great detail to anyone who will listen.

Problem is once he is fixed on something he is almost impossible to distract/move on. We have to use a count down system to change topic or activity. and routine changes are a problem. But disruption to routine at mo so can introduce something new.

Dd1 also has obsessions, hers is with game shows, she has one episode of 'total wipe out' that she used to watch each day but we have now reduced it to once a week and the same with the PC, she would sit on the PC for hours but is now only allowed on it at the weekends for an hour.

Oh...if he simply won't want to stop, then maybe Marne's idea is best. Maybe if you put add a few rules around it.. limiting what he does and for how long (maybe add it to a visual timetable so he can see it and know it's there), he might relax a little about it.
Good luck!

Actually he is so concerned about the fact that he doesn't know when to stop he finds it very hard to let himself start - which upsets him more because he really enjoys it. Its a viscous cycle that gets stuck and this is what I need to know how to balance the encouragement of being ok. We are working away from visual timetables to try to ease his dependancy on routine. we are actually making progress in that and there is a more moderate response now. Last one being him only kicking the door to a museum that was closed when we tried to visit. HUGE progress!

ds2 has been fixed on film production company logos and certificates (U, PG, 15 etc) for ages now. Before that it was weather. He's 10. What we've been doing increasingly is not trying to distract him away, but to talk and talk and talk with him about it, and when he's feeling really safe and pleased that we're interested he's more able to expand a little bit.
So eg, he's now also interested in the length of movies, and from that he's been learning about how many minutes in an hour, and how to quickly add multiples of 60. We've also had a few interesting conversations about why different films are suitable for different ages, and general 'growing up' topics at a level of sophistication that I'm not sure we could have approached otherwise.
We've tried to get school to go along with it too. it just seems to make him less anxious and more flexible, paradoxically.
I'm not putting it well, I think what I'm trying to say is, if your ds is really stressed about when he has to stop, what would happen if he just didn't have to stop at all? Maybe he'd feel more relaxed and more able to move on to other things?
Apologies if it's over-simplistic, not meaning to be.

You're not. its just an awkward balance between encourage and limit obsessions. Will try encouraging and see if he now knows when to stop. He has improved on his handwashing OCD - he will now voluntarily stop when he has done it 6 times - much better then the original 1hr when he first showed OCD tendancies.