What's up with this behaviour?!

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The last 2 weeks my son started with this unrasional behavior......it happened 3 times now that around 7-8 o'clock at night he will get it into his head that he wants to either do woodwork......then hubby needs to saw and so on or like last night he suddenly got a special spunch and wants to wash my cars windows! He cant understand that it's dark, almost time for bed.....not appropriate at all! He never did this.....he ussually understood....it's almost as if his reasoning abbilities has flown out of the window all of a sudden.....this is causing plenty of discomfort and fighting in our home at the moment!! !!!Any ideas?

I am all for helping kids with special interests, but there have to be reasonable limits. In this case it is too disruptive of the family schedule and sleep time, so you have to put a gentle, but firm stop to it. Also, I suspect it is just a ploy to stay up later. You need to make it clear to the kids that they are not going to be allowed to engage in activities as an excuse to stay up later.--Bedtime is bedtime and you don't start projects just before bedtime. Instead of these projects, get the kids ready for bed and go in there with them and sit and read nice stories to them for a short time, to help them unwind for bed.

Also, you need to limit the caffeine and processed sugar intake of the kids. These both contribute to hyperactive behavior. When kids get hyper they get tired more, but don't get as much rest, so they are more prone to outbursts of cranky temper. Be prepared for some bad behavior during the cutting down phase when you cut back on the caffeine and sugar though, as they will be going through withdrawal at that time. You can substitute fruits for processed sugars to help though, as our bodies are designed to handle the unprocessed sugars in fruit. Our bodies are not designed to handle processed sugar, so it causes problems for us.

Remember, you are supposed to be a parent, not a pal, and don't let the kids rule the roost.

It could be that he's just a night person. The brain of a night person is most alert and creative in the hours before they go to bed, whereas morning people are most alert and creative the instant they wake up. Alternatively, he might be afraid of going to bed for some reason.

Thanx for the feedback!
Questor...my kids dont take any cafeine.....sugar, mmmm, maybe, but usally not at night!
I agree, a was also thinking of bedtime delays.....but this is not typical a case where he does these things in the running up to go to bed....no, his line for this is that he is very hungry!
I am seing more of this irrational thoughts during the day ass well....like the other day we were on our way to school....he wanted me to help him with something while I was driving! I told him I cant.....does he want me to leave the stearing wheel and help him? He said:Yes off caurse! OMW!! !! He is a clever 8 yr old!
Was just wondering if any of you also experience this irrational, unreasonable thinking with any of your ASD kids?
I even thought it might be impulsiveness or loose assosiation of thought.....he will be busy with something, then see something and then gets this obsession to do it? Or even maybe reflecting on poor judgement, or poor planning or poor time realization?

I wouldn't be so quick to say his thoughts are irrational or unreasonable as if this is indicative of some type of clinical thought disorder. He's a child and children have creative minds. Your child just might have a propensity for "thinking outside of the box", and while there may be times he is unable to engage in activities he would like to do, due to the immediate circumstances, I would be careful not to extinguish his creativity.

This is a good point, but one has to keep in mind that at some point, this child will be going to school, and schools don't run at night. I do agree with being careful not to squelch his creative tendencies, but he is going to have to learn that there are appropriate times for that, and inappropriate times. I would definitely be careful not to label these sudden bursts of creativity as "irrational."

To him, they're not irrational at all, but make perfect sense. "I feel a burst of creative juices right now, when else would I want to do this?" is probably how he feels. One of my sons was very much like yours, and started doing this after he was already in school for a couple of years. What we did was redirect him to think of activities he could do right in bed. One thing he took up for a long time was origami. He would literally fall asleep doing this, so we had to make sure he was using only safety scissors. Yeah, it felt kind of weird letting him do this stuff, but he actually fell asleep better and faster when his mind was busy. As long as he could come up with stuff to do that was quiet, not very active, but creative enough to occupy his mind, and he actually did fall asleep, that was better than the alternative of squelching every idea he had and just saying, "Hey, it's time for bed and you need to get to sleep, now go!" That never worked, and did nothing but cause wars that kept us all up way too late.

