The joy of being naughty

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The Bean (my eldest) is nearly 5 and a half.
He was diagnosed aged 3 with "significant" autism. The word significant was explained as meaning that he is classically autistic with some significant impairment to social communication. He is verbal (although language delayed), bright, sweet, loving, tactile and does not seem to have any big sensory processing issues.

One of his most endearing features has been his extreme gentleness. I've never really known him be agressive with other kids and even under some severe provocation from his younger brother he has never hit back physically.

But recently things have been changing. There has been a marked change in his attitude. He has been deliberately bashing other kids at school and has been doing naughty things at home. His bashing of other kids is not actually aggressive it is more like its funny to him. Similarly his antics at home are not done with any malice it is simply that he finds them funny. So, for example, he has started taring up books cackling to himself as he does so. He knows that he should not do these things and understands that they "make daddy and mummy sad" but for some reason he is still doing them. He genuinely does not like it when we tell him we are sad so its not that he does not understand that we don't like what he has done. He gets that.

The only way I can explain it is that he has discovered the joy of being naughty! Now most NT kids will discover this when they are 2-3. My youngest has discovered this joy already and the way we deal with it with him is fairly simple. If he does something bad we bollock him, naughty step him or apply some other sanction. He gets the message quickly and tends to avoid doing what ever it was that incurred our wrath in the future. This all works with him. This is how parents deal with that initial 2 year old rebelious phase known as the terrible two's. But none of this works with the Bean.

Naughty stepping is completely irrelevant to him.
Whilst he understands that doing x,y,or z makes mummy and daddy sad and he genuinly seems to care when we are sad or happy it never seems to stop him from doing the thing in question. So, for example, when he is doing something bad I will say "Bean please stop that because it is making me sad" he will normally reply "No don't be sad. Or you must not be sad" and just carry on ripping up the book or whatever! Its like he understands the connection but somehow can't stop himself.

I think its definitly an attention thing. He has learned that being naughty gets attention and it is "fun". I can remember the joy of being naughty as a kid so I understand that but that joy was tempered by a fear of the conisiquences of my action. He does not seem to have that fear or at least does not make the connection between the action and the consiquencs.

So what to do? Any advice from other parent who's little ones have discovered the dubious joy of being naughty?

I think you're not saying the right thing to him. Telling him you're sad is not an instruction, it's an observation. It doesn't tell him what you want him to do, or what will happen if he doesn't do it. You need to be more direct, because most kids with ASD (and many adults!) cannot infer what you want. Something like, "Stop ripping that book right now, or (insert consequence here)" would be much clearer. Also, the consequence needs to be something that he really dislikes. Not all kids care whether they have to sit on a step for a few minutes. Taking away a favorite toy usually works well.

Edit: The words "right now" are particularly important for my son. If I leave them out, he thinks any time this week will be fine. Aspies can be very picky about directions, and can spot a loophole a mile away.

Sorry I was not clear in my OP. This is exactly what we do. I say "Stop ripping up that book because when you do it makes daddy sad" Now the interesting thing is that he is concerned about me being sad and will say "don;t be sad" and will even try to wipe away my tears (I'm not crying obviously but that's what he does to stop people being sad)



This is the hard bit! Working out what he really dislikes. With my NT youngest the naughty step and a stern talking to are punishment enough. He absolutely hates it when I use my cross daddy voice and make him sit on the step. We normally get the lip tremble and some tears and then after a few minutes he says sorry gives me a hug and its job done. Because he hates it naughtiness can be averted now with the threat of the step most time. This works because its a real punishment for him.

In contrast my eldest just laughs at me when I use the cross daddy voice and is equally amused by the concept of the naughty step, its just becomes a funny rough and tumble game with me trying to wrestle him onto the step and keep him there. He is then just stuggling to escape and laughing manically as he does so. The nuaghty step just becomes a fun game, its no punishment it's fun! (well for him anyway). So needless to say we don't bother with that form of punishment because it really ain't a punishment for him only for me!

Taking away his favourite toy would be a good one but he does not really have one yet. I wish he did because that would be great leverage.


Good tip. I will incorporate this as I probably have not been explicit in my timelines.


I also think that his current spate of behaviour has become a game. At school he will apparently tell teacher that he is going to bash a child before he does so. This is done with him laughing about it. This makes him sound like a monster but there is no malice in it he just finds the game of bashing kids and the drama that it creates fun.

So. Even if he verbally expresses concern for your sadness it does not mean that he actually "gets it" or "cares" in the traditional sense that you are sad. Honestly, my kids really don't care if what they are doing makes me sad or upset especially my 7 year old. for a child with social issues, that is not motivating and may not even make sense. HE might not even really get that it's his action that is causing that reaction.

