Gavin has been struggling more and more lately. The other day we took the kids to the park. Gavin was out of control. He pushed Emmett out of the way while trying to get to the slide. Emmett hit his head on the metal bars as a result. I made him sit off to the side for a while.  I explained to him that he MUST pay attention to the people around him.

I let him come back and play.  Not 5 minutes later Emmett is walking under the monkey bars. Gavin decides he going to swing across them but doesn’t pay attention to the fact that Emmett is in the way and was standing there before Gavin decided to do this. Gavin swung his feet out and I had to dive in front of him to keep Emmett from being knocked over and kicked in the head. I told Gavin he was done. He had his chance and that was it. Despite the fact he has Autism he is responsible for his actions.

Later that night we are at my parents and my mom is baking. Gavin is in manipulation mode. He says “grandma, what do I smell?”. Now many might think that an innocent comment (as my father did). However, we know better. That was Gavin’s way of getting Grandma to offer him some of the cake she was baking without him having to ask. I corrected him and got the standard reaction from the people who don’t “get it”. I hear “Rob, that was an innocent comment. He shouldn’t get in trouble for that”.

Hello, it’s called MANIPULATION and we CAN’T allow him to do that. He has to learn to ask for what he wants and not trick people into offering. This goes back to the whole “sociopathy” thing. We have to curb this type of behavior.

Today he was at Lizze’s parents. He wanted to come home because “Elliott needed his help” on the DS. We said he was welcome to come home but not for that reason. Elliott didn’t need help playing his game, especially from Gavin. We told him if he came home he was not going to play video games. Again he was trying to manipulate the situation. When he learned he wouldn’t be playing Elliott’s DS he suddenly didn’t want to come home now.

While Lizze was taking a nap I took Elliott to get a hair cut. Lizze’s mom called and said Gavin wanted to come home. So Elliott and I cut our hang out time short to be home to meet Gavin. Not a big deal as Elliott was excited to see him. We aren’t in the house 5 minutes and trouble begins. Gavin is starting to meltdown because he wants to play Elliott’s DS. I told him no and reminded him that we just had this discussion on the phone. He knew that if he decided to come home it wouldn’t be to play video games. Well Gavin was in full meltdown mode now. He lost it, screaming,yelling,stomping and hitting himself. It got to the point where he earned oatmeal for dinner. which he ate with out problems.

Shortly after dinner Gavin came down and wanted to play Elliott’s DS. I again told him no and he began lose it. I calmly explained that the answer was no. The meltdown ensued and oatmeal was assigned for breakfast in the morning. We had several other problems tonight of a similar nature.

I just don’t know what to do. To be quite honest with you, he’s driving me CRAZY. This is going to be a VERY long summer if we don’t figure something out.