The single most frequent problem I see with parents of Autistic kids is that they tend to struggle against their kid's Autistic traits rather than working WITH them, finding alternate ways to allow those traits to exist and flourish, while helping them work out ways of doing them that are appropriate and fitting to real world schedules and other people's needs. Working WITH our kid's traits instead of against them has faired us much better than working against them as if there is something wrong, irrational, or bad about them. If you think of your child's traits as good things that should be nurtured, you'd be surprised at how much easier it is on you all, and how much he grows from it. If you fight them as "inappropriate" or "irrational," trust me, you'll find out just how determined he will be to be himself, because he will more than likely view your efforts to squelch his talents and creativity as an assault on his identity.

That's a fight my wife and I have never won. We have three boys on the spectrum.

My 7-year-old son with classic autism can be pretty irrational--he talks great now, but his understanding of the way that the world works is that of a younger child. He also sometimes thinks emotionally instead of logically and has difficulty putting all the pieces together. We have loads of non-fiction picture books and educational DVDs and videos to try to improve his understanding of the world, but he still has a long way to go.

Regarding staying up late, my kids do take meds--Clonidine--for chronic insomnia. It works best if they take the med at the same time every night, eat around the same time, bathe around the same time, etc.--have a routine. Some kids might even benefit from a visual schedule. They also have picture books and drawing paper that they can use in their rooms before bed if they cannot sleep. However, they must be in bed when I say. My older son also likes a bedtimes story.

I hear wat you say about being to quick to judge things as irrational.....for him it might be rational.....but in the bigger picture he needs to learn that there is schedules and times to do things?
He is already in school...a very clever grade 3.
I think I might have put to much emphasis on goi g to bed in my post....it's not about that.....it's earlier in the schedule....it's around the time food are being prepaired, they need to bath, hubby needs to finish up some work stuff...little one in the way.....
Then out of the blue he will get these great ideas! And yes it might be attention seeking, but usually we have been giving him plenty of attention, playing with him....he does origami, dh got nice books, did some with him.....he does psp, ps3, computer games, skate boarding, bmx, playing with friends....all of this will happen before he gets these ideas.
It still would be ok if he got these creative ideas, but what makes it difficult is that he gets STUCK on the idea....and we cant shift it to something else and he wants to do it with some one emediatly.....and this usually escalates into full blown tantrums, with swearing, screaming, pulling and pushing us......because he wants to do it NOW and then cant seem to understand reason that its not able to happen......If you try and move his attention to something else he will just say no .......
..

Maybe he just gets ideas randomly, and it does not quite occur that it's not necessarily the appropriate time to act on them. I know a lot of times things that have seemed obvious to most people go right over my head so maybe he's got a similar issue. In which case the best approach might be to be explaining it....but calmly, like explain why its not the right time and maybe suggest a better time. LIke if he wants to wash the car for instance right at bed time maybe say 'That's a nice idea but it's bed time, maybe tommorow would be a better time' or something to that effect.

As for the tantrums its possible he gets an idea in his head and then has a hard time dealing with not being able to follow through at that time....so maybe trying to suggest alternative times to do activities would help. I mean one thing is its possible he could take 'no you can't do that right now.' as 'no you're not allowed to do that activity.' if he has an issue with taking things litterally which many on the spectrum do. But maybe you've already tried those sorts of things.

Maybe you could make an idea board. He could draw out his idea and tape it on the board to do later. Then schedule in a time during the day/weekend to do projects from his idea board. This could make it more concrete for him to know it will not be forgotten. It also allows him to focus on the idea and spend time on it without actually doing it yet. It also teaches him to take time and plan, rather than just jump it. It will give him lots of ideas to choose from on the project day/time. It also makes it more visual and concrete.

I think you're missing the point, but that is not unusual. It's not about when this is happening (bedtime or otherwise). The comments about calling it "irrational" are about perspective. Autistics have a hard time seeing anything from anything other than their own perspective. To him, it is rational, yes. To you, it's not because of the inopportune times he chooses.

I get that. I've dealt with it for fifteen years with three boys on the spectrum. The point about what you call it is about your perspective, vs. his perspective.

You want him to realize there are appropriate times for certain things, and inappropriate times. He wants to do these things while they are "hot" on his mind. Why? Because if he doesn't do it NOW, he may not be able to later, will lose interest, or will forget.

