Thirty Eight - the ultimate punishment

Too often as parents we find ourselves being slack with the whole 'negative consequences for negative behaviour' thing.

Well, at least I do.

I know, I sound horrible, especially in this day and age where smacking is being outlawed in some countries, that little clip on the backside for misbehaving in the supermarket because of the impact it may have on a child's psychological wellbeing.

Now, of course I am not advocating any form of child abuse here - of course there is a firm boundary to stick to when it comes to punishing your child. Don't misunderstand where this post is coming from, and please understand that I do not actually smack my Cherub.....anymore. He's too old for that, but I do admit to a whack on the bum during the terrible twos and the terrorist threes, mostly for things like biting/hitting me - the old 'see how that feels when I do it to you' routine (yeah yeah, I know there's some of you out there who don't agree with that, but I'm fairly sure there are more of us that have done it at least once in our life....and felt horrible about it....but have done it nevertheless).

A friend of mine used to do a little trick with her somewhat active sons while she was at the supermarket. If they played up while they were out, she would simply hold their hand, smile and give them a little pinch on the wrist, nothing too hard, but enough to let them know to 'behave themselves or else'. Then, when she got home, that's when she went ballistic. Her boys knew the 'pinch' was a sign that there was more to come and after a few episodes they realised the way it worked, and the 'pinch' wasn't required very often after that. And all the time she would keep smiling deleriously at the other shoppers, while her sons (I suspect), regretted their indiscretions for the rest of the shopping trip as they antipcipated the trip home in the car with dread. My friend didn't show any signs of guilt over this little trick when she was telling me about it, and her sons have now grown into quite stable young men, both at University and doing quite well socially and academically.

Of course, as a desperate mother of one very challenging child, I tried it out for myself (when my Cherub was about six or seven). Unfortunately it doesn't work with an autistic kid - they don't realise that they are being punished or given a warning when they get a little pinch on the wrist. They don't think "Jeez, I'd better settle down, she means business". No! They live in the moment, and scream out at the top of their voice "Stop pinching me!! You're hurting me!!", and you, the mother, come off looking worse that you would if you just let them throw themselves on the floor in a tanty and walk away. (I did that once, and an old lady went up to my Cherub as he was kicking and screaming, cooing at him "Are you alright Sweetheart?". I fair dinkum wanted to scream at HER and offer for him to live with her to see whether she was cooing at the end of a few days with him).

So that 'punishment' lasted once, never to be used again.

Lately my Cherub has taken to being verbally abusive....I mean REALLY bad. Think of the worst curse word you can, drop down to the one below it on the list, and there you have it. It rhymes with 'duck' (in case you hadn't figured it out yet). In the case of my Cherub, it is usually followed by the phrases "Hate YOU", "Stupid Idiot" - you get the picture - quite loudly at the top of his voice, no matter where we are.

Now, some of it I can put down to his autism, but he's old enough now to be able to at least understand that this is just not on, not to your mother, the woman that held you to her breast as a babe in arms and gave you nourishment. The woman that wiped your backside when you were a baby (and actually still does sometimes, let's be honest about this autism thing). The woman that will bare the stretchmarks for the rest of her life that you gave her as you grew inside of her.

Enough is enough.

But no matter what I did to try to deal with this abuse, nothing has seemed to work. And I myself have ended up in tears many a time at the fact that my own child can be so abusive.

Some people say that to get on a child's good side, to get them to do what you want them to, you need to find a good motivator, something they can strive for. Well, I'm out of them, and quite frankly, I'm sick of trying to go down the 'If you don't call me names or get abusive you will get a reward' track. That's ridiculous. I'll reward you if you don't treat me badly? Nah, not anymore - I will now punish you if you do treat me badly, because the expectation is that you will be nice to me.

Last night I had one of those lightbult moments, the ones where you think to yourself "Why didn't I think of this before?". I realised that there is one thing in this whole world that my Cherub hates the thought of more than anything, and it has now become the 'ultimate punishment' in our house, reserved especially for those verbally abusive or physical attacks on the Mother.

"You're scooping up the cat poop"

Well, you'd think that the world was going to end. He was climbing up the back of the couch screaming 'No!!!! Nooooo!!!! Anything but that!!!!! Nooooo, I'm not doing the poop scoop!!!!!"

Oh yes you are my boy.....oh yes you are.

And yes, he did. There was a lot of screaming and carrying on (and I helped him by holding the bag to put it in), but yes he did the poop scoop.

And he did it again tonight too, because as I said to him "If you can't think about the way your behaviour makes me feel, you're going to have to think about the effect it will have on you".

I'm hoping that it eventually sinks in - 'If I'm bad to Mum, it's the poop scoop for me'.

I have a list of things written up all over the house regarding behaviour, as visual reminders (apparently that works, but not in our house). I now have fantasies about being able to have a poster stuck to our fridge/loungeroom wall/back of the toilet door.....anywhere really. It would be in big, bold letters, and it would have my new slogan on it:

"If I treat Mum like s#!t, I'll have to scoop the s#!t."

It's simply put, it's clear and precise, it shows the action/consequence relationship. All the things that we're supposed to ensure we put into place with instructions for our autistic children.

Knowing my luck, we'll be at the supermarket, my Cherub will misbehave, I'll lean in and quietly say "Right, tonight you are scooping the poop" and at the top of his voice, in the same way he did about the pinching, he'll yell out "Nooooo!!! Don't make me clean up the s#$$$%%%t!!!!".

I get nervous just thinking about it really.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Janeane