My Son wants to make his own punishments and rules for himself. What would you suggest we should do?
July 6th, 2009
The Autism News | English
From Jimmy Allford
My son is 11 yrs. and has Aspergers. Our problem is that he wants to make his own punishments and rules for himself. Is latest request was to take away SPORE for a month so I decided to. Since that time, about a week, his behavior been worse and he still wants to make his own rules. I said, No Way, we are the parents, not you. I worry about this issue when he starts high school in 7th grade. He is spolied to a point! What would you suggest we should do? Peace, Jim
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Tina Loughton at 7:57am July 6
i have been here, what i did was ask my children to write down what they thought were appropriate punishments and rules and i did the same, then we all sat down and discussed and compramised on them, for me it has worked really well, the children bar the 2 youngest do stick to them for the simple fact they were included in the making of them.
Gretchen Dorothy Morgan at 8:04am July 6
this is/ has been an issue for a long time in my house too. just like any 11 yr old he can have input as to the consequences but giving him 100% free reign on it is not a good idea.
Melanie Bee at 8:06am July 6
Wish I could offer advise to you, but we have the same problem with a 13 year old aspy girl. She does not develop her own rules as much as she wants and begs for punishment…and when we tell her we are going to think about her punishment she starts spouting off things for us to punish her with. It is frustrating because we are unable to curve her … Read More
William Robert Rinard at 10:16am July 6
Read a book called 3-2-1 magic. Its pretty good. My wife and i r going to implement it. It was recimended by the melmed center.
Mellissa Lee at 10:41am July 6
I think its a good idea as long as there resonable.Tell him you get to make some of your own too.
Candy Gill-Knickerbocker at 11:52am July 6
I think Tina has the right idea. Allowing your child to have some control over their rules and punishments is OK as long as you don’t hand the task completely over. A child is more likely to follow the rules if they were included in the making of them. And, they are less likely to feel a punishment is unfair if they were allowed input. I have done this with my 14 y/o aspie and it has worked well. We have also developed written contracts for specific chores that he knows he must do on a weekly basis. This has helped in establishing the routine and in giving me some “teeth” in enforcing the rules.
Dee Carrick at 3:07pm July 6
My son and I have had success with written contracts. We both work on them and both sign.
I am not an expert, but if an autistic child picks their own punishment,you can be pretty sure that they already know that this is gonna affect them, but they have learned to deal with the feelings of that particular punishment. my granddaughter adapts to punishments quickly and they just become a rule to her, she is good at following rules, if she does something wrong, she will automatically apply the punishment that was given to her before. example: it she keeps putting her hands in the fish tank, and keeps getting time outs for it. she will automatically put herself on time out when she is caught doing it. she dislikes time outs and will cry, but accepts that as her punishment for putting her hands in the fish tank. she rarely messes with the fish tank any more, when she goes to it and looks at it, she says, “bye bye time out” and walks away. I don’t know that this helps any but hopefully its a little added insight