One good obsession deserves another!
One of common behaviors associated with autism is repetitive, obsessive actions. We spend a lot of time each day redirecting Teagan who gets caught up in something. He can easily fall into a day of repetitive behavior...one after another and another, AND another. I am not going to lie - it gets on my last nerve from time to time. I often find myself saying "Teeeeaaagan, stop it". He laughs or ignores me...However, I stage an intervention mostly because his drive to do it does not fulfill a healthy need but rather a compulsive need that is not required to thrive. This behavior is counterproductive. Not to mention that this behavior is not socially acceptable. He will have to learn that he has to redirect himself to more productive behaviors. His obsessions are self stimulating, so finding alternatives are hard.
I spend a lot of time getting down to his eye level...looking him in the eyes and explaining why I am redirecting him. Having good eye contact is a struggle for Teagan so this is something we work on daily too. He has actually gotten a lot better- I mean ALOT. There was a time when Teagan would play with toys and I would sit across the room to see if he noticed me. There were days when I do not think Teagan even realized that we existed alongside him. You see, AutisicLand is not like DisneyLand, it does not have enough room for friends...just the child with autism. Kids like Teagan do not invite you into AutisicLand- you have to intrude in order not to lose them in AutisicLand. These days he does notice us more and more and when we make eye contact I smile and he smiles back- this is huge! I mean HUGE! He still visits AutisicLand, but he does not stay long.
Currently Teagan has two major obsessions. One requires us to have quick thinking and hiding abilities. He is obsessed with the iPhone! His first word every morning is "phone". We have lots of apps on the phone for him but he is drawn to "urban ninja" and "angry birds". He could play for hours if allowed. He actually is pretty good for his age. I am amazed at the eye hand coordination he has to make the ninja scale walls and break wooden boxes and the angry birds fly with the greatest of ease with Teagan behind the controls. Occasionally he likes to go to the reading apps or the letter/number apps. We never just "lay" our iPhones on the table because getting the phone from him requires great skill and he has to be in just the right mood to relinquish it. We started setting a timer for his time on the iPhone- sometimes it works...other times it's worse than an epic fail. This summer we were in Florida on vacation. In the house were 6 iPhones...each of which Teagan successfully sought out and confiscated each phone at least once during the stay. By the end of the week, hiding places were few and far between and the questions of the day were "have you seen my phone?" And "where's Teagan?"
Another fairly new obsession of Teagan's is automatic doors such as those at Walmart, Lowes etc. Imagine my intense fright the first time Teagan bolted from my side to activate the door and run out. Just on the other side of that door is a parking lot that he understands nothing about. Now each visit to a store is troublesome. His drive, his mission is to run in and out of the doors with no restraints. Again and again and again. It's an obsession, so once is never enough. It's tough because something within drives him to do it...a drive neither he or I understand. So once again we let him run in and out once and then usually have to carry him through the store crying as he whines "that way, that way" and points towards the door.
One of common behaviors associated with autism is repetitive, obsessive actions. We spend a lot of time each day redirecting Teagan who gets caught up in something. He can easily fall into a day of repetitive behavior...one after another and another, AND another. I am not going to lie - it gets on my last nerve from time to time. I often find myself saying "Teeeeaaagan, stop it". He laughs or ignores me...However, I stage an intervention mostly because his drive to do it does not fulfill a healthy need but rather a compulsive need that is not required to thrive. This behavior is counterproductive. Not to mention that this behavior is not socially acceptable. He will have to learn that he has to redirect himself to more productive behaviors. His obsessions are self stimulating, so finding alternatives are hard.
I spend a lot of time getting down to his eye level...looking him in the eyes and explaining why I am redirecting him. Having good eye contact is a struggle for Teagan so this is something we work on daily too. He has actually gotten a lot better- I mean ALOT. There was a time when Teagan would play with toys and I would sit across the room to see if he noticed me. There were days when I do not think Teagan even realized that we existed alongside him. You see, AutisicLand is not like DisneyLand, it does not have enough room for friends...just the child with autism. Kids like Teagan do not invite you into AutisicLand- you have to intrude in order not to lose them in AutisicLand. These days he does notice us more and more and when we make eye contact I smile and he smiles back- this is huge! I mean HUGE! He still visits AutisicLand, but he does not stay long.