So we have had to take a 2 fold approach for things like this. 1) positive reinforce when they don't do these things and positive reinforce when they stop when told to the 1st time and 2) negative reinforce when they don't stop when asked 1st time, start with natural consequences.

For example, to use the book ripping example:

"Bean." (get his attention 1st) "Bean." (ok, now maybe you have it, maybe). "Please stop ripping up that book. If you rip it up we will have to throw it out and we won't have that book anymore."

1) Bean stops. Give Bean one MnM or one gummy.
2) Bean does not stop. Put the book into the garbage can. Do not re buy that book. If the book belonged to someone else or if Bean really likes that book... make him work to get it back/pay it off. Maybe make him work it off anyway. Seriously. He sounds high functioning. Give him some work appropriate for a 5 year old (sorting and matching socks, sorting and putting away silver ware, feeding the pets, watering the pets, pulling weeds, gardening, anything that is not all that enjoyable but that could be accomplished with some guidance).

This works really well for my kids. Its rough at first. If my daughter refuses to do the work, we simply start taking things away. We take away electronics. Give her less interesting food for dinner. Basically ground her in an empty room.

Yeah there will be a LOT of meltdowns at first but eventaully my kids got used to it and yes, one IS HFA and the other is ADHD (but going through more testing for ASD). You have to start young and you can't avoid the meltdown. All that does is teach them to throw a fit and voila, they get their way, because thats exactly what that variety of meltdown is.

They often do not understand they cannot have it both ways. Here is what I think is going on.

1)He wants to do what he wants to do.
2)He sincerely does not like to see his parents upset, even aside from consequences.
3)He thinks instead of him changing what he is doing; you should change how you feel about it.

My son is 10 and we still go through this.

We are still going through it, so I don't have easy answers. The best thing, as previously stated is to find a consequence he cares about.

Later on, he will hopefully understand the specific reasons for a given directive and stop doing that thing because of that. Logic and reason are the best things, but you have to do something in the meantime. Sometimes you can redirect to a substitute activity. If he likes to rip things up, try giving him scrap paper. He may get something out of the activity that you don't immediately understand, but that you can change to something more acceptable.

We have had some behaviors go away at the point of logical understanding. Of course new ones that aren't understood yet will pop up. It can be an ongoing process.

One observation I would like to make is that I don't think this is really about trying to get attention, at least not in the way people think of that.

But it is very similar to the testing of a two year, yet with the weird effect that comes from a smarter yet socially immature child going through it.

I came to realize with my son that, for most things, it did not matter if a consequence didn't phase him. It still enforced the message that something was a rule, and rules are not to be broken. In the process, he refined his understanding of the rules, and also became more comfortable with our ability to be consistent. Having rules consistently enforced is important to many ASD children; sometimes they don't test the rules because the infraction is fun, but because finding out that yes, mommy and daddy are clear and consistent, is fun. When that is the case, once that comfort level is reached, the rule breaking stops.

I also learned, however, that in my son appearing to enjoy something was a mask for an increasing level of stress and loss of self-control. For him, the difference was in the eyes, which got glossier when he was losing self-control. The process there is both of you to learn the signs leading up the acceleration, so that he never gets into that space. Until that can be accomplished, however, you need to divert him to something self-calming. And sometimes a simple consequence like being alone in their room to rant, rave or pace is actually self-calming, and becomes a positive thing. Another reason not to care too much if the child perceives a consequence as negative; you will still be improving behavior.

I 100% agree with the suggest to be more precise and literal in the "stop" instructions ("stop ripping the paper right now"), and also agree that saying in the moment, "that makes us sad" will get you nowhere. You can incorporate logic and discussion about how certain actions hurt others into separate general discussion of why a rule exists, to help give the child incentive to want to learn it, but they aren't in the mental space to process that in the moment of disobedience, and too many unnecessary words dilutes the message you want them to hear and react to.

Telling your kid to stop doing it now could be interpreted as he could do it later so he might start again a few minutes later or so. I had this issue as a kid so my mom had to say "for the rest of the time" or "Not today not tomorrow, never" because she figured out I didn't understand so I needed clearer instructions.

Have to get ready for work, so quickly:

I find it better if I don't tell my kids what not to do, but rather tell them what to do. Example "Bean, put the book down and do not touch it." If there is no response: "Bean, put the book down and do not touch it or (consequence)."

You have to find his "currency." Something will matter to him enough that he will want to avoid it. As a related aside, the naughty stair did not work for my daughter. But sitting in a corner, facing it, did. For some reason, she found facing the corner and being unable to see anything extremely aversive. Once I put her in the corner, I also stopped interacting with her verbally. If she got up, I physically put her back in. The only thing I would say is to notify her of timing. "4 minutes, or we start again." If she got up, I would pick her up, put her back and say "4 minutes, or we start again." If she was crying and trying to flail, I would silently hold her in place. I know it probably sounds mean, but it really wasn't that bad and it didn't take too long for her to figure out that if she sat their quietly, it would all be over much quicker. Not talking to her was an important part of it. I think it was lack of connection (facing the corner, no interaction) that she hated so much.

