I invite any parent who wants to talk about their child, ask questions, get advice to email me or reply to this or any post on this blog. I might not have the answers, but I do have seven years of experience with my PDD-NOS child who is fantastic and has conquered many of his PDD-NOS issues. The SEIT always said that Eli had it in him the entire time, and that he knew Eli would be fine. He was right. Eli is brilliant, stubborn, affectionate, social, responsible, energetic, at times moody and cranky but show me a kid who isn’t. Embrace the PDD-NOS, get your child the help they need to unlock the developmental hurdles.

Bernard
bernardhny@gmail.com <—- yes I know this invites spam, but your kids are worth it and my spam filter can handle it.

So what is a parent to do when a spanking is deserved? The answer is simple: Sit the kid in timeout. Start the clock. If the kid is 3, he gets 3 minutes, 5, five minutes. At the end of the timeout you have to explain to the child why they are in trouble and make sure they understand. This is usually done by having child verbalize the reason to YOU and then you re-enforcing the lesson.

Spanking is not an answer. There is just nothing positive gained except teaching the kids that violence is acceptable as a punishment. It might make the parent feel “good” for a second out of frustration but think about how sick that statement is.

I turned off the lights and when the sun came up, he was no longer my little boy. He was a young man: At six!

I have to admit I sit here with a tear in my eye thinking about all the cool things that he has given me, and how soon he will be asking for the keys to the car and for money to take girls on dates. I no longer wonder how he will turn out. The PDD NOS/Aspergers (call it whatever you want) is still in him, but he has better control, although there are times when he is being creative in his own head (stimming) and I want to drop kick him across the room. It is funny, to all the parents out there with a special needs kid, the best way to control the stims is actually through threats of torture. Actually it is more like extra love that they find disgusting. For Eli, I threaten to lick his eyeball, a trait that has been with my family for decades. Eli hates when I lick his eyeball (well I never actually lick the eyeball for fear of hurting him) but the eyelid area…fair game. So when he flails his arms and starts stimming, I chase him down (he laughs), I plop on him and lick his eyelid. Gross I know, but he laughs while he flights his way free then yells at me. Guess what. It stops the stims.

Anyway, I am off subject. Parents, don’t turn off the lights. When you do, your kid goes through this crazy Star Trek time warp and they wake up older, more mature, more distant. I remember when dropping him off at school I used to get a hug and a kiss, now I get a Daaaad….your embarrassing me. Damn lights…I want my kid back.

I will let you know how it turns out and the methods we used. Eli is nervous and that is the best part, he will think about it all day and hopefully realize that making the wrong choices has consequences. This should be interesting.

1) Let him stay up a bit later than normal
2) Read him a story while he was laying in his big boy bed.
3) Gave him some hugs and talked to him a bit telling him what was going to happen and how he needed to go to sleep like a big boy
4) Gave him a kiss goodnight and told him I loved him and we would see him in the morning
5) Closed the gate but left his door open
6) Turned out the light, told him I loved him and that I will see him in the morning

Now he has had a few tantrums, called for help a bunch of times and then became quiet. My first instinct was to run in his room and check on him but I held my my ground. He erupted in a few more short lived crying fits and now he is quiet. In a bit, I will peak in to make sure he is ok, but I hope to find him: Sleeping on the floor, sleeping in his rocking chair, or best yet, sleeping in his bed.

The battle is going to begin in about 3 hours when he wakes up and goes through it all over again. Hopefully he will be a quick study and it won’t break our hearts. Jodi is already miserable.

At first we figured maybe it was just time to convert him to a big boys bed, he was at the point that he could almost climb out of the crib and felt this to be a bigger problem then the sleep and hoped that maybe he would feel more empowered to sleep on his own. This has backfired with Zach waking up, and walking into our room where he is rewarded by being picked up and placed between Jodi and I. The end result is sleep for all of us. This has become so common that Zachary relies on it and it really needs to stop, but it seems neither Jodi or I have the mental fortitude to do the right thing.

