POSITIVE BEHAVIOR INTERVENTIONS/PRAYING FOR GRACE ALL OVER THE PLACE

Fortunately, there is a new category for those dealing with kids with autism, and it's a category that we all can learn from. It's called Positive Behavior Interventions.

What it means is that when you have kids with behavior problems, you use positive strategies and language to decrease unwanted behavior and increase desirable behavior...here are some of the basics; taught to me by patient special education teachers (Betsy), awesome psychologists (Janet), you know, those types....

1. Never use the negative in your instructions...always use the positive (Betsy)
Don't scream...."NO don't run!!"....scream, "Walk" and then "Yay! Great Walking!"

2. Take the undesirable behavior (such as spitting on windows, running away in parking lots, making tiny crumbs out of food substances, peeing in public places, falling to the floor to tap the shiny surface of the tiles, spitting water 4 feet high in the baby pool (ick), grabbing the food of others...uh-oh, is this getting too personal?) and find an ACCEPTABLE OUTLET THAT SATISFIES THIS NEED.....like...let's see...ok, you CAN spit in the bathtub......and you CAN make crumbs out of the green onions...so that we can cook with it...and you CAN tap on this Bongo drum, rather than so many other surfaces...and you CAN use this spray bottle to "wash" the windows and piano rather than spit on them...and give loads of praise for these alternatives.

3. You may need to take some sort of anti-anxiety drug or "patience" drug to help you be more effective in these Positive Behavior Interventions.

4. It might be a good idea if your relatives or friends give you some "down time" so that you can MAINTAIN your positive behavior intervention approach.

5. You will need to have some sisters who can just laugh their asses off at all of it.

Here are some situations to consider:

1. You have gone to a restaurant and gone to the bathroom, leaving the behavior of your child to a relative (No Mary, this is not about you...not everything is about YOU!)....you come back and on the table is a PILE OF CRUMBS THE SIZE OF THE EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS.....In order to do a POSITIVE BEHAVIOR INTERVENTION at this time, you need to be able to say: 1. All done with crumbs....clean up crumbs 2. physically prompt your child to clean up the crumbs and then say 3. good job cleaning up crumbs....chips are for EATING!! (remember, no NOS, no DON'TS, and no NOTS....)

2. You are at the pool and your child is getting in the babypool and spitting the water in 5-foot-high streams...you....A)remove your child from the pool? B) Scream bloody murder? C) Pray for grace??? Uh-oh, I'm sensing some frustration here. Breathe?

3. Let's see now...you go to a Mall, and your child falls on the floor to tap the floor, testing the sound and quality of its "tappiness"...do you A) Scream bloody murder and run out of the mall? B) Praise your child for the quality of his tapping on the mall floor? or C) Tell him that the mall floor is dirty, to please stand up, and wash his hands....Where? Do You Have Sanitizer? Well, aren't you just the perfect parent....well, then use it, for Christ's Sake!! OK, chill dude.

4. Ok, there's a great show at the Circus and you are parking in the lower part of the deck....you get out of the car and your child completely freaks out....bites the heck out of his hands and wrists and shows EXTREME ANXIETY AND SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR in this situation...you really, really, want to go to this show. What will you do? A)Put him in a stroller with an anemone which you know will calm him down-even though he's 6 and folks will stare B) Drag him kicking and screaming through the parking deck C) Run off and pretend you don't know him. D) Bite your own wrists and put yourself in the stroller and demand that he push you?

My sisters laugh at all my efforts at POSITIVE BEHAVIOR INTERVENTION....I walk into the kitchen and there's honey everywhere, I scream, "HONEY is for EATING! CLEAN UP HONEY!" We briefly wet paper towels and "clean honey" and he happily goes on his way...I go into the laundry room...it's flooded and there is soap everywhere, I think "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!" but I yell, "The washine machine is for washing clothes!!! Clean UP!"
Sometimes I fail at Positive Behavior Intervention....Tommy peed outside of the principal's office again the other day and I ran shrieking "NOOOOOOOO DON'T PEE PEE OUTSIDE AT SCHOOL, ONLY AT HOME!!!" He cried and was so hurt...He can't understand why it is ok to pee outside at home and not at school? (sigh) ....

I go into the living room and wonder how one person could have created so many "crumbs" out of so little. I wanna scream, "DAMMIT, WHAT'S UP WITH THE CRUMBS??????" but instead I yell...."BAGELS ARE FOR...." and he fills in the blank...."EATING"....and wanders off.....

I catch him spitting on the piano and I want to scream: "FOR GOD'S SAKE, DON"T SPIT on the PIANO!!!" but instead I say, "Dry mouth..." and he repeats, "Dry mouth" and frolicks away.

And the truth is, these little interventions do work...slowly but surely, they do. Because these kids are going to doing odd repetitive little behaviors for a long time, and they are going to get yelled at...so bless them, and let it be positive, so their souls can thrive.

But it's good to have 3 sisters laughing at it all...and keeping me laughing some too.