Things are still good!
Well, with the exception of a little sleep deprivation and the annoyance of waking up in the middle of the night that comes with it, all is still well over here! Our little girl is simply so easy. So peaceful. And it's so nice to have that balancing out all the crazy and busy that is our life around here! Zach is still in love with her, wanting to hold and kiss her a lot. He's not moved past that to trying to pick her up or be rough with her or anything, thank goodness. So it's a nice balance of love and attention for/to her on his part. I couldn't be more pleased with the way that he's adapted to her being here.
Zachary has still been trucking along in terms of speech gain. And he's really making great strides in the area of "using his words" around other people he's not familiar with. That is a big step. In general he's never really talked much around others. It's not a shy thing, it's a social thing - which is very much a part of Autism. So hearing him say things TO someone he doesn't know, or even in the presence of someone else but not even to them is a big step for him. He's just more aware that other people are around him now and that it's not scary to talk to them! Good stuff.
As for the potty issue - we're still undergoing that long, long, long battle with him. We've been at this over a YEAR now, and at times it's all we can do to not completely lose it when he has an "accident", which I use loosely as it's not really accidental, just part of his routine. He will go weeks without urinating in his pants, and then suddenly we'll have days of it. For no reason. No change in schedule, nothing out of the ordinary. He just stops holding it. He's never initiated as I've said here before, but he'd at least hold it until someone told him to go potty, or took him after a few hours. And that is called schedule trained - which is fine for now. Any school teacher could be told to take him every 2-3 hours. No biggie. But it is a problem when he's not holding it any more. For no reason. That's the annoyance. And then the poop issue is a whole other ordeal. He's been letting out the littlest "nugget" in his underwear and will just hold it there in his cheeks until he gets caught. Then MOST of the time he'll finish on the potty when we make him. And that's a fight in and of itself. But every once in a blue moon he will go on his own. Or tell someone that he needs help. But all the other times are frustrating. Having to go through the same thing over and over for over a year with him is about to do us in! He KNOWS for sure what to do in the potty. He understands the whole process. And this is not about the new baby in the house, as it's been going on for a long time before I even had a belly and he knew about the baby coming.
So what do we do? We've tried every method possible behaviorally from time outs/taking away toys/disciplining to rewards/sticker charts/keeping everything positive to ignoring and just cleaning him up without making a big deal of it. Those last two are so very hard to do after one whole year of this. So we've exhausted all the techniques we can think of. The thing is that he knows what to do. And he can and has done it on his own before. So this is either a medical problem, or a behavioral one. The professionals that I've reached out to that know him all feel that it is solely behavioral, since Zach is not a child that would have his ability to understand the potty process clouded by his Autism diagnosis. He's not mentally out there or lacking the verbal ability, which would be good excuses. He's totally understanding what is asked of him.
So now what? Who knows. We'll just keep doing what we are doing and hope that this fixes itself with time. But the scare here is that his "typical" Pre-K class starts in a few weeks. It's 5 days a week and they will have 15 other fully potty trained kids in there. And then Zach. I'm not sure how long his potty issues will be tolerated. We had him placed in the class with the teacher everyone feels is most likely to bring success from Zach. She's been at this a long time and has had special needs kiddos in her class in the past. So I'm going to cross my fingers that she will be tolerant. And maybe she will be the magic cure! Who knows, it could happen! I just know that I have enough worries about his fitting in and doing well in a normal class with no aide, and having overall confidence, happiness and making friends - that it pains me to have him with this potty issue as well. I just pray that this will go away soon. The absolute last thing that we need is for him to be kicked out of that class that is going to do WONDERS for him, because he's 4 1/2 and still pees and semi-poops in his underwear... Time will tell...
But not to end on a bad note - I will say that we are just so proud of our little man. He's truly, truly doing so well in every area of his life except for the potty. He's surprised us all (therapists included) with the gains he's made continually, and he's so easy going and happy. And he better be thankful for that, as without his cute smile and happy demeanor, I think he'd be dead after a year of dirty underwear :-)
Zachary has still been trucking along in terms of speech gain. And he's really making great strides in the area of "using his words" around other people he's not familiar with. That is a big step. In general he's never really talked much around others. It's not a shy thing, it's a social thing - which is very much a part of Autism. So hearing him say things TO someone he doesn't know, or even in the presence of someone else but not even to them is a big step for him. He's just more aware that other people are around him now and that it's not scary to talk to them! Good stuff.