With my son, I was able to do the naughty stair and actually get him to state what he did wrong and apologize before being allowed to get up. My daughter was not able to do that. She gets very, very angry when she is corrected in any way, so just getting her to sit in the corner was as much as I could expect. She would still be in the corner from the age of 4 (she is 9) if I would have made her state what she did wrong and apologize.

Thanks everyone.
This has given me much to think about.

You said a recent marked change in his attitude. It's the end of the school year and you mentioned whacking kids at school and tearing up books......I wonder if there is stress around school as they prepare the children for next year, or around pressure to read if he has trouble (or bring slowed down if he's better at it than most kids in his class).

I don't remember ever experiencing joy from being naughty. When my kids seemed to, I had to take it as a message to (if possible) stop something....take food away, a break, etc. They sometimes acted like they were enjoying it, but I had trouble making punishment work.

Also remember that one of the hallmark symptoms of autism is an inability to communicate: it may well be that your child is "testing" happy-seeming expressions without really understanding what they communicate. I know lots of kids who laugh when they are hurt, not because they are happy or think it's funny but because it's how things come out.

It may be that he's looking for the REACTION you give when he acts like something is funny - for instance, you laugh when you like something...people join in with your laughter and everybody is calm and happy...he may be trying to scientifically test how that works...or to test what happens when he misbehaves.

It's hard to say if I'm even close to right, but I would agree that being very clear about what specifically you want him to do and imposing specific, understandable consequences will eventually work.

When I was 9 months pregnant my daughter with AS used to push me over when I was on the floor helping her. At the time, I felt she was enjoying being naughty or seeking attention, but that didn't quite make sense.

I agree with Momsparky, there is a lot of experimenting with how things work and how social interaction works. And it's very compelling.

But though the misbehavior of pushing me (and I went over every time.....like a ball!) was something I wanted to make her stop, no yelling or consequence I tried worked. I didn't want to change my behavior, but I learned to sit down on the floor or a chair instead of perching so she could push me over.

No child is diagnosed with autism unless he (or she) has delays. A sudden change in attitude for the worse really suggests to me that something about his environment is frustrating. You can certainly aim to change his behavior through rewards and consequences, but I think it's best to look for the cause and try to address it as well. Maybe he just enjoys being naughty, but I don't think that's all it is. Could be as simple as he doesn't like and isn't ready for the amount of sitting still expected for his age.

Is he in a regular classroom?

errror

Last edited by evilreligion on 17 May 2015, 4:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not sure its stress around school but we do think it might be to do with the fact that me and my wife went away for the weekend a month or so ago. It was both our 40th birthdays this year and we went away for a whole weekend without the kids. Our youngest went to my mothers and the Bean was looked after by my wife's parents who came and stayed at our house. It all went well, we prepared him well in advance with social stories and there no dramas or tears he seemed to just take it in his stride to be honest. He knows and loves his grandparents well so it all seemed to go fine. But perhaps this affected him far more than we thought? Its just a theory but the behaviour did start shortly after this. If true its bloody annoying because this was our first break in years!

That could easily be it - but that doesn't mean you did anything wrong. Your son needs to learn to manage when things are different, and doing it in the supported way you describe was a very good thing. Problem is, even when they get what they need, sometimes there is fallout!

When my son was little I made a point of telling our part-time nanny not to use "because it makes mommy sad" as a reason. That's not the real reason you don't want him tearing up a book! I labelled undesirable behavior with "wrong" or "rude" or "against the rules", depending on what it was.

I suggest changing the verbiage to, "Stop ripping the book. Turn pages gently or I will put the book in timeout." I often found it worked better to put the object in timeout (a high shelf in the closet) than to put my son in timeout. He then loses the fun. You can also give him a substitute that it is ok to rip.

We often got into a punishment spiral. He would get a timeout (minutes sitting on a chair dragged to the center of the room), then get extra minutes for not staying in the chair, then further punishment for kicking and screaming when I held him in the chair. It wasn't pretty or effective.

We made it through those years, and somehow he did learn to sit in timeout, or do timeout in his room without destroying things. I have since come around to the Ross W Green approach here: http://livesinthebalance.org/walking-tour-parents. Basically you need to figure out the underlying problem causing the behavior. Fix the problem and the behavior goes away, instead of still having the problem but substituting a less objectionable behavior.

With the kids at school, the underlying problem may be that he wants to play but doesn't know how to join or what to do. It would be better to teach him how to get another kid's attention and join in play than just to "stop hitting".