What we need is a new plan. Zachary needs to learn to go to bed without us in the room, which I believe will also trigger him to learn how to self soothe when he goes from NREM to REM and back again during the night. It is a clinical fact that children (and adults) go into a sleep cycle where a child goes into REM sleep after about 90 minutes of NREM sleep. Occasionally the child will pop out of rem, and re-start the cycle. Most kids wake up when leaving REM and must learn to close their eyes and go to sleep again. Zachary just wakes and screams, getting himself more worked up until one of us cave and go in to rescue him. It usually takes about 10-20 minutes to calm him down and he will eventually fall asleep only to wake up an hour later and come to our room.

So the new plan is simple: put him to bed without the crutch of us sitting in the chair. This is going to be hard on Jodi and myself because we don’t want him to cry and throw a tantrum, we also have to put a gate on his door so he can’t just get out of bed and walk into the playroom or our room. We have to gain the mental fortitude to force him to get past the crying and screaming, get back into his own bed and go to sleep. When he wakes up, we need to let him cry himself to sleep which means still more mental toughness on our parts to not cave in. I figure if we actually stick to our guns this problem will be solved in a few days.

Truth be told I am at wits end. I blame myself, and I blame Jodi for this behavior. What was cute at first has turned into a giant nightmare. Our doctors are not helping because they provide the feedback saying it is ok to let him sleep in our bed. I think this is a load of crap and wish they would provide more help to us in this situation. Right now my wife just passed the computer room with Zachary in hand trying to put him down to bed again. What a nightmare.

Eli is extremely smart, even with his development issues. He loves music, sings all the time (He loves Brittney Spears, Adele, Lady GaGa etc) and we enjoy the fact that part of his education is via music. So having an iTouch is a natural progression of him having his own identity, his own music, his own apps etc. I want him to have it, although I don’t want it to overwhelm him. As most of you know any child who has developmental issues such as being on the spectrum of Autism can result in objects becoming a crutch and a mandatory part of the childs existence. Eli loves to make up games associated with the toy of the day, so in this case he loves to lay in bed and ask me ” Dad…what is on the fourteenth floor in Tiny Towers. The abbreviation is IA. I am supposed to guess Izzy Apartments and god forbid I get it wrong (his photographic memory allows him to remember what floor is what, what product is being sold etc).

Half the fun for me is changing the colors of the floors in the Tiny Towers game to see if he notices, which of course he does. Today we had a Tiny Towers blip where I lost a few floors, plenty of people, money and gold coins. Enough to throw Eli for a loop, a temper tantrum an a possible meltdown. Although they are becoming few and far between, his addiction to this game is going to result in an issue with the blip. I wrote support for the game telling them what happened but I am not sure they will respond in time.

This is translating well at home when Eli plays UNO against me. He always wins, but on the occasion when he loses he congratulates me instead of getting upset. I love watching this boy grow up.

Our goal is to have him tested again to see if he is classified with Aspergers Syndrome. Eli fits the bill with all the classic symptoms and he is now old enough for that diagnosis (six is the earliest a child can be diagnosed accurately with Asbergers). Our goal is if there is help he can receive, then we want that help. It is all about his future. We want the best for him.

I will let you know what happens.

Nice job my boy. When his teacher approached me and said that academically he is amazing I beamed a huge smile. All the nights of reading stories, playing games like guess the planet, talking about science, math and nature. It all pays off. Eli is a sponge and absorbs almost everything he hears and sees. It is really rewarding.

As for the now declassified PDD-NOS the teacher says she has stopped him from stimming with his hands twice, that socially he has no issues and that he is doing great. We were worried that without services and structure that he would end up taking steps backwards. It is entirely to early to tell if this is going to be the case but so far so good.

As for Zachary – who is equally amazing, he has his first virus since going back to daycare. Unreal. Jodi is taking the day off. This kid has no immune system.