Indulging special interests?

[muppetinma]

We're dealing with hyperlexia, so Andrew's obsessions revolve around letters and numbers more than anything else. We do our best to find a happy medium between encouraging it and dissuading it. It's impossible to limit his interaction with words, since they're everywhere. Now we just try to not acknowledge it. He used to bring us a book and read the letters and words, seeking praise from us after every one. He would tantrum if he didn't get that recognition. We now over-praise the other great things he does and just ignore his request for praise for reading. It hasn't stopped his love of reading, but it seems like he's able to transition in and out of it better, as well as realize that there's more out there than just letters.

In general, I feel like if you can find a way to let the kids do what they love without it taking control of their lives, go for it! If their interests keep them from being able to successfully function, you need to limit it.

[gnorah]

Apr 15, 2014 9:45:13 GMT -5 muppetinma said:

In general, I feel like if you can find a way to let the kids do what they love without it taking control of their lives, go for it! If their interests keep them from being able to successfully function, you need to limit it.

I think this is right on.  It depends on your kid, but they love what they love, right?  If you completely ignore the things that are important to them then that doesn't send the right message either.  It's a balance, and part of what we're trying to teach them his how to balance their interests, learn new things, and the interests of others.

My son (8yo with Aspergers) is obsessed with his computer and minecraft.  It was so bad that at one point he was just sitting at his computer, not doing anything, just in case one of his friends might skype him.  Fortunately, that was a relatively easy fix, but we've struggled with the computer forever because as much as he loves it... he will sit at the computer frustrated and upset rather than taking a break and doing something else he enjoys.

We came up with a system about a month ago that seems to be working really well (fingers crossed...I don't want to jinx things...), but it was a struggle to find the best way to get some balance.

[KB]

DS likes to script, a lot. His current favorites are Frozen and anything from Paw Patrol. He will engage in a script all day long if I let him to the point of acting out almost an entire movie. We limit it as much as we can but sometimes it is the only way to get him to focus and engage with us. It happens more when he is tired or overstimulated. He is moving to using the scripts appropriately and I am hoping that means we'll get more original language soon.

[auntie]

Good question.

DS psych would say to severely restrict access as much as possible. The thing is, special interests suck up a lot of emotional bandwidth. Perseverating about and negotiating access to a SI ramps up anxiety and leaves little space in the child's day to explore new activities and subjects or to develop new skills.

We took trains off DS for several months. I felt terrible about it, but he needed to reframe his thinking to a place where he could be OK without immediate indulgence in his preferred topics. I thought he'd fall apart, but he rolled really well with it and grew from the experience. Now that DS is older, he self monitors around this.

It's important because you want the child to learn to manage this so that he would be in control of his SI rather than the other way around. This can go very wrong when a young adult has a less than wholesome SI and poor self regulation.