Drill Sergeant Mama

…Or Battling a Teenager with Autism

By Choo Kah Ying

Back in 2005, I became a staunch believer in behavioural management when I used this approach to extinguish Sebastien’s persistent aggression.  At virtually all my autism workshops, I would tell caregivers and teachers that the foundation of our relationships with our children lies in our ability to manage them.
In a nutshell, the behavioural management approach is the consistent administration of rewards and consequences to motivate a child with autism (in this case) to engage in desirable behaviour and refrain from undesirable ones. Simple as this approach may look on paper, the devil lies in the consistency of its implementation. Unfortunately, this is where many caregivers fall into the wayside…

Intimidated or overwhelmed by their children’s fiery counter-response (eg. hatred-ridden protests, explosive tantrums and torrents of tears), caregivers inevitably cave in. They forget about their leverage – their command of the resources (money) that can allow them to extend pleasurable privileges to their children (rewards) or deny them (consequences). Ultimately, their children’s desire to persist in their acceptable behaviour prevails over the caregiver’s desire to extinguish it. Unbelievable as it may sound, in the battle of the wills, an autistic child (regardless of his/her functioning level) often triumphs over his/her typical adult parent.

So this is what I preach to my audience in my little pep rally to boost the courage of the participants: “This is a battle well worth fighting for…  But is a battle you cannot AFFORD to lose! Don’t even start the behavioural management approach, unless you intend to WIN!”

Since my “conversion”, I have remained a devout practitioner of behavioural management in my life as a homeschooler of Sebastien, my autistic son. Every single day, I get knee-deep in the trenches of my ongoing battle to guide Sebastien as he grows up. Over the last few years, I have had to come up with increasingly creative uses of the behavioural management approach to match the growing sophistication of Sebastien’s arsenal of antics.

Recently, my battle with Sebastien in the throes of puberty was thrust to yet another level.  Despite my decade-old experience of implementing behavioural management, I had to admit that I was taken aback by the rapid transformation of his body, the surge in his appetite and his unpleasant mood swings between euphoria and sullenness. But, most disturbing of all, was the emergence of a fierce defiance in Sebastien, which was determined to go to any lengths to oppose anything standing in his way.

Unlike his rebelliousness of yesteryears, the current version was backed up by Sebastien’s towering frame: within the space of months, the boy had shot up like the magic beanstalk. He was 14 going on 16.  Towering above me and many Asian male adults, Sebastien often escaped my notice in crowded public spaces, because I was looking for Sebastien the child who no longer existed. As the frightening pace of his growth showed no signs of letting up any time soon, I could already see the dark clouds of a terrible war gathering ominously in the not-too-distant horizon. Sebastien and his army of hormones — all moving in concert to do the irascible will of its autistic master – were threatening to destroy the edifice of proper behaviour, which I had painstakingly erected over the years. I could not help but feel outmanned and outgunned by this rogue army.

Aside from this obvious disparity in power, I was also genuinely interested to give Sebastien the breathing space to define and express his individuality. Despite all his delays related to autism, Sebastien’s moods and defiance had an unmistakable air of a teenager about it, which was age-appropriate. Thus I realised that I needed to tread the fine line that separated authority from oppression carefully so as not to crush Sebastien’s nascent personhood.  

Whether I was ready or not, I was thrust into a new phase of behavioural management – one that required considerably more finesse.  In the face of his growing efforts to assert himself and counter my proposed plans, I sometimes stepped back, tried to understand, and negotiated with him.  Doing this delicate and nuanced back-and-forth tango, while deciding why, when and how I would crack down on his excesses, was something that took some getting used to. On the whole, I softened my behavioural management approach to see how Sebastien was going to navigate the choppy waters of his transition into young adulthood, without my intervention. 
Well, three months down the road, the portrait of Sebastien as a young man emerged and… it was not good, by any stretch of the imagination.

Throughout his life, Sebastien periodically went through phases in which he seemed compelled to indulge in quirky sensory behaviours like dragging his chin across all surfaces to the point that his skin would become reddish and raw, or sliding on his bottom so frequently that the back of his pants would eventually give way after repeated chafing. With various interventions, such behaviours would eventually fade away to be replaced by others.

This time around, the teenage Sebastien decided to go for a comprehensive make-over and re-invent the way he moved. And what he came up with was, without a doubt, uniquely Sebastien.

Demonstrating a perverse leap of imagination, Sebastien decided to metamorphose into an agile adventurer and transform his surroundings into a complex obstacle course with innumerable barriers of his own making. There was no walking in a straight line; each trip consisted of tortuous detours that involved sidling along walls at the furthest ends of the room, stepping up on chairs, clambering over couches and crawling under tables.

By formulating and adhering to these labyrinthine routes, Sebastien would take forever just to go anywhere in the house. Worse still, because he had turned a straightforward path that could be completed within seconds into an arduous journey, he balked at your request to return to any room to fetch things! It would take too long, and of course, walking the normal way – the straightest possible route – was completely out of the question!

There was also no reprieve from Sebastien’s new, revamped self in the public space. In the midst of the crowded underpasses of train stations and the busy sidewalks of popular areas such as Orchard Road (in Singapore), Sebastien zigzagged from one side of the passageway to another, while tossing in a few partial pirouettes to the right and to the left. At every surface – be it wall, lamppost, railings, pillar or shopfront, he would lean and rub his back against it. During these lingering seconds, he would strain his tall body heavenward, while his face would be contorted by squinting eyes and a slightly-opened mouth, as though he were lost in reverie. Resuming his onward careening course without looking, he would almost collide with passers-bys, which would do nothing to stop him in his tracks.

