I’m Bored

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	I am looking for some ideas on how to work with my son.  He is 11  and was diagnosed PDD-NOS and ADHD 2 years ago.  I feel like I am WAY behind the power curve on trying to help him.  The issue I am really frustrated about at the moment is that 90% of the time that I try to get him to do something other than what he is doing (for example clean his room instead of doing origami) he responds with "I'm bored.  Why can't I just do my origami?"  I also  frequently get "Why can't I have just one day of just having fun?"  It is very frustrating.  I even offer to help with the room or give him small tasks in his room so he is not overwhelmed, but I still get "I'm bored."  Any ideas? i would try making a game out of it.  Say to him "i'm going to make the bed,  You pick up the clothes off the floor,  ITs a race!!!  lets see who gets done first!!.  We race too... maybe it's just not stimulating to him... I would also ask him what is his idea of having fun.   And use that as a reward for finishing his room. My son is six and he does the same thing. I think some of it is their age and the other part is changing their mind into doing something else. My son gets into his" own world "with his toys it makes it hard to change that. The only thing I can say is just taking them by the hand and say ok lets do this! My son gets upset but he feels better when its done and I don't have to bug him any more. Then he can go back to what he is doing. I would make him do chores Mon-Fri and then have Sat be the day of fun day. Make a visual schedule so he can see it. That's what came to my mind.I like the idea of the visual schedule.  I will try that and keep you posted on how it works.  I agree that part of it is probably the whole changing directions thing.  He hates shifting gears.  I will usually do a countdown to change (i.e. "Shawn it is 15 minutes until time to get ready for bed")  That seems to help, but at times he gets mad at me for counting down.  He says I am nagging when I do it.  I can't seem to win for losing on that one.  lolDaniel likes a clean room over doing school work. We do lots of races with him. I agree, that scheduling chores, interspersed with scheduled "funtime" or "down time" is a great way to handle things. Lists and visual schedules work really well. Rewards do to. Jesse does well with small chores. His main chore is putting the clean dishes away and when we are doing a general "clean up" of the house I give small easy to remember chores like "Jesse, can you pick up all the shoes and put them in the bin!" When he is done with that I give him another chore like pick up any debris under the Dining room table..I don't give rewards for each little thing but we bank it and at the end of the week he gets a reward like going to the Library to pick out a game to play or to the Video store to pick out his favorite movie or he gets time to play a game on the Xbox. etc I think lists and some visual chore charts work great but keep the chore simple and 1 task at a time. I don't understand why he says he's bored?  He likes his origami, right?  So it seems to me that he needs help communicating more precisely ("That's boring", "I don't want to") and maybe needs help identifying his feelings and attitudes about various activities. It's like pulling teeth for me to talk with my son about what he likes and doesn't like (for example, how he feels about school), but it helps to use visuals like smileys/frownies or a thermometer ("incredible 5 point scale") and experiment with the format of the questions.  I had good success with "what is it like to be you [in a specific situation]?"  That way, you might be able to figure out some chores or strategies that will work better for him. Good luck with everything.  The 'I want just one day of fun' or not really knowing what to do with himself sounds familiar. If my ds had an activity (like you ds's origami) he'd do independently and enjoy I would be careful about using it as a reward. I remember reading this story about a man in a group home. He did not seem to enjoy pizza night so the staff decided at his IEP to not have him go anymore. He finaly spoke up and said that it was his faviorite activity all week but he did not want to let people know because then he would have to work for it as a reward. I think it's important for any person to have things they can just do and enjoy without having to work for it. My ds likes making little decorations for a variety of holidays and I am always happy when he is motivated to do something by himself. My ds also likes playing games and sometimes we clean his room first and then he can pick a game of chess or monopoly. I did just sign him up for a chess-club and he really looks forward to the meetings. Is there any kind of club your ds might like through the rec board or school? Something that gets him together with peers but is not unstructured? I think the limited playskills and limited motivation is a problem for many of our kids. I really appreciate the comments and ideas.  Last night I told Shawn that I wanted to play Legos with him.  We played for a while and I helped him build a few things, but as we were building I would make comments like "I can't find the legs to this guy.  Maybe we could get a bowl to put all the people pieces in it."  He liked the idea and by the time our hour of playing was done his room was clean and organized.  His partially built masterpieces had a home and the rest of the legos were tucked into his box.  We worked it out so that every month I will buy him a new container to organize his legos so he doesn't just dump them to find what he wants.  He even let his 7 year old NT sister play!  I have tried the race thing in the past and it did not work for him, but with the ideas from you guys I decided to try to play and subtly organize.  It worked great.  I even used it on the 7 year old.  Thanks again guys.  You are great!
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