getting up in the morning

[nw1222]

How can I help with my sister who has a 13 year old girl. She will not get up in the morning for school and is too big to force. She'll scream and shout like she is being murdered if you touch her to get up. My sister is beyond exhausted. Any tips from families who have gone through something similar. Bribery, abd incentive charts have not worked. We are in a crisis. Help!

[bikemad]

<'> <'> Really not sure what to advise to be honest....possibly take away stuff she enjoys n likes? Would have said the charts but theyve been tried already.

[baddad]

If you've tried all the incentives and none work then 'force' is the only option left, I guess...

I'd just start the whole process earlier, have a 'fixed' cut off time from which serious (and absolutely concrete) sanctions are applied and just stick to it... You'll probably never reach a point where it will be easy, but once she realises that they mean business and the sanctions will be adhered to and 'hurt' then it will get easy-er...

 

 

[Cat]

You'll probably never reach a point where it will be easy, but once she realises that they mean business and the sanctions will be adhered to and 'hurt' then it will get easy-er...

 

Well it did not work out like that for us. Despite sanctions including cutting plugs from TVs removing games machines, PCs you name it we removed it it just got worse and worse. We had clothes ripped to shreds, shoes soaked so they could not be worn. We pulled a great big lad bodily down the stairs and forced him into a car and drove him to school on a daily basis until he finally snapped and had a nervous breakdown. You really need to find out 'why' the child in question does not want to go to school. Now some people will say that it is a power game - could be - then again it could be simply because mentally the child can no longer cope but because of the nature of their disability is unable to communicate the real problem.

 

I do not expect my response to be popular but having been there done that and worn the T Shirt sometimes there is more to it than we can see.

 

Cat

[lisa35]

i agree Cat, we had similar, with our 13 year old, we re currently awaiting placement in asd unit in mainstream, he really finds impossible to cope,

 

the sanctions can work though if its not just major school issues, our son is no problem when its none school day, also , it helped, setting his alarm and giving him ten-fifteen minutes reading time

our kids seem to have problems with transition, ie sleep to awake, i know mine does

Lisa

[Suze]

My son has always always struggled in the morning BIG TIME ,

 

 

HE IS NOW 13 ............. what has worked for us is a none confrontation approach.Me going in and rousing him from sleep just started major anger, so we started using alarm clocks.Thes enabled him to wake.......with one clock at his bedside, then another was set near his clothes so he had to get up to switch it off etc........the clothes left there to prompt him to get dressed as the next step.There is a period of about 10 mins between each alarm going off.I would enter after the second alarm went off to check on things and if he had,nt begun to get dressed then sanctions were placed and he was denied stuff etc.The problem for us was the engagement of conversation , once we went in and spoke etc it used to give him the oppurtunity to shout at us , so using the clock helped this.We only use this for school days when he has to be up , other times he is left to get up when he is ready.If we ever have a problem I simply stand and wait etc but don,t talk .He knows his taxi comes at 8.00, we stick to the routine every day.Best of luck.

[baddad]

Well it did not work out like that for us. Despite sanctions including cutting plugs from TVs removing games machines, PCs you name it we removed it it just got worse and worse. We had clothes ripped to shreds, shoes soaked so they could not be worn. We pulled a great big lad bodily down the stairs and forced him into a car and drove him to school on a daily basis until he finally snapped and had a nervous breakdown. You really need to find out 'why' the child in question does not want to go to school. Now some people will say that it is a power game - could be - then again it could be simply because mentally the child can no longer cope but because of the nature of their disability is unable to communicate the real problem.

 

I do not expect my response to be popular but having been there done that and worn the T Shirt sometimes there is more to it than we can see.

 

Cat

Hi cat/all -

Dunno how popular/unpopular your post will be with others, but I for one can say I totally agree...

I read the post as a description of the perfectly normal teenage phenomena of a thirteen year old not wanting to get out of bed in the morning and driving the rest of the family mental with all of the aggro getting them out of bed involved. In those circumstances, I think the post I made is the best practical solution.

I certainly wouldn't suggest the same course of action in a situation where someone was showing extreme emotional distress at the prospect of attending school and doing everything in their power to make sure they didn't have to...If the child has to be dragged kicking and screaming from the bed, forced to get dressed and dragged into school on a daily basis, and this kind of behaviour is compleely out of character with their behaviour the rest of the time, then obviously you've got a completely different scenario on your hands that demands different responses.

 

 

Suze, in essence (if my interpretation of the situation is the correct one, and the problem is 'general teenage reluctance to morning' rather than fear of school) has described exactly what i meant: an 'earlier start' a 'fixed cut off time' (Suze's second alarm) and clear sanctions when that fixed time was not responded to.