Now I do not know whether it is possible to do a matching comparison between the antics of a teenager with autism and those of his/her typical counterpart. But the closest equivalent I could think of was a teenage goth with multiple body piercings. As far as I was concerned, the image Sebastien projected was just creepy and irritating. Though I had been Sebastien’s staunch champion for all of his life, I found it hard to be on his side. When people stared in horror at him, I fully empathised.

But what pained me more than anything was that Sebastien’s projection of himself did not do justice to the progress that he was making in various areas. Who could possibly know that under this charade of madness was a natural-born skater, an enthusiastic painter with a bold sense of colour and a courageous lover of life who had overcome tremendous odds? All that the people could see was just a crazy person engaging in strange and annoying behaviour.
At the same time, the pervasive nature of this problem and its frequency made it particularly challenging. This was not something that arose every 15 minutes, but every second that he was moving. His strange mannerisms had invaded his being like the plague. He was becoming someone so strange that even I, with my high threshold for weirdness, was finding unbearable. Sebastien had crossed the line; it was time to put my foot down.

But deciding to do something about it was far easier than actually doing something. 

How could I motivate him to stop engaging in his crazy walk that seemed to have such a stranglehold on him?

Reflecting on my weeks of observations, I came up with a multi-tiered boot-camp version of behavioural management and... a new persona for me, Drill Sergeant Mama:

 

With the advent of Drill Sergeant Mama, Sebastien’s walking style and demeanour began to improve. Within a day, people were no longer staring at Sebastien as though he were a deranged madman. Instead, they were shrinking away from me and glaring at me: “Who was this tyrant who was barking at her poor child with special needs?” Their once-look of horror towards Sebastien was now replaced by pity and even compassion!  I was undeterred by these looks; years of being the mother of an autistic child had taken care of that. But more importantly, I was motivated by the awesome spectacle before me. After weeks of witnessing Sebastien’s “madman” walk, it was truly wonderful to see Sebastien resume a more typical gait than before…

Three weeks later, I was exhausted. Being a Drill Sergeant Mama day after day was humanly impossible. Micromanaging his every move with military discipline was taking a toll on me. I found it physically, mentally and emotionally taxing to maintain such a heightened level of attention and rigour.

One day, after getting off the bus and seeing Sebastien doing his zigzag, I just sank down on the curb at a carpark of the HDB estate. Though my mind summoned me to get up, every nerve and fibre of my being refused to budge. As Sebastien circled around me in distress, walking forward and walking back to correct himself, I gave way to my exhaustion. The thought of having to bark out another order during the five-minute walk home and within the home itself kept me firmly planted on the curb. I was fed up, from my head down to my toe, of being Drill Sergeant Mama! While the approach had its merits, I clearly could not sustain it for more than a month!

And as I sat there with my whole being crumpled in fatigue, I realised that I was skirting dangerously to the precipice of insanity.  I had reached the limit of my endurance; it was crucial to step back, relax and recharge. In that instant, I was grateful for this humbling reminder that as the caregiver of a child with special needs, I was running a marathon, not a sprint. However disheartening as such moments (not the first in my caregiving “career”) may seem, they encapsulate the seeds of knowledge and wisdom that will illuminate my future steps. 

For the remainder of that night, I gave myself permission to go on strike as Sebastien’s mother. After we returned home, I left Sebastien to complete the night routine on his own without my participation, despite his vehement protests. Behind my locked bedroom door, I dozed in bed. When I felt more restored a couple of hours later, I re-strategised and came up with the following behavioural management combo strategy:

• Firm and systematic implementation of the behavioural management approach: Sebastien stands to lose any of his privileges ranging from his daily pleasures like colouring and painting to cherished outings such as skating or seeing a movie;
• Sudden cancellations of Sebastien preferred outings for poor behaviour: If he does not walk properly to the front door, we will simply cancel the outing in an instant; and
• Occasional reminders from a scaled-back version of Drill Sergeant Mama: This version of Drill Sergeant Mama will simply serve as a haunting reminder of his oppressed past, though I have no intention to resurrect her fully. But he does not have to know that…

The next morning, I opened my bedroom door. Just like every other morning, Sebastien was awake and waiting for me to start our exercise activity. Armed with my new strategy, I greeted him with a smile and said: “Come sit down. I need to show you something…” It was time to lay down the new ground rules for the next battle…

As I emerged from the latest battle with Sebastien, with my sanity still intact, I saw the need to modify my favourite sayings about behavioural management to my workshop audiences:

Behavioural management is not about WINNING, but the FIGHTING!

The reality is that, as your child grows, new battles will arise continuously, each more daunting than the one before. You see, behavioural management is not simply about eradicating a specific undesirable behaviour. Rather, its most powerful effect is produced in the battleground during the implementation of the behavioural management process. The strength, tenacity and the consistency you display in the face of the relentless and fiery protests of your child will win you the most important victory of all: the child’s RESPECT for you. And even more importantly, the child sees that you will never give up on him/her.

Over the years and innumerable battles, Sebastien and I have come to know and respect one another as formidable adversaries. Each time we step onto the battleground, we brace ourselves for the unpleasant prospect of the fight that looms ahead of us. At the same time, through our skirmishes, we have also constructed a deep and indestructible bond of love. Unlikely as it may sound to the uninitiated, it is through these endless battles that we have forged the boundaries of our extraordinary love story.

This is truly a battle worth fighting for…

©Choo Kah Ying 2010. No portion of this article may be reproduced without author's permission.