Imagine you are sitting on a quiet beach with a nice drink in your hand. The sun is beating down on your face as you listen to the waves crash upon the shore. Life is good here. Life is comfortable. You look around and are so thankful for all that you see and know God is in complete control. You even marvel at his beautiful creation and maybe even utter words and phrases like "God Your handiwork is amazing! I am in awe of your beauty." And as you stand at the water's edge with your eyes closed and your face toward the sun, out of nowhere a huge wave comes and knocks you completely off of your feet and you somehow find yourself in the middle of the ocean clinging to whatever can help you stay afloat. Yep. Welcome to the past month of parenting at our house. Just transform the nice beach to a calm house, and the wave to a sweet child who turned into someone we didn't recognize.
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For the past month, Madeline has been showing us some new, and difficult behaviors. To say that it has been stressful at the Conrad household, would be an understatement. One of the most frustrating aspects of having autism, is not being able to communicate your thoughts to others. Imagine you have something you are thinking or feeling and you can't express that to those closest to you in a way they can understand. When this happens, Madeline becomes upset, and becoming upset turns to anger, and anger turns to aggressive behavior. This devastates us, because Madeline is typically a joyful person - the life of the party. It has been a very emotional time at our house as we try to figure out how to best help Madeline communicate and to help her learn how not to communicate. In the past few weeks, I have printed social stories, taken her to the pediatrician numerous times, talked to behavior therapists, Skype chatted with a behavior therapist, and we just met with a pediatric psychiatrist. You may look at that sentence and think "wow, that's kind of extreme." We are big believers in using every single resource available to us to help Madeline and are so thankful for the abundance of help we have received. So, what were the conclusions? Behavior Modification. Madeline may have been having some side effects to her ADHD medication. While those side effects may have lasted a few days, children with autism can get stuck in a pattern of behavior. It was now our job to help break her of this bad habit she had developed. This process was not for the faint of heart, but Mike and I worked together as a team and behavior modified like we had never behavior modified before. We were consistent; we were diligent; we were exhausted! But you wanna know something great about autism? While Madeline can get stuck in negative behavior patterns, she will also get stuck in positive behavior patterns as well. After 3 days of staying the course, she finally came around. Do we still have traces of that behavior? Yes. But we just stay consistent.
Madeline's behavior isn't the only behavior that needed changing. During this process, I had to completely change the way I'm used to parenting. It wasn't easy, but it is definitely for the best. So what did I have to change?
1. Yelling. I raise my voice to my children. Instead of taking the time to find a better solution - yelling it has been. Well, this does not bode with autism. Madeline does not like the "loud noise," and her behavior becomes worse.
2. Spanking. I was raised with spankings and I have spanked my typical child and it has produced repentance and obedience. This also does not bode with for my child with autism. I am telling Madeline not to hit, but I'm hitting her when she disobeys? This caused her great confusion and she didn't want to come near me. We now have a no spanking policy in our house. Instead, we have to find other avenues to help both of our children understand their wrong behavior and want to make it right again.
3. Positive Reinforcement. Instead of saying "No, you can't," I say "Can you show me a good choice?" or "When you're mad, you can __________"
Behavior modification is not easy.
For the past month, Madeline has been showing us some new, and difficult behaviors. To say that it has been stressful at the Conrad household, would be an understatement. One of the most frustrating aspects of having autism, is not being able to communicate your thoughts to others. Imagine you have something you are thinking or feeling and you can't express that to those closest to you in a way they can understand. When this happens, Madeline becomes upset, and becoming upset turns to anger, and anger turns to aggressive behavior. This devastates us, because Madeline is typically a joyful person - the life of the party. It has been a very emotional time at our house as we try to figure out how to best help Madeline communicate and to help her learn how not to communicate. In the past few weeks, I have printed social stories, taken her to the pediatrician numerous times, talked to behavior therapists, Skype chatted with a behavior therapist, and we just met with a pediatric psychiatrist. You may look at that sentence and think "wow, that's kind of extreme." We are big believers in using every single resource available to us to help Madeline and are so thankful for the abundance of help we have received. So, what were the conclusions? Behavior Modification. Madeline may have been having some side effects to her ADHD medication. While those side effects may have lasted a few days, children with autism can get stuck in a pattern of behavior. It was now our job to help break her of this bad habit she had developed. This process was not for the faint of heart, but Mike and I worked together as a team and behavior modified like we had never behavior modified before. We were consistent; we were diligent; we were exhausted! But you wanna know something great about autism? While Madeline can get stuck in negative behavior patterns, she will also get stuck in positive behavior patterns as well. After 3 days of staying the course, she finally came around. Do we still have traces of that behavior? Yes. But we just stay consistent.
Madeline's behavior isn't the only behavior that needed changing. During this process, I had to completely change the way I'm used to parenting. It wasn't easy, but it is definitely for the best. So what did I have to change?
1. Yelling. I raise my voice to my children. Instead of taking the time to find a better solution - yelling it has been. Well, this does not bode with autism. Madeline does not like the "loud noise," and her behavior becomes worse.
2. Spanking. I was raised with spankings and I have spanked my typical child and it has produced repentance and obedience. This also does not bode with for my child with autism. I am telling Madeline not to hit, but I'm hitting her when she disobeys? This caused her great confusion and she didn't want to come near me. We now have a no spanking policy in our house. Instead, we have to find other avenues to help both of our children understand their wrong behavior and want to make it right again.
3. Positive Reinforcement. Instead of saying "No, you can't," I say "Can you show me a good choice?" or "When you're mad, you can __________"
Behavior modification is not easy.
And while we were still sinners Christ died for us....
Every day I get up and go about my day with doubt, and fear, and not treating my neighbor as myself, and not being the best friendI can be- and Christ died for me. His grace is for me. The powerful thing about that is it didn't say "And while we were perfect, Christ died for us..."
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