Post by Heather and Judy on Jan 4, 2009 15:19:00 GMT -5
Our son is a control freak and shows it in many ways. One of his long-time behaviours is to hold his breath when he is not getting his way. He can turn the most interesting hue of red and many may not think it is possible for the human face to achieve such colour. He can! Another behaviour we have dealt with is his "food obsessions." Initially we thought he was always talking about food because his FAS caused his digestive system to fail to recognize he was indeed full. We did the usual stuff like showing him the full fridge and cupboards, letting him eat several portions to get the full feeling and so on. After trying many, many things we finally realized that talking about food was a way of controlling others.
It was not just with us. He did this to other family members, to day care providers and teachers. It got to the point they were all remarking how annoying he was asking about food. At home he was doing this to no end.
So we let him know if he talked about food he would have a consequence each time. These were pro-rated. The first time he mentioned it in a day he would get to walk up and down the stairs one time. The second time he might have two pushups. The third time might mean jumping up and down three times. We used jumping jacks, walking around the house forwards and backwards and any number of other physical things. The idea was to get him to do something each time he talked about food in an inappropriate way. This way he got the idea of how often he was bringing it up but had to do the work for "agitating" us with it.
Well on the first day he got up to 28 repititions. This was a whole lot less than the talking about food on previous days. The second day there was only 12 times. I was thinking this was working but knew the other shoe was yet to fall. Then on the third day there was only 3 times he mentioned food. However at the end of the day something started to snap in him.
He got upset about something I don't remember now. But I held him and he started to hold his breath. He continued to hold it and was turning his famous shade of red. He kept it up and was actually frothing at the mouth. Then he spit out:
"I LIKE....... I LIKE....... I LIKE PICKLES, PICKLES, PICKLES, PICKLES!!" I did manage to keep a straight face and we worked through whatever the problem was. Yes, he did have to do his four jumping jacks.
This did go a long way towards curbing his food talk -- thank goodness as I don't think I could have put up with a child who mentioned food every second word out of his mouth.
Enjoy,
Judy
It was not just with us. He did this to other family members, to day care providers and teachers. It got to the point they were all remarking how annoying he was asking about food. At home he was doing this to no end.
So we let him know if he talked about food he would have a consequence each time. These were pro-rated. The first time he mentioned it in a day he would get to walk up and down the stairs one time. The second time he might have two pushups. The third time might mean jumping up and down three times. We used jumping jacks, walking around the house forwards and backwards and any number of other physical things. The idea was to get him to do something each time he talked about food in an inappropriate way. This way he got the idea of how often he was bringing it up but had to do the work for "agitating" us with it.
Well on the first day he got up to 28 repititions. This was a whole lot less than the talking about food on previous days. The second day there was only 12 times. I was thinking this was working but knew the other shoe was yet to fall. Then on the third day there was only 3 times he mentioned food. However at the end of the day something started to snap in him.
He got upset about something I don't remember now. But I held him and he started to hold his breath. He continued to hold it and was turning his famous shade of red. He kept it up and was actually frothing at the mouth. Then he spit out:
"I LIKE....... I LIKE....... I LIKE PICKLES, PICKLES, PICKLES, PICKLES!!" I did manage to keep a straight face and we worked through whatever the problem was. Yes, he did have to do his four jumping jacks.
This did go a long way towards curbing his food talk -- thank goodness as I don't think I could have put up with a child who mentioned food every second word out of his mouth.
Enjoy,
Judy