Campaign for Presents Continues

With my son ramping up his campaign to get more presents, it is interesting to what he is excited about.

One of presents he always looks forward to getting on his birthday is Ugly Dolls. He has already amassed quite a collection. The company that makes them is constantly putting out new dolls so there is no end to how many Kai can get. Ahead of Christmas and Hanukkah, and now once again ahead of his birthday, Kai goes on the Ugly Dolls website every day to look at the entire inventory. Though there are now over a hundred dolls, he has memorized the names of all of them, as well as the year each came out. He also knows what new dolls are due out later this year.

What I find interesting is that the anticipation of getting a new doll seems to far outweigh the joy of actually having one. These days he rarely plays with the dolls he has. And, anyway, it’s not like he would do much of the imaginative play with these dolls that typical kids would. So the thrill for him seems to be all in the chase, and once he has a new doll, he starts looking forward to the next one. I’m not sure if that is an autism thing, a guy thing, a collector thing, or just a Kai thing.

Another thing that he is obsessing over these days is one of his favorite gifts from Christmas 2010. Electronic Snap Circuits is a toy that teaches kids the basics about electronics. The set that Kai received enables kids to “build over 300 exciting projects.” Back when he received it, Kai was really into it for several weeks, doing several projects a day.

But lately he hadn’t played with it in months. Now though, thinking of his upcoming birthday, he’s taken interest in it once again. He declared that he wanted the upgrade set that would allow him to do 500 projects. He Googled it and looks at the product’s website every day, being sure to show it to me. When I mentioned that he hadn’t yet finished his first 300 projects, he started to work on them once again. At least with this toy, I know that he will likely play with it after he gets it, and it is educational so it will be good for him.

Legos is another toy that had been idle for months. He had a few sets from his last birthday that had been unopened. But after our recent trip to Legoland, Kai has taken a renewed interest. He wanted to get more sets. When I pointed out that he still had several that he hadn’t worked on, he set to work on them. Now he’s just about caught up and wants more RIGHT NOW.

In seeing all of this activity over presents, I wonder if the use of rewards from all the ABA therapy he’s had has made it harder for Kai to wait for things. In ABA, positive reinforcement is often used to motivate a child to do something that is difficult for him. In many cases, the rewards were given immediately. He rarely had to wait for weeks to collect on something. And for a child who has always had a lot of difficulty waiting for even 5 minutes, the notion of waiting 5 more weeks is very difficult.

For those of you with younger kids, I encourage you to try to stretch out the rewards with your kids while they are still young. It likely won’t be very easy. But it doesn’t get easier as they get older.

Ugly Dolls – A Powerful Summer Incentive

My son has a week off before summer school begins.

It is always challenging to have Kai at home from school for long stretches as he doesn’t play like typical kids and always needs our attention. And if we are not vigilant with him, too much of his time can be spent on unproductive activities such as watching videos on tv or looking for YouTube videos on the computer.

So, my wife got him some math and reading workbooks, as well as computer programs that build analytical thinking skills, to help occupy his time in more productive ways.

We figured that it might be difficult to get him to do these voluntarily, so each day we set up a visual schedule to show him all of his activities. Somehow, having these things in writing elicits cooperation more easily than just telling him to do it.

In addition to the schedule, however, we set up an incentive program. Kai has a pretty good collection of Ugly Dolls and has been asking for more lately. The Ugly Dolls are one of the few typical things that Kai plays with. I’m not sure why he likes them so much. But I think the fact that there are so many different ones that he can collect add to his interest.

And so, my wife created an incentive board where Kai can check off each activity as he does them. When he completes the two math workbooks, he will get one Ugly Doll. When he completes the reading one, he will also get one. And, he will get one for finishing the two computer programs.

We figured that it would likely take him the bulk of the summer to finish all of these. Some of the workbooks, especially the one for reading, will get quite challenging for his level. But, if he works on it a little at a time, he will be able to get it done.

Well, what we didn’t figure was how motivated he would be to get the Ugly Dolls.

After school on Friday, minutes after his break started, he already went right to work on one of the math workbooks. He said that he wanted to finish it that day. We told him that would be impossible and that it may take weeks of work for him to get his Ugly Doll. But, he said he couldn’t wait weeks and wanted one that day.

He went through pages of the math until we had to force him to stop when he got tired and started making careless mistakes. And then he got mad at us for making him stop.

But, he was at it again the next day. By the end of the weekend, he was more than halfway through both math workbooks. I won’t be surprised now if he finishes them in the next few days.

He hasn’t shown as much interest in the reading and the computer programs, doing only the bare minimum of what we ask him to do. So it will be interesting to see how long it takes him to finish those.

But I’ve learned not to underestimate the power of Ugly Dolls. Just look at them. Wouldn’t you want more of Wedgehead and Ox?