6 year old Mini Dictator

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Oh god, my son does this too. I just thought he was a bossy kid.

He always wants me to "play" with him, but really I'm like a robot or a toy that he's incorporated into his play. Me playing blocks=him telling me where to put each block or he loses it.

yeah, he had me play Lego Chess today, I was red and he was blue. Only I didn't get to pick any of my moves, he basically played for me. I could have just not been there

Why did you let him? If he want's to play a 2 player game, he should be taking turns. You can control the situation, I promise! Are you just worried about him getting upset?

I guess I am just so used to it now that I don't want to upset him. Right now I am so confused as to what is going on with him that I don't know what is right to do and what is wrong. If you see my previous post http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt175443.html I posted when I first met with the child psychiatrist and a new update today. I am so confused and not sure what the "right" thing to do is. I guess its been easier to let him control the situation rather than a meltdown. I know I need to start to be firm and stronger for him. I just really need advice and support. My family is still in denial that he is even on the spectrum and I feel so alone in this battle. They think I take him from doctor to doctor for no reason but they don't have to see what he goes through everyday in terms of obsession, rituals, anxiety, etc.

sorry to ramble I had a very long day.

You'll get there. It is a lot harder at first, but you'll find your way. Especially when you are still wading through all the diagnosis stuff. Once you get a behavior plan going, you will have a solid plan of what to do. It will give you step by step guidelines to stick to, and you'll have more support from the behavioral specialist/ABA person.

For now, I would try to gain a little flexibility here and there and when he let's you PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE! Act like its the best thing in the history of the world. Show him that you are proud of him. You can even start a sticker chart or whatever for when you catching him being a good play partner. This is easier than arguing with him, and may ease you into it.

To practice a little flexibility, prompt him to let you take your real turn every other turn. "You can take my turn, but the next time I'm going to pick my own move, then you can have another turn."

Anything where you feel like you can change something smaller in play, and he accepts the change...praise praise praise!

Until you are ready to really dive into the behavior stuff, positive reinforcement is a less confrontational way to start getting him to realize that flexibility is good.

Hang in there!

Thank you so much!!

From the descriptions you have given of your son, I would continue to treat him as if he has an ASD. Try not to worry so much about what the other members of your family are thinking. This is very common for families to be in denial that a child has autism when the child does not fit the picture in their mind of what autism is. You are his mother and he has been given a diagnosis, so go with that to help your son. I know it is hard feeling alone with it. My son is 6 and has been diagnosed with PDD-NOS since he was 2.5 yrs old, and my husband still has a hard time sometimes coming to terms with it. He has finally come around to understand that our son does indeed have autism.

I posted before that working on flexibility with your son is KEY to his development. If you are afraid to upset him all the time, it will not get better, he will just learn to be this way all the time, and it will not improve. You may need to enlist the help of a behavioral specialist to help you if you are so afraid of upsetting him or causing a meltdown. These specialists are trained in autism behaviors and they can be with you to help implement some of these strategies. If you don't start to stand up to your son now when he is 6, just think of what it will be like when he is a teenager. I am not trying to scare you, and I don't want to sound harsh, I just want to help you take a closer look at what is going on.

I am glad that you have found Wrong Planet and I hope you will continue to come here for support. It is a wonderful forum that has helped me tremendously!

Thank you Angel, I know you are correct and you are right, I have to do what is best for him now. I am going to start doing what I can, I am so glad that I found this forum as I do not have anyone that remotely understands. They think that because he is so verbal, bright and smart, reading and advanced for his age that the dx must be wrong.

I know you are not trying to scare me but you are 100% correct that it will only get worse and harder as he is older.

Please everyone understand that I am very thankful for your replies.

I look forward to each and everyone of them, I feel like the people here have so much experience and wisdom..

It gets better! I promise!!

It's better he scream and have a meltdown now than later when he is an adult and doesn't get his way.

As a person with AS, if he wanted to choose my moves when playing a game with him, I would tell him there is no point in my participation as he is ultimately the only one playing the game. I would tell him to let me know when he really wants to play it with another person, and then I would leave.

I completely agree with you. However, the timing for the parent must be right. She is just not dealing with the diagnosis and multiple diagnosis...people who don't believe her, etc. You need a really good support system to be able to really follow through on the meltdowns. From what I read, she just isn't there yet......and no amount of telling her she needs to do it will prepare her for how to handle it.

I really think she needs to get a good behavioral therapist ASAP to help her set up some behavior plans and offer support and guidance before jumping feet first. When she has that in place, it will be much easier to work through these issues.

Most behavioral therapists don't know how to deal with children with AS....or at least in the past they didn't.

I don't think this is true. Obviously, some people are better at it than others, but as a whole they can be very insightful and helpful.

Yes, pretty sure I was like this to some extent wehen I was younger. It's all due to rigidity of thinking.... Social skills classes do help... and also time to develop and mature.

Mine is six also and we have so many of the same issues. I have had luck making minor changes, and that has enabled future changes. I am lucky in that in one of his pretend play things he likes I was able to get him to let me be a baby animal and he gets to be the daddy. He used to only pretend play as baby animals with me as the Mommy. He let me do it b/c I think he liked the notion of getting to be in charge. he got increasingly used to allowing me to make small changes and proposing new things.

That means that when he acts too bossy, I can throw little hissy fits and refuse to do things. I think that helped him see the hissy fits with new eyes and as looking a bit ridiculous. Also I can say things like that I don't want to play if he isn't being fair like a kid would, and it makes sense to him if I do it in character.

Right, sometimes it's just finding those teachable moments, and animals help a lot.

We used to have a bird feeder on one of our windows, and once, right after we'd had one of these issues, a sparrow crashed into it, and fell (it was OK, fortunately)

I told DS "Wow, I bet that sparrow feels really angry at himself. All they do is fly all day, and he just made a major mistake and hurt himself. I bet he thinks he's really stupid. Do you think he's stupid?"

DS: "Nooo? He couldn't help it."

Me: "Right. If he thinks he's stupid, he'd be being really hard on himself, and that isn't fair, is it."

DS: "No, he shouldn't be hard on himself when it wasn't his fault."

Me: "So if that's true for sparrows, can't it be true for you, too?"

My son wasn't about to cut himself any slack, but I think any way you can find to repeat the message helps. I reminded him of the little sparrow next time he was struggling.