behavior

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My son is 7 years old. He has been diagnosed with AS and ADHD. When he was little, i didn't have too many problems with him. He was always a little bit "different" i guess and hyper but i was just used to that. Now that he is 7, i am having so many problems with him! All of a sudden, he does not want to listen! I know all kids go through phases, but i am ready to pull my hair out! I tell him to do something simple and he just won't do it. He has started taking apart all of his toys. Last night he completely took apart a remote control car and he was grounded for it (no t.v., video games, computer etc). So tonight he dismantled his "eye-clops"! If i tell him to clean his room, it's a fight and then then it's an all day affair. I feel like he just doesn't care about consequences at all. Any advice?

With my son, he doesn't respond well to being "told" what to do, and negative consequences make him angrier and he acts out more. What I do with him is always "ask" him to do something, in a very positive voice. When he doesn't want to do what I ask, I tell him " Do you want to watch TV tonight? Then please pick up your toys. If you don't pick up your toys you can't watch TV, it's your choice". This way he has a choice between two things, the desired behavior and the consquence. If my son chooses the consequence he is much more ready to accept them without a fight. By giving him the choice, I am still getting my way but he feels that he has some control. For chronic behavior problems, such as hitting, I did reward charts. He can work towared something he wants by "earning" enough points, stickers or whatever you use by exhibiting good behavior. I have to coach him, (remember, don't hit!) and he was allowed one warning a day. This has worked well with him too. Make it visual and tangible. He earned a DS by not hitting. I took him to the store, had him pick out games he wanted, took pictures of them and made tickets for him to earn. He earned the games first, then the DS. It worked well.

I also have a chore chart where he can earn money. I start with things like making his bed, picking up toys, getting ready on time in the morning, (he's eight). He saves for toys and buys them himself, I don't buy him anything anymore that he doesn't earn. This works well for some things too.

Check out other parenting strings also, there is a lot of advice in this area on this website.

Good Luck!

Check out the "Love and Logic" method: http://www.loveandlogic.com/

Also, my 14 yo son loves to take apart stuff because he has a natural aptitude for mechanics and electronics. After I figured this out many years ago, I found a way to use this in a positve way and encourage good behavior. I save up old, broken things that either need to be recycled or thrown out such as cell phones, DVD players, toasters, you name it, and then I gave them to my son as a reward for good behavior. If he was well behaved he got one new thing to take apart. Along these lines, one year for x-mas I gave him a mini-tool-set and he loved it. So this feeds into one of his special interests. PS, bad behavior at home is not a major issue anymore like it used to be. The big struggle now is school and I don't have any answers for that. Hope this helps

My son was having a lot of problems at school at that age. As a consequence, his behavior at home became more severe. Also, his behavior at school was quite bad as well.

Both examples of missbehavior are areas that maybe a different tact would work. If he feels a need to take things apart, work with it, as DenvrDave suggested. It can become a really positive learning experience.

With the room ... I have never been able to tell either of my kids to "clean up their room" and have it done. The whole idea of such an abstract job overwhelms them. What works is sitting with them in their rooms and managing it one task at a time. "Could you sort these Legos?" "Could the playmobile go back into it's box?" And so on. Both have trouble with executive functioning (as do I), even though my daughter is NT, and issues with executive functioning are quite common among AS. Many adults here will tell you they still cannot manage a task that comes with a broad instruction, and that trying to figure out how to clean up anything (where to start? what to use? what to keep?) still overwhelms them. If you are sensitve to these types of potential issues, everything will go much easier.

If your son is finding too many demands on him that he either doesn't understand or finds overwhelming, he is going to get more defiant about everything. School is probably really stressful and confusing, and he probably comes home unable to cope with too many requests. It is hard to care about consequences when you are already feeling like it is impossible to win. Be sensitive to that and he should do better.

People with Asperger's don't cope very well with punishment as others have said it just makes us angrier. We need to be explained to told why it is wrong and then as others have said if consequences are dealt out make them firm but fair and explain why.

That's precisely what I must do with my daughter as well. A generic "clean your room" will end up with nothing done. But if I spend just a little time pointing out to her the "parts" of what needs to be done, it seems more doable to her. I was reminded of that yesterday when I asked her to clean her room. I walked in and the bed was piled with her stuff, which to her was clean since it wasn't on the floor. When I broke it down and said ok let's organize your stuff by type and find a place for each type of stuff, she actually got into it

I agree with the previous posters re: the room cleaning. It is simply too large a task for them to process (although it took awhile and a great deal of frustration for me to learn this). What we now do with my son is survey the room together and then write down a list of categories. For example: 1. clothes 2. Lego 3. books etc. Then he cleans one category, takes a short break and then cleans the next, crossing them off the list as he goes. This method really works well for us.