How can i get my ASD son to willingly change bedrooms???

[sonj186]

Hi all,

ive not posted for a while as things have been quite calm around here BUT i now have an issue! Im expecting my second child at the start of november, Cam will be almost 9 when he/she is born! at present Cams room is the wee bedroom and the spare room is at least 3 times bigger! ideally we would like Cam to move into the bigger room as he is getting older and will need the extra space! we are trying to sort this out with him asap as we don't want him to think the baby has pinched his room! we would like him settled before he/she is born, BUT he is resisting! ive bought a memory foam mattress for the spare room as he has always wanted one and we have said he can help pick colours (as its pink and lilac at the mo) and we have said we will put i tv up on the wall for him, BUT he is still not interested! i've let it go for now as i dont want to make it too much of an issue and stress him out but i just dont know what to try next!

Can anyone suggest anything i could try?

 

sonj x

[baddad]

Hi all,

ive not posted for a while as things have been quite calm around here BUT i now have an issue! Im expecting my second child at the start of november, Cam will be almost 9 when he/she is born! at present Cams room is the wee bedroom and the spare room is at least 3 times bigger! ideally we would like Cam to move into the bigger room as he is getting older and will need the extra space! we are trying to sort this out with him asap as we don't want him to think the baby has pinched his room! we would like him settled before he/she is born, BUT he is resisting! ive bought a memory foam mattress for the spare room as he has always wanted one and we have said he can help pick colours (as its pink and lilac at the mo) and we have said we will put i tv up on the wall for him, BUT he is still not interested! i've let it go for now as i dont want to make it too much of an issue and stress him out but i just dont know what to try next!

Can anyone suggest anything i could try?

 

sonj x

 

I'd give reverse psychology a go. Just drop the whole subject for a few days and then start having conversations between yourselves (overlooking that Cam's in earshot) about decorating the 'big room' for the baby, and how much he/she will love it when he/she gets to toddling and exploring and having the space for a lovely big tv to watch telly-tubbies and c-beebies on and all the toys that'll fit in there and what colour's do you think the baby would like or shall we keep it pink in case we get a girl and......

 

If you get it just right you'll have Cam insisting 'older brother's rights' and claiming the room for himself in no time. Then you can tell him, 'no, you had you chance but didn't want it so we've planned it all now' etc for a few days and then you can negotiate with him, offering the 'big room' as a reward for good behaviour. Again, play it right and you'll probably be able to get at least a couple of weeks of mileage out of it as a reward/incentive for positive behaviours.

 

The position you are in at the moment you're unlikely to find any direct incentive that will 'work' and the more you push it the more he will dig his heels in. He'll also probably play it for all it's worth (what's the damage so far - memory foam mattress / flatscreen TV...?)

 

If nowt else works (including the reverse psychology above) just stop negotiating all together and tell him he can like it or lump it - at nine, it's really not his decision to make however much he likes to think it is. He's likely to feel pushed out by the baby anyway if he's had you to himself for nine years and the bedroom's not going to change that one way or the other.

 

HTH

 

L&P

 

BD

[darkshine]

I wonder if you are planning on moving in a few years? If not the new baby will grow and you'll have the same problem... If the other advice given doesn't work, would it really matter if he is so attached to his room and stays there? And if you are moving then this situation could be resolved then instead? Life shouldn't be about a bedroom, from someone who virtually lives in one the whole time, I'd say that the amount of time spent in the bedroom should not be the majority of the day, in which case and assuming your son uses the rest of the house, does it matter if his room is on the small side?

[Lynden]

I'd go with Baddads idea of reverse psychology, but if it doesn't work easily then I'd be inclined to just leave him in the room he is happy with. I know it seems to make sense to have the baby in the smaller room but if he's really happy there there is no real reason that he has to have the bigger room and the baby the smaller one.

 

My daughter is a year older than L, but we've always let her have the bigger room as being NT she has lots of friends over to play etc and they go to her room to have peace and quiet. L doesn't have friends over and only goes to his room to sleep or occasionally to watch a DVD but he's mostly in the family room.

 

Lynne

Edited May 28, 2011 by Lynden

[sonj186]

Thanks for your replies, we are trying the reverse psychology route (thanks Baddad) and if we have no luck with that we will just leave him in the wee room, i understand life's not about bedroom size, but i honestly feel he would benefit from being in the bigger room, but small changes for me are massive changes for him so i wont push it.

sonj

[ISABELLA27]

Hi, I just wanted let you know what I did with my son, which so far seems to be working. I took some advice from a specialist at our local Autistic/Aspergers Centre, who said that ASD children have to get used to change. I have ASD myself and was never given choices, I was just told to do it. With my son, I can't take such a hardnosed approach, as I remember how difficult it was for me. What I did do when I decided he had to swap rooms with his younger sister, is that I painted the new room in exactly the same colour, and when he was out swapped everything except for his bed and his cuddly toys. He now plays in his new room, but hasn't slept in it yet. I'm waiting for him to be ready to sleep in his new bedroom and haven't raised the issue with him, so there is no pressure. He may never sleep in his new room, but it means he will have to share his sleeping quarters with his younger sister (6 year age gap). For me, I'm glad now that I wasn't given choices, it would have been too difficult for me moving house, bedrooms, but it gave me the skills to challenge myself when I became older. I lived abroad for a year, did a degree, had children, all of which terrified me, but I knew I had the strength to do these things. Maybe I'm not doing the right thing for my child but I know that he is going to face changes all his life, so I want to break them to him slowly. Good luck, and hope that it all works out. I also have a NT child, and how all so difficult it is.