Basically, you want him to learn to see things from YOUR perspective, and what is hard to learn is that if that is the sole goal, it usually doen't work well, because it's a one-way street. He'll see that as "you want me to do things your way and according to your schedule, but that doesn't work for ME.

It's NOT a selfish attitude. It's natural for us. What we mean by changing the way you speak of and perceive his behaviors, is extending to HIM the willingness to understand HIS perspective before expecting him to consider yours. I know that may not sound like it makes any sense at all, and it WON'T if you think of his perspective as irrational.

See, it doesn't matter that it's irrational to you. Not to him, because it makes perfect sense to him. If you approach the whole thing as if you KNOW it's rational to him, but you just don't understand it, you give him power by allowing HIM to educate you about himself. When you do that, you are trying to understand HIS perspective, and he'll see that. This is something we Autistics don't see a lot of in non-Autistics. Almost all of us are expected to learn how everybody else thinks, but hardly anyone ever bothers to try and understand how WE think. That is a very frustrating experience to grow up with. Most of us see it as highly unfair, and some of us end up fighting it our whole lives. We end up being misinterpreted as selfish and stubborn when all we're really doing is holding on to our own identities for dear life. That's what can happen when you're constantly expected to understand everyone else's perspectives and needs, but nobody does it for us.

I think what we're trying to tell you is to change the way you think and speak of his behavior. Not to call it things like "irrational" or "doesn't make any sense." It DOES make perfect sense to him, and if you talk to him about it, without any preconceived notions of whether it's bad, good or whatever, you'll start learning how he thinks.

I'm on the spectrum. Even I had to learn to stop judging my kids behaviors, and simply ask why they think the way they do and do things the way they do. By doing that, I built trust because they now know I'm truly interested in who they are, AS they are. When you build that trust first, they're far more likely to hear YOUR side of things, and try harder to see YOUR perspective.

We're the adults. They are the children. I think WE should be setting the example where this is concerned (just as we would with anything else) before we expect them to do it for us.

If we start off with "But this behavior makes no sense! It's irrational!" We're essentially telling them they are irrational people, and we're not willing to bother seeing their perspective, from which it IS rational. (Doesn't just seem irrational to him, it IS rational.)

BTW: This is not a quick fix for your immediate problem. There are none. Dealing with Autism is a long term commitment, and so are the individual problems that come from it. If you're looking for a simple quick fix to get him to change this behavior, forget it. It's not likely to happen. These kinds of things are long term processes, and one of THE most important ones, is this trust building by your willingness to understand him first, before expecting anything in return.

This isn't to say there are never any quick fixes, it's just that they are unlikely without that trust factor. It's also not to put the fear of a life long struggle with things like this into you. Things can and do get better, but they tend to take more time than most parents would like or are used to, and I believe are highly dependent on building trust and understanding from you first.

Some afterthoughts on the timing issues:

Sometimes it can help to bend some rules. For example, letting a child do origami in bed, at bedtime isn't something a lot of parents find acceptable. But where is it written that things like this should never ever be allowed? What about activities during dinner time? Is what he wants to do really something he can't do while eating? Even if it's typically not something most families allow?

Seriously. When it comes to Autism, thinking outside the box is often very necessary. "Pick your battles" is how my wife and I chose to think about it a long time ago. Autistics are known for "rigidity." The irony of that is that a lot of us think of non-Autistic "rules" as illogically rigid. For example, in some cultures even talking during a meal is rude and unaccepted behavior. But who make that up? Bringing toys to the table... unacceptable. Why not? Yeah, there have to be some limits, but there are a lot of societal rules that can be bent or even thrown out and doing so won't psychologically damage anybody.

I can't tell you what will work for you, your family or your son, but I can tell you that Autism, even high functioning Autism, can change the way you think about parenting, and frankly, it kind of has to.

There could me more than one thing going on here.

On the one hand, it might be related to the special interest thing, and it gets in his head and he feels he has to do it. As others said, they do not necessarily get your perspective. Sometimes it is OK, sometimes it isn't. Mine wants me to look at the Japanese kana that he is drawing in the air, in the backseat while I drive and identify it. I have to tell him, each time that I can't look at his air kana while I drive because of safety, but I offer to talk about the kana, and ask him questions about it. So sometimes you have to redirect it to something appropriate for the moment. Even though he still tries this (so I guess he doesn't understand, or his interest exceeds his awareness) he does not meltdown, and he accepts the redirection.

