My 3 year old loves to throw toys too. When he gets tired of playing with them appropriately he scoops them up in his arms and randomly throws them up in the air so he can watch them go up and then come back down. He doesn't do it too much so we never really worried about it to much, until he started an afternoon summer camp and did it there and one of the teachers got hit All of a sudden I'm worrying what's going to happen when he enters pre-K in the fall and he's throwing handfuls of toys in the air (although he doesn't do it often he does do it occasionally and without warning). So far, everytime we notice him getting ready to scoop, we chastise him with a "No throw, Adam!!! We don't throw our toys!!" The more diligent we are about it, the better it is working. His teachers at camp are working on it too. Now, he is telling his Daddy "No throw, Daddy!!" when he catches him throwing a ball or something similair. I figure for now until we get this down pat there will be no throwing of anything...even balls. The urge for Adam to throw his toys seems to be almost overwhelming at times...I guess this would be his stim...he doesn't have many of them, but there are times he gets very upset about not being able to do it. you may have tried?...
making him pick it up when he throws, then putting it down, picking it up
again, and doing this 3-4 times so he knows that he has to pick up and
we don't throw
give him pictures or words to say all done or help when he is getting
frustrated with the toy so it doesn't get to throwing
getting a clear box and having a big "no throw" picture on it and
everytime something is thrown it is put in that box (somewhere he can
see it throughout the day) and the toy is gone for the rest of the day
LI have found that a substitution does not work for my son with autism. He was never able to discern when it was ok or not; which is common for our kids. It always seemed better to ban the behavior.
Nick lost things he threw. If he didn't throw for a day, he got to choose one toy to take back. This seemed to eliminate the throwing for us.
Hi
For the most part my little guy (3yo) is sweet and affectionate... but he is
still very delayed in expressive language and has MAJOR issues with
focusing, sequence planning, and following direction.
That being said, when he is playing w/ toys and gets to a point where he
is either stuck on a task or has lost interest, he will suddently throw the
toy (without aiming specifically at any direction) with relative force.
That hasn't caused much problem when he's playing alone, but during
playdates it is potentially dangerous to other kids and I have to watch him
like a hawk.
I've tried everything to stop this behaviour to no avail-- he will start pre-
school this fall, but even w/ special ed teachers present I would hope to
improve this behaviour.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
You've probably already tried this, but we would say "balls are for throwing" and go find a soft ball. You could also try putting the thrown toy into time-out for a day or so.
You can also try a social story, but I'm afraid I don't have a sample for you.
Good luck with everything.
We have a throwing problem too. One of them is throwing his shoes in the car while one of us is driving! I'm tired of saying "No throwing shoes!" so now I'm going to make a visual with his "No throwing" picture and then the picture of shoes. Sometimes seeing the illustrated instructions really makes it click. I also point out kids on TV riding in cars and I tell him "See? They don't throw shoes in the car."I finally ran across a sample social story about throwing. I don't know how well it would work with younger kids, but at least it's maybe easier to adapt someone else's story than to write one from scratch.
http://home.swbell.net/jim-rand/to_throw_or_not_to_throw--hu mor.doc - where, when and what is okay to throw. Includes some silly examples.
My son "throws" things, but not consciously. Like when he is done with his juice, and thinks oh I want to go watch tv, he throws it down and goes off to watch. I make him come back and put it where it belongs. I remind him a million times per day, but I know it is not something that naturally occurs ot him, so it's hard. I say just be consistant!Thanks again for all the suggestions--