Wednesday, October 24, 2007

The Horrors of Homework

My son has lost it. And not his homework. He has lost IT. His ability to function. His ability to speak nicely. His ability to set a goal and achieve it peacefully. His ability to get his homework done.

Monday - 4.45 hours of battling
Tuesday 2.45 hours of battling
Wednesday 1.45 hours of battling

His homework should/is designed to take him 45 minutes.

Do you see the pattern though? When I tried praising him on Tuesday for at least making an improvement in how much less time he spent arguing and he was in the right direction (hey - gotta look for the positive where ever you can find it, right?!?) he noticed the pattern - cut in half. So today he was bound and determined to take an hour extra. Because now it's about patterns and completing the pattern. Ugh.

But these meltdowns. I don't want to do homework. My hand hurts. I don't like homework. It's too hard. I want to play outside. I want PlayStation. You're mean. You're not fair. The yelling, the throwing things. The stomping. The excessive fidgeting and wiggling. The increased stemming and echolia when not arguing, having a meltdown or actually doing his homework.

I am so worn out by the time it's bedtime (although I wish it were the same for him!)!
Some of this is age, some developmental, some power battle/seeing what he can get away with, some Asperger. Such a complicated mix.

I won the contest over at Discussing Autism and received the Self-Calming Cards. I need to introduce them first. Teaching a new strategy isn't usually the best in the moment of escalation. It'll only lead to more frustration. But we were busy this past weekend and I didn't have time. But tonight he was fairly calm after finishing his homework, Tae Kwon Do and a nice, long shower. We started working on the cards. He likes them. It'll take some practice to use them without prompting. They're exactly what we needed - some new tricks to put in our bag of tricks.

1 comment:

Toni said...

Sorry you are having a rough time. I hope the cards become helpful very quickly.

Not that you need this now, so no worries if you don't do it but I tagged you for a meme.

Here's hoping for a better day today!