Untangling

One might say I have become a bit obsessed with reading about Asperger's and autism in general.  On my night stand is a rather large stack of books, some of which I have begun reading while others are waiting in line to be read.  Ever growing,  perhaps the stack of books is a visible representation of my desire to understand my son.  With each sentence I read, I find I learn a little bit more but sometimes I find myself more confused.  I have to remind myself that I will be lucky to get a rough translation of his world.

One common problem I think parents of children on the spectrum have is trying to untangle what behaviors are autism driven (and therefore unintentional) and which are completely within their control.  We frequently find ourselves struggling to determine what kind of discipline to implement.  Is it fair to punish a child for a behavior that is neurologically driven?  Are we allowing our son to manipulate us?  I doubt we'll ever feel confident that we know for sure but I believe we're finding our way slowly and will hopefully be able to differentiate which behaviors that can be managed firmly and which need to be handled with a sense of compassion and open mindedness.

Over the last few weeks, we have regularly been seeing a psychologist who specializes in autism.  She is helping us answer some of these questions.  She suggested that we read Thomas Phelan's book titled, 1-2-3 Magic:  Effective Discipline for Children 2-12.  To be honest, when I first heard the title I thought it sounded rather cheesy.  Surprisingly, we have found it to be very useful.  Since we started using the techniques, we have found that all of our children are better behaved and manageable.  Another interesting side effect of using his techniques is that we have a better idea when our autistic son's behavior is within his control and is therefore manageable.  More than once, I've tried the 1-2-3 method on my son when I seriously doubted it would work, thinking that his behavior was Aspie related and out of his control only to find that he could manage his behavior more than I realized.  As a parent, I found this tremendously encouraging.  Of course, there are certain behaviors that have proven to be beyond sound discipline tactics.

The 1-2-3 method is very simple which makes it appear bogus because parenting is anything but simple.  Essentially, for behaviors you want to stop, you simply begin to count to three as the behavior continues.  When you reach three, the child is put in time out.  The key to it working is "No talking, no emotion" so that your child is not rewarded with attention of any kind, positive or negative.  With some of my children, all I have to say is "1" now and that's it.  Of course, for one child, he has to have a few time outs before he believes that Mommy or Daddy are serious.  Thankfully, my child with Asperger's responds very quickly to the 1-2-3 method unless his behavior is too difficult for him to control. 

By having such a simple and easy form of discipline, we are beginning to untangle our son's Aspie behaviors from regular 5 year old behaviors.  By reading book after book and applying sound discipline while observing its effects, we may be able to pin point those behaviors which need more professional intervention and those which can simply be managed properly at home.