Scared she will hurt herself proper

[lindy-lou]

India has problems with danger and safety awareness and we regularly have to stop her from darting into the path of oncoming traffic etc,she likes to jump from the stairs and i managed to convince her not to do it unless there was someone to catch her,Last week i had my radiators on very hot to dry some clothes and she got told dont touch the radiators as they are very hot,so..she had to find out wether that was right and put her hands on them,Last night we had family over and she was jumping on the sofa,my Brother in law said "dont jump off the sofa india,you will hurt yourself" so what did she do...

 

Launched herself off the sofa and straight into the coffee table she cut her eye and chin and given her overreaction to pain,although it must have been pretty sore i imagine,we had hysteria for an hour

 

I am so scared she is going to do something to really injure herself,any tips on what i should do?i have used books about safety and accidents but dont seem to make any difference to her.

[lisann]

Not got any advise but can totaly understand where you are coming for I think it's the magic words

"don't do that" and they just do the opposite.We try to take Char away from the situation now by distracting him onto something else.We also try to not to say not to do something instead we say shall we do this insteed if that makes sence.We have opposite problem with Char he has very little sence of pain and can hurt himself and go back and do it again and again..

 

Hope this helps

 

lisa x

[shell]

my s loves to stand on the outside of the upstairs window and talk to people as they walk down the street when i told him that this is dangerous he just looked at me and said no it's not coz if i fall my forcefield will save me after talking to the doctors about this i was told that for every time you tell a NT child s would have to be told 100

not much of a help but if you are persistent it might work also i told s that i would put him back on baby reigns i know you can get them for bigger children

[lindy-lou]

thanks for your replies,I dont know if i can do anything about this but it is worrying,as well as the lack of danger awareness,she seems to have absolutley no understanding of consequence at all,for example most nearly 4 year olds would deny something they had done if they knew they would get into trouble for it,but she just admits it freely,no idea about telling lies,she just sees no reason not to tell the truth,which is good i suppose but not at the same time because i know that its not right if you know what i mean.

[LizK]

Adam is the same and it worries me especially with traffic as he has little road sense. We've had a couple of incicdents in the past where we've been ver ylucky he's not been run over. He only seems to learn from experience. As a baby he only learned to get off our bed backwards after he had crawled of it several times and taken a dive! He learned not to touch the hot taps in the bath but doing so when the water was too hot. Telling him seems to make no difference. Unfortunately with roads you can't really learn from experience the same way.

 

Have you tried social stories with India? I'm going to make one about traffic to see if I can get through to Adam better. We otherwise just try to keep reinforcing that moving cars are dangerous and could hurt him and he's sort of got that concept in the abstract. Took nearly two years to get that through to him though.

 

I think 'don't do ...' is red rag to a bull with all preschoolers but especially kids like ours. May be trying to phrase it more positively telling her what to do 'keep hands on your tummy' rather than what not to do 'don't touch radiator' and then distraction might help too

 

Lx

[DaisyProudfoot]

Can I just say the words "don't do" do not work with AS kids because as far as they are concerned they are already "doing" it so you can't tell them "don't do" when it's pretty obvious you are "doing" it. You have to say STOP doing instead. That way they know the "doing" has become a "not doing".

 

If you get my meaning. Believe me it works.

[Brook]

If my son is jumping around on the settee or whatever, I find it's best to tell him what he should be

doing instead of what he shouldn't be doing, I say to him 'sit on the settee', rather than 'stop jumping'

When out and about I also find it's best to tell him to 'walk next to me' rather than dont walk on the edge

of the pavement etc... It's not easy to remember to do this, I know only too well, especially when you

are in a situation that could put them in danger, you tend to blurt the first thing that comes to mind.

This is something that I have to pick myself up on sometimes, I've said things like 'dont run' when I

should have said 'walk', and my son does tend to respond this way, he finds it more direct and

straightforward. Now dont get me wrong, I'm no do-gooder and sometimes he completely ignores me.

 

Brook

Edited April 14, 2006 by Brook

[elaine1]

<'> I know its hard but try not to point out the dangers for her, saying no dont do that makes her want to try it. She might learn by her own mistakes.

obviously if its very dangerous then step in but otherwise leave her to work it out.

hope this helps

[lil_me]

The others are right on this one, our little special people understand these warnings a bit differently sometimes, making dangers a tricky one. I find it much better to make things like this into Do's than Don't.

With road safety my sons instructions are stop, look both ways, twice, and if there is a car coming wait, if its clear to walk across. (no mention of don't run etc) However in meltdown or if something catches his eye I have as much chance of him taking any notice of the roads as I do of getting my DP to cook I sometimes feel like Hitler when talking to my son if we're outdoors like just shouting 'Stop' 'Wait' etc but too much language confuses him.

[palgem]

hi

 

everyone else has basically hit the nail on the head . its got to be simple to much info and they can,t cope or they switch off . stuart is the exact mirror image as r most i would guess u need eyes in the back of your head . we r attending a behavoiur managenent course and someone suggested carrying cards in your pocket like a football ref for when u r out so u don,t have to raise your voice so much and have clear consiquenes for when they r received [ie loss of tv ps2 ect ] the child then knows this is a rule and asd kids love and know the rules to everthing so it can work for most but as usuall not all .

i think this is a major problem for us all and as with everthing else you have to make huge ajustments to the ways of approaching and tackeling the problem.

goodluck and everyones here if u need us

 

 

bye for now paul dad to stuart aged 8 dx aspergers

[lindy-lou]

yes thanks to everyone,i am going to try the positive reinforcement message,like you say telling her "dont" is like a red rag to a bull,hopefully we shall less injuries!