We have been working on potty training for years now. Again, I think this is one of those things that’s it’s as much about how I handle it as it is about Owen needing to be potty trained. For a child with autism, this process can be very long and daunting, for both the parent and child. Owen has clothes sensitivity to appearance and textures. He wants me to be in certain clothes at certain times and he wants to be dressed a certain way depending on where he is. We’ve tried many different methods with Owen and he has come a long way but we’ve yet to get to the finish line. Yesterday I put a new type of underwear on him. He immediately got upset and started screaming. He thoughts they were pants and pants are supposed to be worn at home, they are only for stepping foot outside our door. This goes for shorts as well. He kept screaming, “pants are on”. I had to convince him to leave them on. That was a battle in itself. He started yelling about “when de timer goes off you can take your pants off”. Okay, so let’s start there I thought. I told him we would set the timer for an hour and then he could have a diaper back on. How on earth did we keep that thing on him an hour I don’t know. And I sure don’t even know why I suggested an hour. But there we were an hour later and I took him to the bathroom. He had wet his pants, but these are waterproof to an extent, so I literally went with the flow. I asked him to go to the bathroom numerous times in the hour, trying to take him several times, but that wasn’t happening. So I thought let’s do one victory at a time. He was very upset to have the underwear on, but we made it. Half the battle is overcoming the set in stone rules. The rules weren’t even something I thought about at first. I only knew we needed to try this new underwear. I feel defeated and I feel like we accomplished huge steps with that one hour. One of the hardest things for me to do is stayed focused and in my own thoughts. Owen’s constant state of emotions pushes me to concentrate on him and keeping meltdowns at bay. But the emotions wear on me and I have to remember that I’m allowed to have emotions too. One can not always be as cool as a cucumber. We’ll try again today. I have to push myself through this as much as I have to make him do it. For now, I’m thankful he slept through the night and school starts in less than a week. He teacher was once again his first question to me like he sees the goal line in sight. Today is one moment in time. Know that you can do great things if you set your mind to it. Find your strength and go after your dreams. Smiles to all and donut daze!
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