Are you teaching your child to ignore you?

Many parents tell me how many times they have to repeat themselves before they can get their kids to do what they're asking. This is not healthy and could even be dangerous.

As parents, we are responsible to teach our child and keep him or her safe. We can do neither effectively if the child simply ignores us. So what can be done?

First, we must realize that our child may have a very different way of processing information. This means that we, as the parents, must find a more effective way to communicate.

Second, we should never have to repeat the same request or directive more than twice.

Our first communication should include getting the child's attention along with a clear, concise statement of the task using the communication style of the child. There should be a reasonable time frame to allow the child to transition to the new task (usually 2 minutes).

Our second communication should also include getting the child's attention, a clear restatement of the task AND the addition of the 'threat' of consequences. (Consequences, should be reasonable and appropriate.)

Finally, if the task is not begun and accomplished in the reasonable time frame, it is time to take the child and gently assist them in completing the task. At this point, the consequences must apply.

Obviously, this is just an overview. There are many variations and important subtleties to this method, including, getting to know and appreciating our child's natural communication style.

When implemented with consistency, this method should help reduce a pattern of not listening.

Oh, BTW, if you have a child who is a visually creative, outside-the-box, thinker, its almost never helpful to say, "Did you hear what I said?" or "Are you listening to me?" Try, instead to speak in short (15 second max) bursts, asking for one specific answer or task at a time, while using phrases like, "Is that clear to you?" or "Can you SEE what I'm saying?"

Its past time to get beyond labels

Its past time to get beyond these labels, Autism, Auditory Processing Disorder, Sensory Processing Disorder, ADHD, PDD-NOS, etc...

or at least reconsider what they mean. We take 10,000 children and based on an arbitrary distribution of symptoms, we divide these children up into groups. We tend to forget that these groupings DO NOT EXIST! We (the cultural, we) made them up.

This is exactly the reason why my next book is to be titled, "There is no IS Autism. It's like taking a field of Daisies and dividing them up into groups based on the number of leaves facing north, south, east, or west. Yes, we will find numerical patterns, just as we find patterns in children. But what do those patterns mean? Do they really provide any ability to predict (and control) the next group of Daisies?

I'd say no. Simply overlaying an inherently chaotic system with rational methodology or quanitification does not provide any measure of prediction and control despite the illusion that we have measured and analyzed the system.

Its time we acknowledge that simply placing a child into an artificially defined group does not give us any actual ability to predict or control the behavior of the individual child beyond a statistical probability (similarly to knowing the probable location of a quantum particle).

In the model we use at the NLC, there are no discrete groups (ADHD, Dyslexia, APD, SPD, AS, PDD, OCD, ODD, etc.). There is only a continuum from what we like to call Left-Brain (Auditory) Thinkers to Right-Brain (Visual-Spatial) Thinkers. There is also another continuum from Logic/Reason Thinkers to Feeling/Kinesthetic 'thinkers'.

Depending upon where a person falls along the spectrum on these two scales will dramatically effect how they think, feel, behave, communicate, and process information. Coincidentally, the patterns of Auditory vs. Visual and Logic vs. Kinesthetic remarkably coincide with the Meyers-Briggs patterns and the four Greek Temperments.

If you go too far from the center in any direction you will invariably exhibit a growing list of symptoms consistent with one and probably more than one group. The nice thing is that the dual spectrum model has, over the past six years provided the basis for helping a large number of children and teens overcome many of the effects of these challenges. http://www.swish4fish.com