One of the challenging things that my wife and I face as special needs parents creating rules and boundaries. Because we have 3 boys with various special needs and in various different places on the #Autism spectrum, I find that we have to have different rules for different kids.
I was wondering if anyone else finds that they have to have different rules for the same or similar aged children?
Do you have to do this because of safety or developmental issues?
Do you have any issues with resentment or frustration as a result of one child wing able to do something the other can’t?
This was posted via WordPress for Android, courtesy of Samsungs Galaxy S III. Please forgive any typos. I do know how to spell but auto-correct hate me.
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Yep. But then we don't have a lot of restrictions in the house because the kids are older. I mean they're implied, I suppose, but we've been lucky in that things don't always have to be spelled out. We did have to alarm our doors though, because Ted used to wander.
@Kibblet very cool. 🙂
Sort of. We have food rules in our family. Our oldest child with autism is on the GFCF (gluten and casein free diet) because we found that it really, really helps reduce his symptoms and also helps with his allergies. He also has other allergies to peanuts, almonds, soy and shellfish and deadly allergies to cats and dogs. His brother is allowed to eat gluten and has none of the allergy issues or autism but is dairy free at the moment due to sinus problems. We have to be much stricter about the oldest child's diet, and he's never, ever allowed to pet a cat or dog, but the oldest is.
@rmagliozzi wow… Thanks for sharing that.
The short answer is yes. We are much more restrictive of Marc than we are our other two boys on the spectrum and it has everything to do with his RAD, and OCD tendencies.
@Carlyoung the same can be said for busy as well. Do you ever find that Marc gets resentful of his siblings for having more freedom?
@lostandtired @Carlyoung all the time. and the consequence of him taking liberties is that he has to wait longer for some things than his siblings. take cell phones for example. all but one brother had a cell phone at age 11. the other brother had his at 13. Marc has told us repeatedly that if we gave him a cell phone he wouldn't be quite as naughty and that he would stop stealing technology from other people. I don't believe it. we have tried in the past to "catch him up" to his siblings, but he still takes advantage of the others by stealing from them. plus he has shown that he can't be trusted on the Internet by threatening to kill others.
A great example of this would be Gavin. Gavin will be 13 in a few months and there are a ton of things that we can't allow him to do that his 4 and 6 year old little brothers can.
It's usually for safety reasons but also because he doesn't handle playing video games very well just as an example.