The other thing is, spectrum kids sometimes fight boundaries, just like NT kids do. I can usually see a little smile on my son's face when he gets caught doing this. I "confront" him about it in a playful sing song way, so he knows he isn't in trouble for giving it a shot, but it lets him know I am on to him. He does not mind this either, as, again, I do not express anything terribly negative. Figuring this out depends on how easy to read your kid is and if he is willing to be honest about trying to play you. I opt for the low key thing so I can get to know his signals and so he doesn't outsmart me.

Thanx again for being brutally honest with me......
MrXxx your last post was hard for me to digest......BUT it makes sence...thanx for taking time to help me change MY perspective....I fully agree with you! I started doing this by not always just reacting to what he says, but asking more to explain and so often I realized he was trying to tell me something TOTALLY different from what I heard and it made alot of sence and it helped me to understand him better! It is also shocking to me to realize how totally different he sometimes see things......but very interesting and refreshing!
I also agreewith the trust building...very true....otherwise there will be more resistance.
What concerns me is that society wont always be so to tolerant......
The BIG thing here is that I do think we need to start accepting the dx! The problem came in when that neuro told me and husband that he doesnt agree with pdoc diagnosis of ASD, but that my son is just terribly rude, manipulative and that we need to be more firm and let him know his behaviour is unacceptable! This threw our whole thing upside down......Now when we see this behaviour...we dont know if we must think, ok his way of seing and reacting is different because he is wired differently or do we need to be the strong, dissiplined parents, like the neuro said.....

Well, I didn't mean to be brutal. I am sometimes blunt though, when it comes to what I see as the truth.



There is one other thing about this that I see in all three of my boys, that I bet you've seen too. My boy's teachers have commented on occasion about something they've been known to do at school (and we see it at home too). Sometimes there's a topic being discussed as a group, and they will drop a comment that seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with the topic at hand. When they do that, it is sometimes called irrational, sometimes called lack of attention, and sometimes interpreted as intentionally trying to change the subject because they are bored with the topic.

With my boys, none of these are correct. With them, what's really happening is:

1. They are incredibly more intelligent than most people realize.
2. That intelligence is combined with an extreme difficulty imagining that other people don't or can't see the connections between things that they can see.

These two things result in the boys thinking that the connection between the group topic and what they are offering to the conversation is obvious to everyone, so therefore they don't need to explain the connection.

The same thinking can also lead to your son's not understanding how you could not know why he wants to do X, Y, or Z, "right now" no matter what else is going on, because in his mind everybody thinks like he does, so you must know. Because you must know, your resistance to what he wants to do at any given time, is irrational to him.

ALL kids are like this to a certain extent. Autistic kids have this trait to an obviously marked extreme.




Actually, I now feel this principle is universal, and doesn't just apply to Autism.



Society won't. That's a fact. But it's not necessarily the most important thing on which to hinge your approaches. Part of training my kids is teaching them, and helping then to accept this fact. To accept the reality that society is what it is, no matter what we think it ought to be. That whether we Autistics like it or not, we are not going to change society overnight, and certainly not as individuals.

We are the ones who must learn to adapt to society. (I often take a lot of heat from other Autistics for statements like that, but I stand by it. It's a hard cold brutal fact that we either learn to accept, or we end up living in resentment and anger. I choose the former.)

This is why I think teaching "Theory of Mind" by example is so important. Autistic kids tend to respond to people who empathize with them first. Empathy, by the way, is NOT impossible for us. Some of us already posses it and don't need to learn it. Some of us need to learn it, and I think the best way to learn anything is through example. If we exercise empathy and Theory of Mind toward them, THEN ask them to attempt to do the same for us, it just works better than insisting they learn to do it for everyone else.



That's a big problem. You can't have a team that isn't all on the same page.

The best advice I can offer for that situation is read up on Asperger Syndrome yourself. Don't just take the word of professionals. The truth is, a lot of them don't really understand it well, and make serious mistakes about it. Knowledge is power. Get some decent books on it. Read them. The more familiar things in the books seem to you, the more likely it is the DX is correct. Know the symptoms. Know your child.

