#Parenting
I have had a number of interesting conversations with parents in the past few weeks
Often with parents of autistic children, they can see the reason(s) their child is behaving a certain way/reacting a certain way. The problem I have noticed is reconciling that knowledge with how they manage children’s actions and reactions
- Your child’s feelings are valid, and the stimuli is huge – from their perspective. You need to acknowledge that. They are not overreacting. A reaction is based on your perception, and their perspective is different from yours. They are autistic children. You are not.
- Bad behavior is bad behavior. It needs to be called out, and corrected. Failure to do so would produce a badly behaved child, and autism is not an excuse for poorly formed character.
Striking a balance starts with having a conversation with yourself about WHY the habit/reaction is bad. Is it really bad (in the sense of character), or does it make you uncomfortable because it makes your child (or you) look less than perfect? Does it hurt others? Does it hurt your child?
This internal reflection is important because it then forms the bedrock of how you pass the information across to your child. “Because I said so” is not a strong enough reason to alter the paradigm of your child.
The most effective way to correct bad behavior, is to explain WHY it is wrong. Once your child grasps the why, the likelihood that they’d repeat it falls to almost zero (and this is especially true for autistic children, because autism makes people want to stick to established patterns and rules once they understand and agree with said patterns and rules)
You may need to have reinforcing conversations, but you’d have a lot less meltdowns, frustration and shouting