Tough love and spunk

I think I mentioned this in my earlier post - there is a lot of tough love going on here these days. A few examples: the most obvious one, of course, is the fact that B is now in therapy practically all of his waking moments and is not allowed to just do what he wants to do. Then there were the trains that we dramatically limited. And his favorite videos. And limiting his snacks to a schedule and only at the table. There is the tantrum/crying behaviors that we not only ignore but completely walk away from and deny all physical attention. The pacifier is only allowed when he sleeps. And now there's a new one. B man likes to "clutch" something in his hand. Most of the time it's a toy but not always. We define it as holding something and carrying it around without it having a purpose. It's one of his autism traits. He had stopped doing this for a while but now it's back in full force. So, guess what? We're going to try to "replace" it with more purposeful play. This is twofold: we are spending more time teaching him to play appropriately and taking away the "clutchables" whenever he has one.  I literally have filled 2 quart-sized bags with these things in the last 2 days and put countless others out of reach or locked up.

He's not happy about it. So here comes the spunk part. Since the beginning of his therapy, he has been letting us know that he's not loving how much we're messing with him. He started pretty typically with crying and whining. Then he started to knock things over or dump things out. When that didn't get enough of a reaction, he looked for LOUDER things. And most recently, he has started closing doors. He will sometimes put himself INSIDE the door and sometimes me or the therapist, closing the door behind him. Yesterday, he even managed to lock himself in my bathroom (that was a fun panic attack for me). He has gone to all new lengths now that we keep removing whatever he is currently holding and attached to. He tried everything to avoid me when I worked with him this morning. He would shove me into a room and close the door or just run whenever he saw me coming. He tried to climb UP his bookshelves to get some of his coveted items. He learned how to remove the safety locks on his cabinets and starting pilfering through. He even brought me a bag of fruit snacks he found in there. It's pretty interesting to watch. He is like an addict looking for a fix - continuously searching and substituting whatever he can find. Hopefully in time, this will lose its appeal. In the meantime, it's pretty difficult. However, there is no denying that this kid has spunk and definitely is no dummy. He is using some pretty smart problem-solving skills. I have a very strong feeling that his IQ scores are going to soar as we move forward - there is NO way that he is as developmentally behind as his initial testing indicated. NO WAY.