We have determined that many of the problem behaviors we are seeing from Pookie lately can be traced back to a common theme. He needs to learn to deal with frustration and communicate his way through it.
Alot of his acting out is due to him feeling frustrated with something and either
1. not being able to get over it quickly
2. thinking we do not understand that he is frustrated
What makes him frustrated? Well, so far we know its:
1. wanting something he cannot have
2. wanting something he does not know how to ask for
We see alot of frustration when he is hungry or thirsty and does not seem to remember how to ask for a snack or drink. It makes him grumpy and he acts out in little ways like knocking over his Connect Four game or getting stuck on an echolalic phrase that has an undertone of anger (like his “I was NOT happy” from that Muppet Babies book.) We also see him harp on a certain thing over and over because he is frustrated with the outcome of a situation. For example, we kept him home from swimming lessons last Thursday because he seemed a little sick and tired. Turns out he was not so sick that he enjoyed missing swimming lessons. He was unhappy when he figured out that was where Geetle and BAGD were. So, he walked around the house asking me “Can we go to swimming lessons?” every 60 seconds, for about an hour and a half. When I stopped answering (after #3) he started answering for himself. “Can we go to swimming lessons? No, no swimming lessons today.” Then he started slamming doors and looking for things to tip over. This was the night he left the kitchen faucet on while I was in the basement folding laundry and I did not notice until water started dripping thru the basement ceiling. We have alot of laundry to fold.
We feel that if he could communicate little better he would be happier in these situations. Right now he is like the grumpy old man who complains that his coffee is too hot, over and over. And each time you give him a cup of coffee, he reminds you that it was too hot last time. So, you walk away and he keeps muttering under his breath about the damn hot coffee and God forbid a new sympathetic ear enters the room because he will start up on the hot coffee story all over again. And again.
That is what Pookie’s frustration is like. He gets it out, but he is not satisfied and it keeps coming and coming. Luckily, he does not act up physically. At least not much. Frustration had alot to do with the Giggles Pushing incidents, but those have ended, we hope for good. I am even willing to forgive the kitchen faucet incident because I think he got the idea from “Alvin and the Chipmunks” and might have just been acting out a favorite scene, not trying to be malicious…at least only malicious in a cartoon-violence-nothing-is-real sort of way.
We are going to try a sort of emotion poster, where he can point to a face showing the emotion and we will give him a written sentence starter like “I feel _________. I feel __________ because _____________.” We hope it will help.
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