Currently Teagan has two major obsessions. One requires us to have quick thinking and hiding abilities. He is obsessed with the iPhone! His first word every morning is "phone". We have lots of apps on the phone for him but he is drawn to "urban ninja" and "angry birds". He could play for hours if allowed. He actually is pretty good for his age. I am amazed at the eye hand coordination he has to make the ninja scale walls and break wooden boxes and the angry birds fly with the greatest of ease with Teagan behind the controls. Occasionally he likes to go to the reading apps or the letter/number apps. We never just "lay" our iPhones on the table because getting the phone from him requires great skill and he has to be in just the right mood to relinquish it. We started setting a timer for his time on the iPhone- sometimes it works...other times it's worse than an epic fail. This summer we were in Florida on vacation. In the house were 6 iPhones...each of which Teagan successfully sought out and confiscated each phone at least once during the stay. By the end of the week, hiding places were few and far between and the questions of the day were "have you seen my phone?" And "where's Teagan?"
Another fairly new obsession of Teagan's is automatic doors such as those at Walmart, Lowes etc. Imagine my intense fright the first time Teagan bolted from my side to activate the door and run out. Just on the other side of that door is a parking lot that he understands nothing about. Now each visit to a store is troublesome. His drive, his mission is to run in and out of the doors with no restraints. Again and again and again. It's an obsession, so once is never enough. It's tough because something within drives him to do it...a drive neither he or I understand. So once again we let him run in and out once and then usually have to carry him through the store crying as he whines "that way, that way" and points towards the door.
Now if you thought 2 obsessions were enough...Teagan disagrees! The third one is stimming- and it's a charm (insert sarcastic tone here). Oh how I hate that word! Bleh! Stimming usually associated with autism refers to repetitive behaviors such as flapping, rocking, spinning, or repetition of words and phrases. Teagan flaps his hands occasionally. He hardly ever rocks...and never spins. But he does have a repetitive language- we have named Teaganese. He actual sounds like one of the yellow minions on the movie "Despicable Me". Teagan's sentences consist of similar sounds (that are gibberish) followed by one or two real words. An example: "Bebebebebebe drink milk" Now the stimming might sound strange, but actually stimming is common to all humans. You probably even stim at times. If you've ever tapped your pen, chewed on your nails, twirled your hair, you've stimmed. The biggest differences between autistic and typical stimming are the type of stimming and the quantity of stimming. While socially we accept nail biting to an extent, if someone next to you in an airplane began flapping your hands...you might be uncomfortable with their behavior. Generally, autistic stimming has a negative connotation in our society. Teagan's common stims are moving his hands in front of his face....watching his fingers wiggle and making a growling sounds and airplane sounds....mind you he does this at home AND in public. The sound effect stim he does is actually pretty cool. He might be the next Michael Winslow (the sound effect guy who was in the movie "Police Academy")
Like any other human, individuals with autism will stim to self regulate. It helps us manage feelings, such as anxiety, fear or frustration. "Normal" people can self regulate with breathing, self talk, sleeping, relaxing, shutting their eyes, but a child with autism does not have this self regulation control in their brain or at least it does not function as it should.
Danny and I always thought that Teagan's stimming in public was OBVIOUS and a big sign to everyone that he has autism. At first it was uncomfortable for us, since if someone notices his "autistic" behavior they might start to have negative thoughts about him without giving us the opportunity to say " Teagan is autistic but he is smart, funny, loving, and overall a JOY to our lives--we LOVE him!" We have realize that explaining his behavior away does not change him, the autism, or the other person- not to mention we never get an opportunity to explain- ever. In passing one day, Danny said "next time Teagan growls in public, I'm going to growl back". Of course, I laughed and thought- yea right. Well days later while waiting on Tristan's soccer team to take the field, Teagan let out a growl. And then so did Danny. I looked at him, him at me. And we laughed out loud. Ironically, no one paid any attention to Teagan or Danny. Or maybe those who noticed were quite shocked that beside them stood a growling man and his toddler. I still laugh about this.
Maybe Teagan's stereotypical autistic behaviors were not as obvious as we had thought and even if they are...We have decided not to care.
2 comments:
Cute photo.
The thing to remember is "Autismland" has the same rules as "Wonderland." Just do as Alice did and don't try to control Everything around you. When she found out the difference, she
made it through "Wonderland".
Amazed at how quickly I fell in love with this family! So glad to share part of your world! :D
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