it's 'national autism week'...

I have no idea if I did the right thing, either. That's what makes it hard. (Well, even if I did the right thing, it's still hard.) It was less about the swearing, or desire to swear, and more about his not listening to my repeated requests. Like @QYFW said, kids, including ours, can be manipulative, and mine responds to rewards and punishments that are tangible. Abstract ideas, the way another parent might say "you're embarrassing me" don't work. And I feel like with all kids, but maybe especially autistic ones, you have to take a stand and let them know that they can't go past this point. Otherwise you're done for. If I'd taken him swimming after I said "last warning," then those words are empty from now on. Now those words still have power, and maybe more power than they did before. That might come in handy if he really starts acting up sometime.

Of course I wanted to take him. I love going in the pool with him, and we always have a nice snug in the hot tub at the end, which we've done since he was a baby. It super chills him out. It's lovely time together, and I'm sad that we missed it this week.

Disciplining a kid, autistic or not, is really hard to do, but I feel like it's part of being a parent. It's a really shitty part of being a parent though.

I don't know, man.

 

Just caught up with this thread. Obviously I know of special needs kids but don't know or think about the day to day challenges of parenting.

Please keep posting and know that some anonymous parent is cheering for you guys to have good days.

 

Sorry, my friend.

Exercising that last little bit of a parent's leverage - however necessary - is hard.

 

I decided during the waking parts of my night that I played the situation backward. Rather than saying, If you say it again, we don't go swimming, I should have said, We won't go swimming until you stop thinking about saying the F-word. I should have made swimming the reward for good behaviour instead of not swimming the punishment for bad behaviour. We might have sat in the change room for thirty minutes till it finally cleared his system, but at least we could have gone in the hot tub at some point, I suspect.

Sometimes I wish you could hit pause during a situation so you had more time to work out the right strategy.

Next time.

 

Days that end in 'y.'

On a related subject, I HAVE to stop swearing. I am the only adult my kids see for an extended period every single day, and I need to break the terrible habit of relying on what my father used to refer to as "the verbal crutch of a mental cripple." My daughter is a whipsmart 3-year-old who hasn't yet started repeating my exclamations -- instead she has started asking me what they mean (cringey smiley face) -- and the last thing I need to do is provide my son with an echolalic phrase that includes, "Goddamnit, motherfucker!" That would not go over well in school.

I can use the excuse of the stress of single fatherhood, but that's a cop-out. I need to be able to control my more colorful instincts when I'm dealing with my kids.

 

I swear a ton but can honestly say that I don't swear in front of my kids. My eldest does a lot of classic autistic scripting—for a while there, I wondered why the hell he was talking about a great deal on car insurance so much until I saw the commercial myself—and he would absolutely repeat stuff I said in the worst possible place. The trouble is, he's now in the sixth grade, and sixth graders have filthy mouths. So he hears it all the time, and he wants to say it, but he knows I don't want him to say it, and he ends up all twisted up.

 

Ahh, trying not to swear around the kid(s). Know that challenge well.

A couple weeks ago, I was driving my daughter to her best friend's house. We were on a four-lane highway. A few feet in front of us in the other direction, a guy rear ended another car at full speed. It was one of those accidents where you hear the sound of metal on metal before you realize what's happened. I yell "HOLY SHIT!!!!" and look in the rearview mirror and see the hit car's back end mangled to hell. Then of course I realize I just yelled HOLY SHIT in front of my daughter. She asked what happened and I told her I just saw an accident and I was scared/stunned and I said words I shouldn't have said. She seemed to understand, but just in case, I told her best friend's Mom what happened and what I said, in case she offered my daughter lunch and got a HOLY SHIT in response.

A couple years ago, I was driving her to my father-in-law's to drop her off before work when I realized I forgot my lunch at home. I said "Damnit!" and turned around. A few weeks later, she was with my wife and mother-in-law and heard "damnit," possibly from Grandma. My daughter says "Oh, that's what Daddy said when he forgot his lunch." Eep.

 

My son will repeat curse words he hears me say, but one thing he never does, and always corrects me on, is taking the Lord’s name in vain.

“It’s oh GOSH, Daddy...”

 

My younger one hung a leak a couple of years ago, so he was maybe six or seven, and said "Oh, Jeeeeeesus" in perfect ecstatic relief. He had been staying with this grandparents the night before. Had to have a little chat with Papa.

 

I know this is easy to just say (or type), but don't beat yourself up over it. All parents have moments that we don't phrase a threatened punishment perfectly, but overall I think you did the right thing. You told him what the consequence would be if he didn't stop and he kept going. Most of the time, it sucks to have to follow through in those situations, but it's still the right thing to do. I know it sucked to have to leave without taking him swimming, but those moments have value and it sounds like he's already over it. Give yourself a break. The easy thing would have been to cave. The right thing was to follow through.

 

Thanks for the support. I think it's good to remember that kids have shorter memories than we do. I also want to be a good dad. It's important to me to think about situations and learn from my mistakes.

 

Hope everyone has a terrific week. I'm holding good thoughts for you.