Spilling Milk is Naughty.

I am sure I have written about this before, because this one goes waaaaaaay back. Pookie has always liked to spill milk. It all started about 2 years ago. He would spill his milk and then run for the naughty chair. He knew it was naughty, that is why he did it. He did it in situations where he was upset already and wanted us to know that. He did it when he had trouble communicating his anger and frustration with something. He got over it eventually.

Then, about 6 months ago, the fine folks at AT&T decided to run a series of commercials about their Wireless plan and its Roll-over minutes. You know the ones. The boys try to sell their old minutes at the garage sale and their mom freaks out. Well, there is one in which the Dad accidentally spills milk on the Rol-over Minutes and goes to throw them away. The Mom says “They’re Roll-Over Minutes and they’re perfectly good! That reminded Pookie how great it is to spill milk.

He has reintroduced this act as one of his pressure-valves. When he is worked up about anything, and there is a glass of milk nearby….he spills it. He does not have to be terribly angry, or angry about anything logical, for this to happen. On Friday morning, he spilled his milk within 60-90 seconds of me even noticing that he was angry about something at the breakfast table.

So, how often does Pookie spill milk? It varies, but its a few times a week. What happens when Pookie spills milk? Well, something like this: He gets angry or frustrated about any number of things (having to leave his toys and come to the table, the fact that we are not having Spaghetti, that Giggles cried, that Geetle took his toy hammer an hour ago, etc), not knowing how to express this, his little paw darts out and he dramatically pokes the cup so that it falls over. If it fails to fall over, he pokes it again. The cup must fall over, or the act is not complete. Even if milk spills, but the cup does not fall over, he must poke it again. Then he runs for the naghty chair and sits down, yelling the whole time. I go to the naughty chair and grab his arm, to lead him back to the table; I say nothing. I give him 3 kitchen towels. He wipes up the milk very thoroughly; I say nothing. He puts the towels in the sink; I say nothing. He comes back to the table, usually not yelling.

And its over.

We do not send him to the naughty chair. We do not yell. Why? Because that is what he wants. We have tried alot of things to break Pookie of certain habits. We have learned that the best way is to make him in charge of the situation and not to play into what responses he is seeking from us. We want him to find a way to express his anger or stress in a different way. But yelling at him when he does the milk spilling will not help. We tried that in the beginning. The only way, for Pookie anyway, is to figure out that this particular way of revlieving stress does not work. We also use this approach when he “runs away.”

His “running away” consists of him dangling one foot out of the front door and waiting for us to yell at him to get back inside. When we do not yell for him to come back inside, the episode is over much quicker and quieter. If we do tell him to come back, he yells, presumbably because we told him to come back, which was not what he wanted to do. If we let him “run away” but do not say anything, he had released his steam valve and returns to normal society alot quicker.

Its one of those things that we coulkd never have gotten out of an “Autism for Dummies” book. Its all about us observing what Pookie does and why. We also let him know that we are on to him. When he is grumpy at meal time and we suspect there is a milk spilling coming, we ask him “are you going to spill it or drink it” when we hand him his cup. Bless his heart, sometimes he tells the truth and says he is going to spill it. Then we tell him “spilling milk is naughty, and we will not give you any if you plan to spill it.” Other times, he says he will drink it, and he does. He rarely goes back on his word in these cases.

I am not saying that this would work for all children, but the moral of the story is universal. Know why they are misbehaving and deal with that issue, not the act of misbehaving itself.

Related posts:

1. I just gotta do it. Like I have said before, if you have the time...
2. My Naughty Pookie We have had some very good developments this week, and...
3. Naughty Baby! Let me take your picture. Then, get down from there! ...
4. The Slammer! Pookie has a new way to communicate his frustration and...
5. Morning Trouble Pookie used to be so good about getting going in...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.