 

Kind regards

Isabella

[The Doctor]

I think ISABELLA27 has a good idea. Move his stuff in the room, like the TV and do the colours like his old room, see if he is comfortable with it.

 

I have Aspergers and so does my youngest brother.

 

I'm strongly obsessed with Doctor Who and I had a middle sized room and there was hardly any room for me to sleep because I had so much Doctor Who stuff. So I needed a bigger room just for that. I now have my own flat and there is Doctor Who stuff in EVERY room.

 

My brother has the smallest room. It has his bed with a pullout desk and some draws. (that his playstaion and tv sit on) That's it. That's all he wants. Like me he has no friends so doesn't need the room for friends coming round.

 

If your son has an obsession like mine with Doctor Who then you could get loads of that to go in his new room. If not it will probably be best to leave him in the little room and give baby the big room.

 

If baby turns out NT then they will probably like the bigger room as they will have friends round to play etc

[baddad]

Hi, I just wanted let you know what I did with my son, which so far seems to be working. I took some advice from a specialist at our local Autistic/Aspergers Centre, who said that ASD children have to get used to change. I have ASD myself and was never given choices, I was just told to do it. With my son, I can't take such a hardnosed approach, as I remember how difficult it was for me. What I did do when I decided he had to swap rooms with his younger sister, is that I painted the new room in exactly the same colour, and when he was out swapped everything except for his bed and his cuddly toys. He now plays in his new room, but hasn't slept in it yet. I'm waiting for him to be ready to sleep in his new bedroom and haven't raised the issue with him, so there is no pressure. He may never sleep in his new room, but it means he will have to share his sleeping quarters with his younger sister (6 year age gap). For me, I'm glad now that I wasn't given choices, it would have been too difficult for me moving house, bedrooms, but it gave me the skills to challenge myself when I became older. I lived abroad for a year, did a degree, had children, all of which terrified me, but I knew I had the strength to do these things. Maybe I'm not doing the right thing for my child but I know that he is going to face changes all his life, so I want to break them to him slowly. Good luck, and hope that it all works out. I also have a NT child, and how all so difficult it is.

 

Kind regards

Isabella

 

Id agree - children with Aspergers have to get used to change... just like children who haven't got aspergers. Being told what to do when you're a child can be hard to accept whether you have aspergers or not, but it is part of being a child to have adults make sensible decisions on your behalf because as a child you are not capable of making adult decisions yourself; if you were, you would be an adult. I think you're absolutely right when you say you're glad now that you weren't given choices (or as I would put it, weren't expected to make adult decisions for yourself when you were too immature/emotionally incapable to do so), and it's great that you acknowledge all of the benefits you gained from those experiences, but i think your logic is flawed when you say you want to protect your child from experiencing that learning curve by breaking things to him slowly... you are just delaying the inevitable, and if you accept the general psychological tenet of childhood development being the blueprint of the adult (or as the jesuits put it, 'give me a child until the age of seven and I will give you the man') the long term implications can only be negative rather than positive. I do know that's not what specialists tend to say these days, but i do think that autism has developed almost uniquely in professional understanding as a disability where 'can't do' thinking has replaced the 'can do' that is applied to most other disabilities. The result of that, IMO (as someone who's been observing autism and working with autistic people for almost 25 years), is that over the past decade or so many autistic children have actually been further disabled by responses to their condition rather than supported in reaching their full potential.

I hope you'll appreciate I'm not 'having a go' at you or anyone else, and in the wider 'NT' context too I think the boundaries between parent and child have become blurred and that many children are affected negatively by that 'blurring'. I think every parent wants to be their child's best friend and I guess when we live in a society where single parenting is becoming more common there are new pressures on parents to feel they need to fulfil that role; but to paraphrase Ros Blackburn says (see below!) if we aren't prepared to nudge them out of their comfort zones who else is going to?

Coming back to the OP - I did mean to include in my original reply the very good piece of advice offered by Lynden - if the reverse psychology doesn't work and he really doesn't want to make the move just leave him in the small room! But in a situation where you really do need to make a change I think there's only so much you should do to pursuade the child, and once you reach that point it's time for them to experience that other great universal lesson and truth (an immensely valuable one, BTW) that sometimes, whether you like it or not, you just have to lump it!

 

L&P

 

BD