Am I Indulging My Child with Autism or Pushing Too Much?
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We all want to be confident that we are doing our best as parents but confidence can be difficult to maintain when our well intentioned friends and relatives sometimes judge us to be too demanding or too indulging where our children are concerned. Their declarations and suggestions come from the non-Autistic world – a perspective that has limited knowledge of raising a child with Autism and therefore is difficult to accept. Our job is to help educate them otherwise but that takes time and parents of children with special needs don’t have much of that.
Parents of children on the Autism spectrum are focused on finding their way through this unpredictable journey of Autism, learning as they go. Finding the right balance when parenting any child is a challenge but exploring uncharted waters such as these takes extra energy as well.
A good parent is always examining his or her skills and evaluating them for effectiveness while being open to make adjustments along the way. Getting stuck in default mode or a pattern of responding that might be a bit too indulgent is easy to fall into and difficult to get out of at times. Avoiding a dilemma such as this requires being open minded and receptive to creating new ways of relating to your child.
With this in mind, I always encourage parents to keep the end goal in mind because it will help you stay on the most direct path to your child’s best future.
Occasionally ask yourself:
What type of person do I want my daughter to be?
What type of skills and values do I want my son to have as an adult?
And the most important question of all,
Is what I am doing right now helping my child get to where I would like them to be as an adult?
If the aim is to have an independent individual blossom, have the courage to ask yourself if you are doing too much to keep your child dependent? Yes, sometimes it is easier and quicker to do things yourself but it may be robbing your child of learning and mastering a crucial daily living skill. A child who is not able to care for himself adequately is one thing but being able to and having someone else do it for him is another.
How much we enable our children or encourage them to do for themselves will depend on where they are on the Autism spectrum. The one thing that will differ from child to child is the starting point. But wherever we begin from, we should always be moving our children forward towards the person we know they can be. Sometimes all they can manage is baby steps and other days they may even regress backwards but the question should always be,
How have I moved my child towards her potential today?
Every parent wants their child to reach for the stars and grab the ones they can and parents of children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder are no different. Just how accommodating do you need to be in order to help your child grab the stars within reach and how forceful do you need to be in order for your child to stretch a bit further for more? For any child to accomplish all he is capable of and more, finding just the right balance between not enough pressure and too much is extremely important.
Finding the best way to motivate your children without unknowingly discouraging them can be tricky. And just as Goldilocks did, every parent needs to find a method that is “not too easy, not too tough, but just right” for each child.
How does a parent find just the right touch? Here are six strategies to keep in mind for discovering just what your child needs to blossom.
- Take baby steps – Pacing one’s self and finding a rhythm are the first things that come to mind when knowing just how much to push or not. Breaking things down into small and attainable steps is always wise. If you want your child with Autism to become more social, then gradually expose him or her to small chunks of time in a social setting. Start with five minutes, and then add one or two minutes more after each success.
- Motivate your child internally. On of the best indicators of success is how self-motivated a person is. Unfortunately, parents sometimes spend too much time trying to get their children to comply with the use of external rewards. To help your child acquire a way to self-motivate, it is always better to focus on using praise – and praise for effort more than you do on outcome. The sooner a child gets a sense that they have power and control over their own learning by the amount of effort they put into it, the less likely you will have to prod them along.
- Tap into interests – Always try to tie in one of your child’s favorite activities or pastimes into the experience when you are gently nudging her towards a goal. This will help stimulate her internal motivation to stretch herself as much as possible. When your goal is to reduce a repetitive behavior, distracting your child with another activity or task that they really favor is helpful.
- Watch for signs of stress or success – Always be on the alert for signals of distress and have a plan B on hand that is ready to put in place. Stress is counterproductive to progress and can easily lure your child on the Autism spectrum into a state of frustration and anxiety that can lead to a negative experience making it unlikely that your child will want to pick up again where she left off. On the other hand, if you see success, celebrate it!
- Create enjoyment – Who doesn’t like fun? Find a way to keep things light and humorous. Not only will your child delight in the process more but the contagious nature of laughter will spread throughout your child and help create a positive and powerful energy that is bound to increase his stamina towards his goal.
- Make adjustments as needed - Paying attention to your child’s ability to transition is important here. When you know an adjustment has to be made begin shifting gears as gently as possible considering what you know about your child’s tolerance for change. The skill and finesse at which you make this happen will directly correlate to paving the way to success.
