What just happened? I am sitting in a room breathing hard like I ran a marathon, my 8 year old is screaming in his room and I just wanted to finish our homeschool day. As agreed. We agreed, but he exploded when it was time to stop playing video games. I mean full Hulk green anger over having to stop playing the game and finishing his math, which is mostly review at this point and a subject he does well with.
Backstory you say, okay, no problem. My son, X, is autistic. He has Autism Spectrum Disorder. Yes, he is what many term high functioning, and would have a diagnosis of Asperger’s Disorder if the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual – Fifth Addition ( DSM-V) hadn’t done away with that diagnosis. He has been diagnosed since the age of 3 and has made many strides, yet there is more to do. He is behaviorally behind many of his peers and socially awkward in that he doesn’t always know what is an appropriate response. Many times changing tasks can be arduous. This is why why we discuss our schedule, time frames, and what is expected. This often works, often I say, not always. Today I gave the patented parent countdown to task change. You know, where you say, ‘Okay sweet child o’ mine, we will be starting math in 10 minutes. You should wrap up your game and prepare for school time.’ (Do you hear the sarcasm written here?) Sweet child acknowledges the information, you know after you stand there for eternity then ask him does he understand? Five minutes later, you give the same spiel, only now he has 5 minutes and he repeats acknowledgement.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1…
‘Alright sweetie, time to get started, you may leave that game on because we won’t be long.’
Immediately there is screaming, foot stomping and a lot of ‘this isn’t fair, you hate me, why can’t I just have a few more minutes to see this update, you don’t understand’ along with actual tears and spittle flying! I was proud of myself, I was calm through much of this, I repeated the request, I pointed out the feelings on his stress scale, I reminded him of his acknowledgement of the agreement, I was hitting all the buzz words used to help alleviate the stress of these situations and get the desired outcome. And then, I wasn’t. I was yelled at one too many times, I was given aggressive body language and hateful words and my heart broke, again, and I needed time to pick it up and put it back together before I could go on. X was sent to his room to calm down, Mommy was sent to her room to cry and put herself back together. She needed to remind her heart that her son loves her, has made vast improvement, doesn’t know how to express his frustration, and really feels strongly about changes. In this case, a video game was updating, that meant things were changing, by leaving before he could see these updates, he felt adrift in a sea of the unknown. You may feel adrift when you are at a party where you only know the host, X feels adrift when he has to leave things undone or unknown. He thinks that isn’t right. I think it isn’t always a big deal. Somehow we have to meet in the middle, we don’t always do it gracefully. Today, he had a hard time being okay with a no, you may not do that right now. Today, X could not say Yes to No.
How do you or your kids if you have any, handle saying Yes to No?