where to begin....

[skydaymom]

Well....we have one of those very difficult 4 year olds. He's actually a good kid and he never does anything bad but he definately has a listenning problem. He gives us at home as well as his teachers at preschool a hard time when it comes to doing what we ask of him. I have just started an incentive program with him that seems to be working but it's only day two so there's yet to see what will become of it. I have also just ordered Lynn Clark's SOS book to help us out with this. I should get it within the week. The reason I'm writing,though, is that lately, when we put him into time out for giving us a hard time, he starts smacking himself and banging his head on the wall. He sometimes tries to scratch his face as well. I've tried to tell him that it makes me sad when he does that because I don't like for him to hurt himself and I've even tried telling him that I "hate" it when he does it. "Hate" being a big strong mean word in our house. I've tried leaving the room when he starts just to see if it's an attention thing but he still does it. It really concerns me. Could we be being to hard on him? I really try to give praise everytime he's a good listener and every time he helps out but I also have been trying to be strict with time out when he refuses to listen because his teachers and I are about at our wit's end. I don't want him to hate himself because we punish him. He started doing this before and we layed back a little on punishment and he stopped, but then his behaviour just got worse so we had to start being more strict again. Where is the happy medium here? Also, I wanted to ask how strict we should be on his eating. He never seems to want dinner. Should he be made to eat some of it or should we just let it go with the rule of not getting any treats without dinner? Thanks for your input.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

Stick with the time out plan. If you relent, you will only reinforce his behavior. He should dislike timeout; that is the purpose of it. His behavior is not an indication that he hates himself. Do not draw attention to his behavior by commenting on it. Ignore it.

Relative to eating, mother nature will handle that. Serve his meal, allow sufficient time to eas, and then end the meal. If he does not eat, do not permit grazing or treats later on. It's important that he learn to eat when the meal is served.

You will like SOS. It's a great guide to managing behavior.

[Cervantes]

I will start with the eay one first. His eating - It is very important that he is made to eat his dinner. He is learning his eatting habbits that will carry him the rest of his life. Children are stubborn and if they make there mind up that they don't want to do something sometimes threatening them that they won't get a treat doesn't work. If he won't eat because you tell him he has to i would try a different approach. Children want choices but need structure. The choice shouldn't be whether or not he eats but how! for example, it is time to eat dinner  - tell him that it is time to eat and then get out two different spoons and tell him that he can choose what spoon that he eats with. now it just became his choice and he feels that he is in control  - and he is just not over whethter or not he eats. You could also include him with things like get out two cans of veggies and ask him which one that all of you should eat for dinner - he choose he will want to eat it. With the head banding i believe that it gave him control when you guys backed off with the disapline and now he may think that if he does it you will take away the punishment. Stick to your guns  - it is scary to see children hitt themselves but is he actually hurting himself? - If he is then when you give him time outs he needs to be restrained by you. There are several things that would couse a child to hit themselves form anger to autism. If you can't figure anything out it may be time to see a doctor.

[skydaymom]

I can tell you that my child definately doesn't have autism. He's always been a very smart (ahead of his age) child. He was counting to ten by 1 1/2 where as some children at that age don't even say ten words. I think it's more of a dissappointment with himself than a mental thing. And yes...he really hits. I can hear it from the other room.As far as dinner goes, part of it is our fault because family means are few and far between. I work nights and his dad works days. He's always been a very picky eater. (won't touch anything green) Feeding him healthy had been a real struggle. veggies are just not in his vocabulary with the exception of raw carrots wich he loves. I usually don't try to bribe him with a treat for dinner but we make him sit there until we're happy with his intake and then reward him with a treat if he doesn't give us a hard time. And if he keeps running around instead of sitting, we threaten both bedtime and timeout (following through of course). But what after timeout? back to the table? Dinner is the only meal we struggle with. As far as giving him options for dinner, he helps me make it most of the time. And he gets his own silverware everytime.I do appriciate your input. I just wih we didn't have to fight to get him to eat. It makes for a bad ending to a perfect day when we finally do get one.

[jd1419]

I went through the rough time to eat dinner--my kids would usually eat late with my Hubby & I like 8:20 at night when my husband got a new schedule and he is home early now--the kids were not hungry--just programmed to eat late--then we started to eat early were not hungry and would not eat--but then two hours later were starving figured out the time differnece--we had to work on rewiring them to eat earlier--and if they are not hungry I don't force them to eat--unless they are starving or a child that refuses to eat--I would never force them to eat that teahces them even more bad habits--I may refuse to give them any snack and offer them something healthly like a sandwich or gram crackers or somehting simple but nutrious if they are really hungry late at night after dinner is done.  I hope that helps for the meals.  The other behavior i can not speculate on.