As for the potty issue - we're still undergoing that long, long, long battle with him. We've been at this over a YEAR now, and at times it's all we can do to not completely lose it when he has an "accident", which I use loosely as it's not really accidental, just part of his routine. He will go weeks without urinating in his pants, and then suddenly we'll have days of it. For no reason. No change in schedule, nothing out of the ordinary. He just stops holding it. He's never initiated as I've said here before, but he'd at least hold it until someone told him to go potty, or took him after a few hours. And that is called schedule trained - which is fine for now. Any school teacher could be told to take him every 2-3 hours. No biggie. But it is a problem when he's not holding it any more. For no reason. That's the annoyance. And then the poop issue is a whole other ordeal. He's been letting out the littlest "nugget" in his underwear and will just hold it there in his cheeks until he gets caught. Then MOST of the time he'll finish on the potty when we make him. And that's a fight in and of itself. But every once in a blue moon he will go on his own. Or tell someone that he needs help. But all the other times are frustrating. Having to go through the same thing over and over for over a year with him is about to do us in! He KNOWS for sure what to do in the potty. He understands the whole process. And this is not about the new baby in the house, as it's been going on for a long time before I even had a belly and he knew about the baby coming.
So what do we do? We've tried every method possible behaviorally from time outs/taking away toys/disciplining to rewards/sticker charts/keeping everything positive to ignoring and just cleaning him up without making a big deal of it. Those last two are so very hard to do after one whole year of this. So we've exhausted all the techniques we can think of. The thing is that he knows what to do. And he can and has done it on his own before. So this is either a medical problem, or a behavioral one. The professionals that I've reached out to that know him all feel that it is solely behavioral, since Zach is not a child that would have his ability to understand the potty process clouded by his Autism diagnosis. He's not mentally out there or lacking the verbal ability, which would be good excuses. He's totally understanding what is asked of him.
So now what? Who knows. We'll just keep doing what we are doing and hope that this fixes itself with time. But the scare here is that his "typical" Pre-K class starts in a few weeks. It's 5 days a week and they will have 15 other fully potty trained kids in there. And then Zach. I'm not sure how long his potty issues will be tolerated. We had him placed in the class with the teacher everyone feels is most likely to bring success from Zach. She's been at this a long time and has had special needs kiddos in her class in the past. So I'm going to cross my fingers that she will be tolerant. And maybe she will be the magic cure! Who knows, it could happen! I just know that I have enough worries about his fitting in and doing well in a normal class with no aide, and having overall confidence, happiness and making friends - that it pains me to have him with this potty issue as well. I just pray that this will go away soon. The absolute last thing that we need is for him to be kicked out of that class that is going to do WONDERS for him, because he's 4 1/2 and still pees and semi-poops in his underwear... Time will tell...
But not to end on a bad note - I will say that we are just so proud of our little man. He's truly, truly doing so well in every area of his life except for the potty. He's surprised us all (therapists included) with the gains he's made continually, and he's so easy going and happy. And he better be thankful for that, as without his cute smile and happy demeanor, I think he'd be dead after a year of dirty underwear :-)
posted by Team Zachary | 5:01 AM
2 Comments:
I certainly haven't crossed any potty training bridges yet, and this is probably a very unpopular answer and maybe not appropriate. (I don't know any better yet, so don't hold what I'm going to say against me.) It sounds like you've tried all the reward aspects of potty training. What if it's time to go to a punishment philosophy and actually give him time out or something when he goes. I only say that because you say he knows better and that these aren't truly accidents anymore. If he was swearing at you and knew better, you wouldn't reward him when he doesn't swear, you would punish him when he does.
Just a thought...feel free to ignore the new mother. I'm certainly not qualified to give advice on this. I'm just brainstorming here.
Glad things are going well with Katie.
Oops. Someone should teach me to read. You did say in there that you've tried time outs and punishment. My bad. Well gosh then...I don't have anything to suggest except patience.
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