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I find my son obsesses over an activity and won’t want to stop that activity. He will do that activity for hours if I let him. Sometimes the battle he puts up is enough to make me just want to let him continue with what he wants to do but I know it is not healthy for him to sit and play video games or play computer games all day long. I tend to push him towards other activities or get him out of the house. I find it frustrating though that other care givers like his paternal grandmother coddle him and allow him to do as he wishes for fear of upsetting him. However, then when she want him to do as she says she gets frustrated because he won’t give in and she does not understand why. This regresses his behavior when he’s back home with me. I am divorced so when he is with his dad he spends a great deal of time with grandma. I have since explained to my son that he needs to abide by the rules of my house. When he is elsewhere he may have different freedoms but when he’s with me, he needs to obey me and adhere to the rules I expect him to follow. I hope this carries over to where he might be when not with me but I also worry that it adds frustration from having to cope with structure changes from my house to their house and school and could lead to bigger meltdowns at school.
You are so right, sitting and playing video games for too long does not do much to help any brain develop its potential. Try creating a schedule with him that allows for 3-4 separate yet time-limited opportunities for screen time and make the transitions from that to his next best/favorite activity. Don’t ever give up trying to find something that sparks his interest just as much. He can discover another passion, he just needs to be exposed to it.
Indulging grandparents can be difficult to deal with and after divorce visitation has its own set of challenges, too complicated to go into here. I have lots of experience in this area and would be glad to offer more guidance if you want to take advantage of my complimentary 15 min phone session. In the meantime please know that you are moving in right direction.
Thank you for you feedback! I noted you have a LinkedIn connected post where I commented on being divorced and the challenges that poses. I am also experiencing the turbulence of an Aspie diving headlong into the changes that puberty brings and he is also testing my boundaries and engaging in imposing is autonomy. 11 to 18 is going to be a bumpy ride LOL.
I will continue to read your blog. You provide great information. I am on a tight budget but I may take you up on the 15 minutes if I ever feel I need someone to talk to.
I wonder how your son would respond to a choice board? The same choice board goes with him to dad’s, grandma’s, etc…… when video game time (use a timer) is done, he chooses another activity from the choice board? you put the choices up that make sense for that day (if you don’t want to take him to the mall today, don’t add that as a choice…)
My twins with autism are 5— I’m NOT looking forward to puberty— we’re now working on potty training! *lol*
C… Ahh, the challenges of puberty and testing boundaries etc! It’s great that you are thinking and planning ahead because it can make all the difference in the world – the ride might not be as bumpy as you think.
Thank you for the positive feedback – I am glad my information is helpful and I’d love to chat anytime.
Heather, great idea on the Choice Board. I do right now have to use options like that. I often tell my son, “you can choose what you do first but you have to start etc.” We even set a timer on his iPod touch for when he transitions from one activity to the other. That sense of control he gets from setting the time helps me a lot. My current getting my son to be more active. I have talks with his dad and since his dad took him to his last wellness visit, he heard it first hand, that our son needs to be more active and cut back on calorie packed juices. I hope he that if he shares this information with his grandmother she may be more receptive. She tends to disregard my input as my imposing my will on her, so it does not always work for me to be the messenger.
I am a 4th grade learning support teacher and have a boy with a NOS diagnosis in the classes I go into for inclusion. He is very smart, but does not seem to like to do work, especially when it comes to writing. He also loses focus easily. His mother claims that school is stressful for him, and if he is here too much, he becomes ill. He has a doctor’s note to miss 2 days a week every week, and it is often more than this. He has above average intelligence, but his reading and math skills are constantly decreasing because he is never here. In fact, on days he is here, she often picks him up after lunch and recess. He does not know how to do anything for himself, in fact, during our state tests, she brought him something to drink and sat with him, holding the cut and straw to his mouth. This boy is capable of being independent as an adult, but I cannot see this ever happening because he is so enabled. He is a great manipulator, and we at school see this, yet the mother cannot. We are so frustrated because she is “handicapping” her son, so he will never reach his true potential. As an educator, I am so upset, but my hands are tied because if we really pushed the issue, there would be a lawsuit. Any advice?
Joan, This is so sad and frustrating when we run into parents like this – they love their children desperately yet can’t see what their actions may be producing in the long run. Sometimes we just can’t do anymore but it sounds like you have given it your best. I do have one idea for the next time you have a casual conversation with her. When talking about her child’s potential in a positive way, ask her this question. What type of person do you want your child to become when he is an adult? Hopefully she will say independent, responsible, etc. Then ask, How is what you are doing now helping him become that person? or How can you make sure what you are doing today will help him become that person? If posed correctly, these questions should open up a non-threatening and interesting conversation. Let me know if you have any luck with this.