If after reading and studying on your own, you feel the DX is right, you'll know what to do. There is all kinds of controversy about causes. There is controversy about whether high functioning ASD's are really a disease, a disorder, or just "a different way of thinking."

As far as deciding what needs to be done, I dismiss all the controversies, because no matter which of them I agree or disagree with, none of it affects what I need to do to survive and be happy in life. Not one. The strategies that work, work no matter what the answers to the controversies are.




My answer probably won't surprise you: The answer is "BOTH," but I would add "Choose your battles carefully."

Ask yourself if the current situation is really worth the battle. Sometimes we think it is, but in the end nobody really wins at all. And it shouldn't be about you or him winning anyway. The ultimate goal is HIM winning, in LIFE. He needs specific skill sets to do that. The ultimate goal, to my thinking, is that they learn those. If my being "the winner" in any specific "battle" won't teach them anything in the long run, it's not worth it. You do have to think long term though. Sometimes it the long range pattern of things that matters, and that pattern can be made up of small individual situations that must be consistent every time.

Sometimes we can screw up royally by consistently following the wrong course of action. We've done it. When that happens, you have to change course, and that can be very confusing to children. Unless, as parents, we're not as concerned about appearing to know what the hell we're doing as we are concerned they learn the adaptation skills they will need to succeed. I've never allowed my kids to think of me as anything but am imperfect parent who knows more than they do about life, but is an amateur when it comes to parenting (let's face it, we ALL are). It's the truth, and I'm not afraid to tell them it is.

I think that also helps set an example of adaptation skill sets. What does it teach them to hold fast to a course of action that clearly isn't working?

A lot of this is just common sense really, but the parts about "getting into your kid's head" are not. That kind of thing isn't quite as crucial with kids that aren't on the spectrum.

Probably the most important advice I can offer now is, be CERTAIN about his Autism first. Decide whether you believe it, and BOTH parents MUST be on the same page on that point. Why this is so important is simple, but may be hard to understand without a ton of detailed stories about what can happen they approaches are divided or inconsistent. If he really IS Autistic, your neurologist's advice is dead wrong. That approach used on true Autistics destroys trust, and can cause Autistics to shut down and become even more uncooperative.

We have all been told we're stubborn, lazy, stupid and selfish, some to the point of actually believing it. Trust me, that's damaging as hell if it's not true.

***************

Just one afterthought here, and this is kind of important. You don't mention his age in the OP, but I gathered he's around 8? Is that right? And he's never done this before? This is a new thing?

If it is a new thing, and he's ALWAYS been cooperative about bedtimes, dinner times, etc. before, this is one time I would say stick to your guns and don't let him do it. But only if this really is a totally new behavior. Stick to the rules that exist that have already been working for him.

For some reason, I thought he was only three. If he's actually eight, and he's never done this before, that's a totally different situation. I would still use the same approach of trying to understand where he's coming from and why. I would first make sure to let him know his creativity is appreciated, and try to understand why he suddenly feels he needs to do this stuff at these times, and then try to impress on him that while you try to understand him, he needs to reciprocate by trying to understand why it doesn't work for the rest of the family.

Thanx for all the effort MrXxx of responding.......
Yes my son is like yours regarding being very intelligent....never been formaly tested, actually thinks he will do poor on IQ testing, because of poor language processing and high anxiety! But all profesionals always respond on him being very clever.....He sometimes responds in very mature creative ways...he will ask and answer things in a way me and hubby would never even think about!
My DH luckily sees ASD in a positive light.....he feels that plenty of genius, clever people might have been on the spectrum and that my sons determined, stubburn, sometimes difficult personality will help him reach great hights in life!
We as parents just want to try our utmost best to guide him in learning the lifeskills that will help him reach his potential....and like the pdoc said....to help him become a bit more "user friendly".
Yes he is 8 yr old.....what makes it more challenging is that on some emotional and intellectual levels he reacts more like some one around 12 yr of age...and on some emotional levels he reacts on a 3-4 yr age....like starting to cry like a toddler out of the blue, when he is sad or don't understand painfull situations....
Our biggest challenges at the moment is these obsessive thoughts and ideas that get stuck in his head.....his terrible aggressiveness has decreased a bit and one of the big challenges is his great irritibility and moodiness......together with all the other stuff just being part of AS and preteen hormones!:)