Last night Drew was just out of sorts. He had a nap in the afternoon, which is rare these days. But I thought after a busy week he probably needed one. Naps usually help with attitudes, right? Well, it didn't really seem to help at all last night. Drew was hungry all afternoon. He had a snack but then i cut him off around 4:00. We were eating around 5 so I wanted to him to eat dinner. We had stir fry chicken and I set aside some chicken without sauce so he would be more likely to eat it. When it came time to eat, he refused to sit at the table and started throwing a royal fit. He was it time out twice.
We have a rule in our house that if you are not hungry for dinner when it's ready, you don't have to eat it right then, but you do have to eat it before you have anything else to eat. So, that was the plan with Drew. Well, chicken was obviously not what he wanted to eat. We wouldn't let him watch Wheel of Fortune either until he ate some of his chicken. Drew kept taking the plate of chicken to the sink. We would say no and put it back on the table. After several attempts, he made it to the sink and all the chicken fell into the sink of dirty dishes. I was not happy. So, Drew got spanked. He cried and cried.
We haven't spanked Drew much because we haven't felt that it made an impact. Time out has been pretty effective for him. I also have felt that sometimes Drew acts out because he just needs sensory imput and setting him in time out to calm down is what he needs most. But last night was definately an act of disobedience. Tossing the chicken in the sink because he really didn't want to eat it because we said he had to had nothing to do with autism or sensory imput. He was being a typical 3 year old boy who really didn't want to eat chicken.
He ended up sitting at the table and eating some leftover ham. And he did watch Wheel of Fortune while snuggling with mom. I think he understood. That was a blessing.
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