The Weak and the Lazy

My kids are older so you would think some of their 'habits' would diminish with time just as it does with other children. I mean even if they are part of of the ASD group, they are kids, right?

Right?  Yea, I know...falling on stupefied silence.

One of my favorite autistic parenting sites, Autism. A Dad's Eye View  http://autismfromadadseyeview.blogspot.co.uk/  He had a top 20 list for parents in which one stated "sleep is for the lazy and weak'.

No truer words have ever been said

A few nights ago, we were subjected to this. Our eldest has issues of having her nights and days in reverse, which is pretty normal for a lot of autitstics. Unfortunately ours has to sing loudly, dance and stomp even more loudly. This doesn't do well when you have hard wood floors either.

This means staying awake with her until 3 or 4 in the morning...whether we want to or not. This also means her schedule is askew. Not waking until lunch time but have to have breakfast first, because that is part of the routine. Then, realizing that it's about 1 in the afternoon, she just has to have lunch because, well it's that time.

The eldest gets an allowance for her scheduled chores. Unfortunately the bipolar part of her and the autistic part don't play well with each. There's that part who doesn't want to do the chores so she cries, whines and eventually begins to tell outrageous lies. To announce that she has done said chore when you are sitting in the room that the chore takes place in AND knowing that she did not do it always leads to fits of anger and frustration that we aren't as stupid as she would like us to be.

For the last few days, she has been more than furious with us.

The eldest also has a chromebook (which I regret) that has become a source of problems recently. This time, when she was in her manic period, she decided not to put the computer back at its designed time. Instead she kept it until almost 10pm. The average lecture followed with warning that she would lose part of her allowance as consequences. She has endured reduction of allowance before so this wasn't new to her. She was a bit upset but she did realize what she did was her fault.

Or so we thought. The next morning when I brought her the allowance and reminded her, once again, of the reason why. She usually gives a sad and pouty face and begrudingly agrees. This time that bipolar part decided to visit.

Screaming, threats of leaving home and doing harm to us, childish taunts ('mommy is a loser) and lastly scowels and pretty much in that order.   Our part consisted of putting away all knives (for our safety, not hers), deadbolting the front and back door(she has attempted to run away when we are all asleep) and, after we think she is calming down, attempting to speak to her about what has and will happen.

Unfortunately, the manic explosions seem to get worse with age. They do not diminish as they would in a non autistic.  As much as we try,new habits replace old ones which we struggle to combat. It's a daily life long battle.

So sleep is definitely for weak and lazy.