ASD and Parenting: 'Sports Day and Rewards' - My best month has come to an end.

⭐️Because of ASD and DCD, and because of the diagnosis, not everyone has the same condition or struggles. I am simply writing about my son's situation, and this may contain expressions that are not ideal.🙏

⭐️I feel there are few articles that write in detail about the progress, so I am writing as specifically as possible. This is a long article of over 3000 characters.

Whew...

Ah, it's finally over.

Good job, son, good job, me.

Good job, son,
good job, me.

My son was diagnosed at age 3 with:
• Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
• Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD)
and he was diagnosed at age 3.

He has delayed speech, his understanding is not age-appropriate, and he is extremely clumsy. And a sports day is full of things that are different from the usual! Oh, come on, of course he'd be confused. I sincerely wish participation were optional.

I mean,
both practice and the actual event are tough; he is trying so incredibly hard!

Seeing his big crying and anxiety during the practice period and the actual event when he was in the younger class, Noriko thought—!

Alright!
Let's go with a reward strategy starting from practice!

✨Give rewards in an easy-to-understand way.
✨Make the reason clear.
✨Give them immediately.

That is effective for my son, and first of all,

I go to pick him up at kindergarten, stop by a convenience store on the way, say 'good job,' and I've even lifted the ban on juice boxes, cola, and Lipovitan D that I hadn't given him before, and he gets a reward every weekday from the day sports day practice starts.

The fact that he gets to choose and buy it himself is also a key point.

When the actual sports day is over, I say 'good job,' and then, let's go buy a toy! I take him to the store on the way home and have him choose his own reward.

Since his language comprehension was delayed, it was easier to understand if the reward was given immediately, and because of his characteristics, I predicted that if it wasn't immediate, he wouldn't know what the reward was for, so honestly, even though Noriko is exhausted, we go! 😂

And then,

'You did your best. Mom and Dad are watching your hard work, son.'

I also add specific things that were wonderful. This year, for example,
'You came in last in the short-distance race, but you ran to the end and stood in line without crying.'
'Your dance was cool! You remembered the difficult choreography well, and it made me happy to see you having fun.'

I tell him that I see the wonderful parts of him, not just the results. This is how we've gotten through sports days from his middle year of preschool through second grade.

But...

Last year, in third grade, I worried that being too motivated by material things wasn't great and that his spontaneity might suffer, so while I still gave him things like juice, I intentionally didn't specify a reward for after the sports day.

And then... total disaster...

This article here.

Reading it back... it's awful 😂
Noriko, completely flustered.

Fourth grade.

Yeah, forget it,
I'm done with that,
It's better if he can just approach it with a bit of a fun feeling.

I changed everything back!
The juice, and the toy after the sports day.
Plus, I decided to add game time as a bonus.

To be honest, it is a lot of work 😂
It takes effort, too.


Here is how I do it.
I'll write it down in detail!
Somehow, I'm desperate 😂

✨I ask my son for his requests and have the juice he wants ready; sometimes it's an ice cream day.

I say, 'Thanks for your hard work at sports day practice today, you did your best,' and hand it to him.
My son then talks about what he did, saying, 'Right? It was tough work.'

✨The reward after the sports day is a cash payment of 5,000 yen, and he can choose not to spend it all at once and plan how to use it himself.

After coming home from school and having a snack,he can go straight to the store and buy the toy he wants.

The sports day is on a Saturday... since there's a rule that Saturday is a day to rest, he hates that it's changing. At times like that, I say, 'Well, that 5,000 yen includes overcoming those feelings,' and he says, 'Oh, right, that's true,' and is convinced. I repeated this conversation about 20 times 😂

✨I grant him an extra hour and a half of game time on the weekend because he works hard at sports day practice during the week.

When I grant it, I always add a few words: 'Thanks for your hard work at sports day practice again this week, here's an hour and a half for games or YouTube!'

And I must not forget to make a secret request to his homeroom teacher. I failed at that in third grade too... I thought it was fine because I had communicated it in writing... and the teacher was very experienced, after all.

As it turns out, that wasn't good either...

This year, I told the homeroom teacher about my son's condition several times and asked them to handle things in this way.

He was so frustrated that he came in last in the short-distance race that he was moping around, thinking he was no good. I wanted to tell him that the process of trying hard is what's wonderful, not just the result.

Thanks to our reward strategy at home and the kind support and encouragement from his homeroom teacher, he was able to participate in Sports Day safely as a fourth grader!

Whoa!

How happy I am! ❣️
Thank you! ❣️

My son decided what went into his bento. Lol. He says it's the ultimate combination. It's just a regular, nothing-special bento, but he thinks the frozen fried chicken, which he rarely gets to eat, is the best thing ever.

For dessert, I also cut up some mandarin oranges and Kyoho grapes to take with us.

After we got home, we went straight to buy toys. Since it was also the release date for CoroCoro Comic, he got that and a Doraemon science manga. I asked my son, who was enjoying his game time and having a blissful moment with juice and snacks:

'Hey, you worked hard at Sports Day again this year, it was tough, wasn't it? If you could choose whether to participate or not, what would you do? You wouldn't participate, right? Obviously.'

'Of course I'd participate! I'm sad that my best month ever is over.'

Huh?
Even though you came in last in the race?

'I get 5,000 yen, don't I? Of course I'd do it. I was even looking forward to it.'

Oh, oh, oh,
Is that so? 😂

I'm glad for you.
You can't buy experience with money!
Being able to work hard at practice and getting a toy through your own efforts have become wonderful experiences.

I'm glad for you.

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⭐️About rewards.

Due to his traits, he has a very strong feeling that he doesn't want to do things unless there's a benefit for him, so if a reward helps him get motivated and take action, then that's fine. That's what his child psychiatrist said, too. I've consulted with several experts and received advice on the key parts of supporting my son. Every child is different, but this fit my son perfectly.

｡*⑅୨୧┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈୨୧⑅*｡

Yes!
I bought it.

I bought it using the money I had saved up from working hard on tests and other things.

Two types of Gundam

Something that lets you enjoy real racing by connecting to the Switch. It costs over 10,000 yen, but for some reason, I was able to buy it at a sale price of 3,480 yen.

Alright, let's build a course!

Go, go!

My son was so excited that he was jumping up and down while holding the Switch and controlling it. Lol

'This is fun, so fun.'

I see, I'm glad, that's good.

Mom is tired. I wonder if I can make it to Sports Day. I spent over a month worrying and fulfilling my duties as part of the cheering squad. On the day of, I did PTA work, cheered for my son, and after he got home from school, we went to buy toys! The next day, I did the neighborhood recycling collection from the morning, had a meeting for the children's association, had a meeting for the school lunch tasting event for first-grade parents as a PTA officer, then decided on the schedule for the second-term greeting campaign, drove my son to piano lessons, and then we went to eat steak as a reward again. Today, my son said he wasn't satisfied with his IQ and asked me to take him to see a doctor, so I accompanied him to a visit to the child psychiatrist, comforted my half-crying son, then went to the mall, played capsule toys, played the UFO catcher, wandered around the toy section, and then I was so hungry, so we ate udon at the food court and bought vegetables. It's quite a hard schedule.

Ah, I'm stunned.

Really, the sports day season is tough.