TOUGH LOVE

Autism is not an easy street. Therefore, Tyler, against his will, has new year's resolutions. There are just some bad habits that are unacceptable and will not work to his benefit in his later years. So carp Diem and banish those ones!

One, persevering. This drives me batty. I have to repeat everything at least 30 times to prevent a meltdown. This happens with seemingly everything I say to him. Thank you, good boy, good morning, ok, welcome, yeah, yes, no, and the list goes on..... Imagine speaking to your son on a daily basis and having to say everything at least 30 times each time. So, as I type, Tyler is in a throw of a meltdown because I refuse to say good morning Tyler fifty times. He is about 35 minutes into it. I think another 30 minutes should have him calm down. Yes, one hour meltdowns. At least we are not in my car. He is kicking the walls in his room and not the windows in my car. I will not budge on this and God help me. Can we say serenity prayer? LOL, I will be saying that over and over instead.

Two, underwear. Tyler hates clothes. The minute he comes through the front door he starts stripping down to his underwear. He is 9 years old and needs to wear shorts. His aversion to clothes can only cause problems. The neighbors know him and his autism. But when he is a teen, do they really want to see him running in the yard in his underwear? NOPE. Neither do I. Yesterday he wore a pair of shorts and he kept trying to take them off. I won! He went to bed with them on. My big one for doing this, is to keep his hands out of his underwear. Gross, I know, but that's what he does. Better hygiene.

Three, the dvds. He takes them out and plays with them. He likes their pictures. Darn those people who decided to print pictures on them! Plain would save me. When he gets frustrated he bites them. I have thrown out hundreds of dvds. I say no more!

Those are Tyler's resolutions. Of course I gave Morgen and Takoda one too. Morgen will NOT fight with me on homework and writing. Takoda will not talk back to me.

Now, I need to go take a Prozac.......