 

Edited August 25, 2008 by baddad

[Cat]

Baddad it's probably me I tend to look at posts made here from an ASD angle as opposed to an NT view of why things might be happening. Maybe that says something about me

 

Suze the alarm clock system also works best for us and DS2. He now sets his own clocks and I have everything else ready and waiting for him when for when he come out of his room. He does not do talking either when he wakes up so we tend to follow a silent routine. I just wish that I had worked this routine out when he was crashing and burning because even taking school right out of the equation I know that my 'being' in his room raised his stress levels.

 

DS3 has a totally different system. We wake him up and allow him half an hour to engage with the world then we go in again and give him a time check. It works well for him at the moment

 

Cat

[joybed]

The alarm clock works well with our ds too. He sets it rediculously early IMO but he prefers to have time to come round and go on the computer for a while before the day begins. He also hates to eat with the twins so eats his breakfast when they are not around. The problem we have is getting him of the computer to get ready to be out for the bus. He leaves it till the last minute despite me telling him repeatedly and then has a meltdown because he only has 10 minutes to get his stuff together and be out for bus. He hates to be rushed and likes to do everything at a leisurely pace. I drive him crazy because i am always running around at 60 MPH even if I have no need to rush but as a child i was just like him slow was an understatement. I have just come up with a solution though to my own problem get him to set the alarm when he needs to come off the computer maybe that would work and get his stuff ready the night before should stop loads of stress with a bit of luck.

[nw1222]

Well it did not work out like that for us. Despite sanctions including cutting plugs from TVs removing games machines, PCs you name it we removed it it just got worse and worse. We had clothes ripped to shreds, shoes soaked so they could not be worn. We pulled a great big lad bodily down the stairs and forced him into a car and drove him to school on a daily basis until he finally snapped and had a nervous breakdown. You really need to find out 'why' the child in question does not want to go to school. Now some people will say that it is a power game - could be - then again it could be simply because mentally the child can no longer cope but because of the nature of their disability is unable to communicate the real problem.

 

I do not expect my response to be popular but having been there done that and worn the T Shirt sometimes there is more to it than we can see.

 

Cat

Thank you so much for your response as I see this is the way things are going. Mum will not strip the room bear and the child has had seizures in the past. Consequences do not mean anything and I fear the child will have a collapse if the :freak out: goes on.

Do you have any tips on how to calm someone down once they are in a full blown tantrum , hysteria.?

K.C.

[Suze]

Calming some one down after a full blown meltdown can be different for each individual.

.....for my son the least amount of involvement from me or anyone else the better.He is left in his room or in another room on his own again emngaging with him makes the situation 10 times worse , no one is allowed to bother him or make noise.This will take about 15-30mins, then I,ll go and tentatively see him.If he is in his room usually I,ll leave him to come out on his own.If we have to be somewhere like school etc, I,ll phone and let them know we,ll be late and I drive him in myself.This tends to happen a few times a month.

[baddad]

bumping this for CAT

 

[Cat]

Thanks for the bump baddad and it's not even my birthday

 

I agree with Suze here every child/person is different. I know that for sure as I have two of them. I think the important thing is not for the parent to learn how to calm the child down but for the child to learn how to calm themselves down and for the parent to learn to understand whatever that may be. That is not a cop out it is just that I know for sure that I can not calm either of my sons down they have to do that themselves. I can remove stressors etc which I know can make it worse for them but the calming down bit is down to them. My eldest also had seizures in the past and I know now that pushing too many buttons can act as a trigger.

 

What I do make clear is what I expect or will not tolerate even when they are having a meltdown. When my eldest started to meltdown we made it clear he was to go to his room because his room is geared to meet his needs. He needs time and space to blow and then cool off. He has found that head banging music helps him (does not quite have the same effect for us sadly it tends to wind me up so I need to find my own calming strategy ) I used to go to his room after a while to check on him and see if he had calmed down but that only made him blow again so now we have agreed that when he has clamed down he comes and seeks us out. It works much better for all of us because we know where we stand with each other now.

 

Our youngest also needs to be alone so that he can rant to himself but after a period of time he needs one of us to go to him because his meltdowns usually end in tears and he needs comforting. Again he knows that we wont have any physical violence or throwing things around when he is melting down - dad provided him with a kick board to kick the poo out of and that worked well for him.

 

We work though these things when they are both calm and try to find ways that they can handle their meltdowns - they do get better - when they occur. Better still we look for trigger points and try to avoid them.

 

Cat

Edited September 7, 2008 by Cat