Responsibility

We have taken on 2 guinea pigs to help with our children to learn responsibility. I make it my son's duty to water them. I make him check the water level every day and when it's close to empty, I make him fill it.  Soon, he will do it himself when he sets his routine.

When the bedding and food need to be filled and changed I have him hold the garbage bag when I empty. This makes him feel like he is needed and helping out.

It took him until past the age of 5 to finally dress himself. He will ask all the time if his shirt, pants, shoes and underwear are backwards. When I tell him "no" he tries to put on his clothes. He still needs help from time to time. Part of his autism always wants to know if he is doing things right.

Learning to take on responsibility for ones self is an important part of life. Occupational Therapy seems to be helping with that aspect of learning. Having a son on the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) I feel like I need to take on more chores to have him watch and learn from me.

When I put dishes away, I try to encourage him to help out. He usually wants to take out all the saucer lids and spin them or spin the sprayer inside the dishwasher. I want to break him of those autistic routines. It's okay to let him do it for a little bit but then it's time to stop. To let him do things like that and get away with it, that's all he would want to do.

Laundry time I let him put in the dirty clothes in the washer. Letting him take out the dry clothes also teaches him responsibility.  He still throws a tantrum if he doesn't start the dryer.  To avoid a meltdown and get away from the drama I let him start it.  He needs autism services to help brake these routines.

Picking up his toys also. We needed to use a picture schedule with this showing him what he needed to do. A picture schedule was needed for him to dress himself, bath time and bed time. He needed to see how these routines were needed to take on responsibility for himself.

We finally have been able to get Dane to sleep all night in his own bed.  For some reason he has to have the guinea pigs next to his bed.  He also needs a fuzzy warm blanket to swaddle himself in.  I think the blanket reminds him of Grandpa's house because they have the same blanket.

Children are fast learners. When you have a child with special needs it takes more time to teach them what they need to know. Eventually, they will have to do things for themselves. That's just how it is and that's the way it's going to be. I can't be around to wait on my son hand and foot every day because he has autism. He needs to learn to do things for himself.