While this Pandemic in some ways has been good (like doing our daily walks), I have definitely noticed Dominic becoming more agitated at things that typically wouldn't have bothered him so much, pre-Pandemic. It has got to be SO hard to be a teenager with limited language and be in puberty. Everyone goes through puberty, whether you are typically-developing or not. When Lauren was a teenager, she would go to her room, shut the door and get some alone time. Dominic doesn't do that during the day. He only uses his room to sleep. We have worked really hard with the private speech therapist on how to manage his emotions. He used to go in our living room and hit the bay windows with the palms of his hands. Definitely not the best way to express how he is feeling. Slowly, he transitioned from hitting the wall to throwing a pillow on the ground. Last night, our evening was going well until he looked at his "schedule" from school. Dominic's teacher is awesome. She puts a daily schedule on-line for the entire week. It is very detailed with the times of all of his classes and the subjects. I print it out on Monday mornings and attach it to a clipboard. As he completes each class, we check it off. It also lists homework. Well, out of the blue, after we had eaten dinner, he picked up the clipboard, took a look at Tuesday's schedule and noticed that he hadn't done the homework. I told him we could do it the next day. He wanted me to cross it off, even though he hadn't done it yet. I told him doing that would be "cheating." Dominic didn't like that explanation too much and he ran over to one of the decorative posts in our family room and yanked it hard. I raised my voice and told him not to do that and to go to his room to cool off. He ran upstairs and immediately came back down. I told him that he could get his school computer back out and do it. He kept shaking his head and continued to tell me no. He then threw a pillow on the ground. This side of Dominic is a side most people don't see. The hubby had been observing the ongoing interchange between Dominic and I and finally said, "why don't you just stop talking about it?" I told him that Dominic was the one that kept talking about it and that he wanted me to cross off the homework even though he hadn't done it. I guess that would have been the easiest thing to do, but honesty is one of those traits that I strongly believe in. Both Dominic and I were standing our "ground." By this time, Dominic was REALLY frustrated. His face was red and he was doing a lot of grumbling. After another few minutes went by, he went over and took his computer out of the case and turned it on. I said, "do you want to do your homework now, so you can cross it off your schedule?" He told me he did. As he completed each assignment, we crossed it off. After he finished, he logged the computer back off and put it back in the case. I think Dominic had mentally exhausted himself, so he went to bed early. I felt that it was extremely important I didn't give in and let him think that type of behavior is okay, because it's not. It was mentally exhausting for me too (I was hoping he didn't have an Epileptic seizure, which are sometimes brought on by stress), but I am really glad I stood my "ground." I knew in the end that Dominic would do the right thing and he did!
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