The Final Countdown

With Raiyan progressing so well with his therapy, especially in terms of his speech, sometimes I make the mistake of expecting simple daily tasks like eating, showering, changing clothes would be easy too. I mean if he is starting to already learn logical thinking, complex emotions and hand gestures, then surely I can expect him to easily take a bath and eat his meal when he's supposed to.

But sadly, this is still not as straightforward as I expect it to be. Every single mealtime or bathtime is still a power struggle, every single day. And this is when I have to remind myself that he is still very sensitive to change and will probably always be. And I have to accept that like with the tactics used to improve his speech, I have to make the constant effort of getting creative in the behavioural techniques of trying to coax him to eat his lunch and take his bath. No, merely asking him if he's hungry or telling him that he's dirty makes no difference at all.

The most valuable tip I can share to grapple with these acts of defiance is to give the child a countdown (of course providing he understands) until he needs to stop doing what he’s doing and shift to another activity.

Learning Ladders are still in the process of getting egg timers (those shaped like an egg with big numbers on them, which unfortunately you aren’t able to get in Brunei) to make it visibly easier for our children to see how much time they have left, seeing how almost ALL of us parents use the countdown tactic to change activities.

So in the meantime, without the egg timer, Raiyan has to completely trust me in counting down the minutes and he will make sure I count down in the right sequence. Hence, if the last minute I uttered was “9 minutes Raiyan”, the next one MUST be “eight minutes” even though 3 minutes have passed because I was too lalai to check the clock! Raiyan’s gotten so good with his sense of time that sometimes I would try and cheat and let only 30 seconds pass by and then say “7 minutes Raiyan” to which he’d say “no, 8 minutes!”

But Alhamdulillah, the countdown tactic has worked WONDERS with Raiyan. Before, if we were to simply just yank him from what he’s doing to bathe him, he’d be screaming in protest the WHOLE time he’s in the bath. But now, we give him the countdown and after every update of “4 more minutes or 3 more minutes Raiyan”, he will ALWAYS obediently say “Okay.” At the same time, he also realizes he doesn’t have much more time to do what he’s doing at that moment, so he really cherishes those last minutes and concentrate with all his heart with what he is doing.

Countdowns are also good with 2 way bargainings, like when Jeff and I want to watch TV too, we’d say “Raiyan, Playhouse Disney 5 minutes, then American Idol 15 minutes ok?”. Raiyan would cheekily say “No, Playhouse Disney 15 minutes, American Idol 5 minutes!”

Best of luck to all parents who wish to try!