Compliance

COMPLIANCE
1 a : the act or process of complying to a desire, demand, proposal, or regimen or to coercion b : conformity in fulfilling official requirements
2 : a disposition to yield to others
3 : the ability of an object to yield elastically when a force is applied : FLEXIBILITY

I remember over 2 years ago meeting with a psychologist who was helping us get started on a home program for JP. He was 3 at the time. We expressed one of our top goals as potty training. She gingerly led us toward a more appropriate goal of compliance. And she was right...he's not going to use the toilet unless he will sit on the toilet when we ask him. This made sense and I do feel like we have made good strides on compliance. Even enough that we did eventually get him toilet trained!

Most of the time he will do what we ask. He has actually earned a reputation as being a very polite little boy because he does do what is asked. But, recently he has discovered the power of "No!". I think I hear "no" atleast 999 times a day.

"JP, do you want yogurt?"
"No! (long pause) Can I have yogurt, please"

Just about every therapy we have right now is working on helping him verbalize for himself when he gets angry. He is learning to stand up for himself when others take his toys. He is doing very well. Correction, was. Now he is going over the top and getting very angry when he doesn't get what he wants. Perhaps he is realizing his power to not comply and liking the feeling of control that comes with that. Perhaps we are pushing too hard?

He had a meltdown yesterday morning at school. Because we need this in check (especially for next year), he earned his first time out at school.

In the afternoon, while at speech preschool, he had one of his best days of attending and participating. Then he had the meltdown of all meltdowns. I was there to watch this one. It was painful. I missed the preceding seconds so I can't completely identify the cause but they were playing with the parachute as a group. He is still pretty uncomfortable of the sensory aspect of all the shaking and wild movements of all the kids.

His therapists and I have talked about pushing him through his anxiety. Most of the time it has worked. But I imagine that this is what triggered his reaction. She coerced him to step under the parachute and HE PUSHED AND FLAILED AND KICKED! A little boy appeared that I have never seen before.

So here we are more than 2 years later back where we started. Compliance. I have to wonder if this will always be on top of our list. I imagine that every time his world gets shaken up, this will be his control mechanism. Key word = Control.

As exhausted as this makes me feel, I find myself wondering how different is this from any other 5 year old? But it still isn't the same. That other child can talk about it and explain their feelings. My child can't. That child can learn from the experience and move on. For JP, we have to read his mind and give him the words so that he can learn from it and move on. But I am not a mind reader and they left that out of my parent manual.