Current Challenges and Some Fun Things

Reacting appropriately when something goes wrong is one challenge we face with Samuel. One morning last week a favorite DVD of his got scratched and he threw an absolute fit over the fact that it would not work. He came close to pushing the DVD player off the shelf it is kept upon. He hasn't done anything like that in a long time and it was quite frightening. It especially frightened my two year old daughter, who has not seen Samuel agitated to that degree recently. Our in-home helper assisted in trying to calm Samuel down. It took almost 45 minutes and it pushed everyone's school work behind that day.

Another challenge has been to keep Samuel from scripting too much. I do not have a problem with Samuel scripting from time to time, but it can get in the way of him doing things that he needs to do. Getting through a session of school work can take three or four times longer because he will not focus on his work. Sometimes I try to get his attention by holding visual aids in front of him and at other times (when there is an especially reinforcing activity to follow) I wait him out.

Appropriate behavior in public is another area of concern. Going to the library has been a good place to practise appropriate behavior. There was a time I had to stop taking him because his behavior was too disruptive. He hit a child there one time when I told him he had to stop playing on the computer. In-home helpers assisted us by going with us several times. They helped us make up a visual schedule and now, two years later, most trips go well. Recently, Samuel has started trying to talk to other children. He is curious about videos that others check out and he asks them about them. Today he tried talking to a very young girl who was playing on the computer. He just wanted to know what she was playing, but I could tell he was frightening her.

I took him out to McDonalds after the library, and as we were leaving he went to the booth next to ours and took a french fry from a young boy's lunch! I was so embarrassed! Fortunately his Mom was very understanding. Interestingly, Samuel was remorseful about it by the time we got to the car. He wanted to go back inside and apologize! I had asked him to do so while we were still inside, but he resisted. I did not want to cause any more of a scene so we did not go back in. I had already apologized to the Mom. Samuel kept talking about it for a good portion of the trip home. He wanted to know if I was going to tell his Dad about it! He is expressing remorse frequently. He will say "I'm sorry" after he has done something wrong. Sometimes he will perseverate on that remorse and get emotional (yell or cry). I tell him that it's good to be sorry and I try to remind him to think about what he is doing before he acts.

Samuel and his two year old sister have had some cute discussions lately. I have overheard them sitting together looking at his videos. She asked him about them and he seemed to like answering her questions. They also sit together in front of her dollhouse. They don't exactly play together, most of the time it is fighting over things. She gets a little possessive when she sees Samuel go to play with it. I try to redirect her away from the particular dolls and pieces that Samuel has, but of course those are THE ones she wants!

Samuel has become much more conversant lately. When we are out in public or when others arrive at our home he is very quick to say "hello!" The other day someone arrived to do a termite inspection at our house and Samuel greeted him with, "Hello, we're so glad to see you!" He also tried greeting people at the table next to ours at a restaurant, and he did so with people at church. I would like to think his motives for doing so were good, and I'm sure they were, but afterwards he told me, "Look Mom, I'm talking to strangers!" He has just read The Berenstain Bears book about strangers! I can see that we will need to do some fine tuning of Samuel's behavior in public, but I am sure glad that I can take him places now!

This Happened Sooner than I Thought it Would!

Only eleven days ago I commented that Samuel was not yet trying to escape our yard, but it has happened, he is trying to wander off! Not only that, while we were at the park Wednesday he ran away. He surprised us by running to a place that he had never gone before. After almost six years of going to the same park, there have been one or two places that he tends to wander towards, but this time he went in a completely different direction. He has also become capable of running very fast. We have plans of attending the park regularly this summer but now we are going to have to re-strategize a bit so that we can be there safely. Due to complications that occurred when I delivered Samuel I am not able to run and he is now capable of running fast enough that he gives our in-home helpers a challenge.

Taking time off from going to the park to re-strategize wouldn't bother me, but this is one of the only regular chances that his brothers have to see their friends. Another way of looking at it is that we should keep going and immediately deal with this problem. Samuel was very aware that he had done something wrong on Wednesday. We tried not to talk about it with him very much but he was still making comments like "I made you upset." This morning he made the comment "While I am at school I am going to run outside." I called his teacher and gave them a warning about this. I was glad to see that he did not attempt to run away as I walked him into school.

At home we have a fenced-in yard. As the weather warms up and my husband starts working in the garage, however, the boys like to join him and this area of our house is not fenced in. In the last couple days he has tried to wander from the places that he is allowed to be outside of the fence. Samuel's older brother and younger brother can be trusted to wander freely in our yard, and even go visit our neighbors, but this is not the case with Samuel. It will be difficult to enforce the different levels of "freedom" that they have. What will Samuel think of this?!

This is another time I'll be referring to my social stories book to see how it might be best to approach this. In the meantime we have placed a bolt on the gate of our fence. He might be able to remove it, but it would take him long enough that he couldn't easily escape. I am also looking into getting some extra help with him.