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I am a mom of 2 boys, one typical and one with PDD-NOS.
Read my blog about raising a non-typical child in a typical world.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

brotherly drama=video game timeout

After breakfast, Bob and SJ were playing the Wii upstairs.  I was trying to exercise when the shouting began.  I tried to let it go initially, but it only got louder a few moments later.  I yelled up the stairs that they needed to "fight nicely" (something my one grandma used to always say to us!) or the video games would be turned off.  Mostly, I could only hear SJ's voice.  He was losing whatever game they were playing and he was getting mad that Bob was winning.  When his voice was getting to my loudness limit, I told him that if I heard one more shout from him he would be done with video games for an hour.  Not even 60 seconds later, SJ's siren started going off.  I told him to come downstairs and he would be losing the video games for an hour.  He was yelling no to me, but I started counting backwards from 5.  This is a very effective tool for SJ.  He made it downstairs when I had reached 2.  He was very mad at me and this was our conversation:

SJ:  You can't take video games away from me!
Me:  Yes, I can.  I am the Mom.
SJ:  But Bob was calling me a baby.
Me:  Even if Bob was calling you names, you need to control yourself.  Tell Bob to not call you names and come get me. 
SJ:  I get into a rampage when he calls me a loser.
Me:  Well, you can't get so mad over losing a video game.  All it is going to do is get you in trouble and you will lose a privilege. 
SJ (still crying):  But Bob never lets me win.
Me:  He doesn't have to let you win.  He wants to win too.  You just have to try your best and practice.  Pretty soon, you will beat him too.

I told him to go get some tissues and I turned on PBS.  We watched a kid's show while I finished my exercises.  Bob then came downstairs.  He told me that he didn't call SJ names, but SJ may have "misheard" him.  I told Bob that he should apologize to SJ and let him know he didn't call him names.  SJ said okay to Bob and we all continued to watch Sesame Street.  When the 60 minute time out was over, SJ didn't even want to continue to play video games.  They are still watching TV together.

2 comments:

  1. Do you buy tissues in bulk? (Ha Ha) I think it's great how SJ can verbalize his feelings--and using words like "rampage" is impressive.

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  2. I know..really. Maybe I should buy stock in Kleenex? I am glad that he expressing his emotions now verbally. The speech therapy is helping with that a ton!

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