It’s pi day (3/14)
So here are 3.14159265etc. awesome things about Jonah…
1. He eats salad greens, quite happily, too, thanks to his dad…even if it is as finger-food.
2. Some days, like today, he has only one or two aggressions at school.
3. He still offers up these awesomely huge smiles, even on the bad days –
.14159265 He loves to roller skate (and has brand new skates that he got for his birthday from Grandma).
I only saw Jonah for a few minutes today. I stopped at the house, and Jonah requested “peanut butter roll,” which translates into “car ride to Stewart’s next to the Voorheesville train tracks to buy me a hard roll with peanut butter on it.”
He’s gone from:
- waiting (relatively) patiently for 20 minutes in the earnest hope that a train might possibly come by, then laughing and clapping at the train’s approach and passage…
to:
- complaining “all done train” whenever we have the unfortunate timing of arriving at the tracks just as a train is passing (all while remaining single-mindedly fixed on the notion of attaining peanut butter roll).
…but we didn’t make it to peanut butter roll because Jonah hit the window of the car door, so we turned around and went home. We’re going with the ‘consistency punishment method’. But are we trying to teach him something he can’t learn, or does it sink into his head? Based on results, we’re not sure; it takes 4 or 5 trips lately to get to peanut butter roll (or even grandma).
Andy even sits him down and explains the deal. “If you hit the window, we’re going home,” he’ll tell him. “No hitting the window.” And sometimes Jonah’ll say “no hit window.” Is this echolalia or does he get it? If he gets it, does he forget it right away?
Next time we go the child psychiatrist we might ask about base-lining him by stopping the meds altogether for a while. Jonah doesn’t want to play much anymore and he’s lost some of his personality, and the behaviors aren’t really mitigated enough to justify continuing the meds. Then, if we have to, we can try a new med…a new behavioral method…a new path. Something else!
So no peanut butter roll, and I doubt there’s any pi in the house.
Sorry, boo.
P.S. I never understood pi. Not even a little bit.
The Never Normal 
Jonah has the most gorgeous smile! It’s great to see him so happy. And he looks so tall as he’s noshing on salad greens. You go, Jonah!
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My biggest problem with my autistic son, was that, early on, I realized that he had no concept of consequences. At an age where you can tell a 3 year old, no hitting, or you’ll go to your room! I would start speaking, and my son would obviously not even be listening. If I put my arm up (I’ve studied a few martial arts) in such a way that when my son hit, he hurt himself….he stopped doing it. He didn’t get what he wanted, and even his outlet wasn’t doing much for him! Not only that, but numerous other behaviors. We actually didn’t do much disciplining until he was probably closer to 5 or 6. There wasn’t any point. He didn’t understand ‘go to your room’. He didn’t understand ‘time out’. He probably wouldn’t have even understood the smack on the butt. (We never did do that…simply because we could see he wouldn’t comprehend it.) We put him in his room when he was having a hairy fit, simply because I found it incredibly annoying….but it wasn’t meant as punishment.
All this long-windedness? I know where your coming from as far as the consequence thing goes. I am not even sure when my son starting to understand that A leads to B leads to C.
But hand in there! It’ll come. One day, that click will happen, and one thing will fall into place.
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I think I need to prit the picture of Jonah eating salad greens to show my boys. You’d think lettuce carried the plague by the way they look at it.
As hard as the consistency method is, it’s the only option. 😦
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