Category Archives: Autism

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Lies, Lies I tell you….

Good morning friends.

I am getting sick.  Having Lupus, Fibromyalgia and Hypothyroidism, this means that I need to be proactive in fighting the infection.  Uggh… this means that I need to lengthen the amount of  rest I get as well as increase my liquid intake.

Hopefully the prednisone I am taking will bolster my bodies ability to fight what ever bug I am developing.

Now, back to the title.  Our youngest, feels it necessary to lie about everything.  And it is frustrating.  He doesn’t get to even play toys without supervision because he can’t control his impulses.  He gets into more trouble for telling lies than he does for stealing food, keys, toys, books, pens, pencils, toys for the pets, calculators, cell phones, mp3 players and all of the other many things that he has stolen.  We know that he is the one stealing, why?  Because the whole 6 months that he was in the residential facility, we didn’t have anyone here stealing stuff from everyone in the house.

Even so, we are happy to have him home.  He provides a dynamic to our house that is impossible to explain.

We can work through the stealing issues, as he hides everything he takes in his room, but the constant lies are getting to his siblings, mom and I.  When we confront him about the lie, he gets very angry.  So we are trying to come up with alternative methods of confronting him.  And no, we don’t spank him.  Why?  I believe firmly in the power of capital punishment, however in his case, no amount of spanking will get him to change his way.

Thank you OCD, ODD and RAD disorders for the life he leads… Couple those things with Autism and bipolar disorder, and you get an explosive mixture that is hard for a 10 year old to deal with everyday.

Day 10 ~ the truth shall set you free

This morning started out fabulous.  David was well rested, I was fairly well rested, and we were up on time to see everyone else off to school. I first give David quiet time in the morning, gives him a chance to get himself in sync with the day.  This morning was no different, after a quick breakfast of Cinnamon Life Cereal, he got his meds and went to his quiet space.

Later in the morning, I heard some noises that told me fairly quickly he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.  So I stalked quietly into the area near his quiet space, and he quick jumped up, shoved what he was doing under a blanket and came out and asked me wahtI was doing.

I explained that I thought he was doing something that was off-limits.  He denied it, as is typical of any ten year old who gets caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing.  In his case, we need to be more vigilant so that he doesn’t hurt himself or someone else.

So I sent him to the living room with a blanket for quiet dark time.  This is where he covers his whole body with a blanket for not more than ten consecutive minutes.  While he was attempting to get himself under control, I went back into his quiet area to see what he had been doing.

I found missing keys.  David has this thing / compulsion / obsession about keys.  Real keys, fake keys it doesn’t matter.  He had key rings with keys we haven’t used in years, plus he had my extra set of keys for our world.  all of these were mixed together.  In talking with him about the keys, he blamed his older brother.  I know that his brother didn’t do it, because I had moved the keys to the top of my dresser this morning after everyone had left for school.  Which means that David went into our bedroom without permission.  (he likes to dig through other peoples stuff and take whatever interests him.  In his defense, I forgot to lock the door this morning.)  So I told him he was lying.  This evolved into a huge meltdown.  David doesn’t handle confrontations well.  So he had quiet time with his father for an hour this morning.  No toys, just a book.

In the end, he admitted to stealing the keys and lying about it.  He doesn’t understand the compulsion to take keys from other people.  He doesn’t understand why he lies all the time when confronted with behavior.  I don’t understand either, but it is part of what makes him the person that he is.   At least I didn’t find any empty cat food containers in his dresser again.

So for now, David is limited in his roaming around the house ability.  He can go in his quiet area, but for not more than 15 minutes without coming out to report what he is doing.  Why?  Because he can get in a lot of mischief if he is left unmonitored, and having him report to me allows me to do chores like laundry, dishes and baking.

So over all, while we had an incident this morning with negative behavior, we got through it, we resolved a meltdown without anyone getting hurt, and he took ownership of his behavior.  All positive things in our book.

Cheers to a good day!

Day 8 ~ snot today I tell you, don’t suck it in, blow!

I would call it a night cap, but I don’t drink, so we will call it a recap. 🙂

Last night, I had to go through some of our youngest son’s stuff. I found 5 9-volt batteries, the lids of two cat food cans, 8 pens, 2 nail clippers, 1 bag of cough drops, 1 box of granola bars and a screw driver from my computer tech kit.  So we are back to hoarding things again.  Not sure why he feels it is necessary to do this.  But, he does have OCD so maybe that is the only explanation available.

This morning, we heard only one thing from the school principal after our response yesterday to the PWN.  And that was a response that indicated that she was out of the office until Friday morning.  It wasn’t an out of office responder from Outlook or anything like that.  I know what those look like, and this was definitely not that.  But it also makes no attempt to schedule anything for the coming week.  Maybe she is just going to wait until Friday and try again. I don’t know.

On another note, the school counselor is a family friend who is deeply religious.  A trait we find endearing.  He is being lambasted by the administrators for not participating in meetings and activities at the elementary school that he has effectively been thrown out of.  He is never told about these events in advance, and since he doesn’t maintain time at the elementary school except for Fridays, he is not attuned to what is going on in that building.  Yet, he is constantly being lambasted for not attending events in the elementary school.

Now, I understand the concept of two sides to every story.  But, given the way we know the school treats parents, isn’t it reasonable to assume the possibility that they treat their employees almost as bad or just as bad?

Ok. Enough about the school. 🙂 For right now anyway, I promise.

David, our youngest is still fighting his cold. He was up frequently during the night coughing.  Hard to convince him that if he wants to get better, he needs to spit out whatever he coughs up rather than just swallowing it.  Same with the nose, if you sneeze, don’t suck it back in… get a kleenex and blow it the rest of the way out.  I know, it’s gross, but how do I convince a 10 year old oppositional defiant child with OCD, ADHD and autism that it is better for him to get it out than keep it in?  He is absolutely miserable when he is sick.

Today has been a fairly good day so far, yet it is only noon.  Here is a cheer for continued positive behavior  on his part, and continued positive support on my side.

Now it is time to put a turkey in the oven. Hope your day rocks!