Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi I am new to everything, I’m feeling like a baby fish in a huge ocean right now! We got our 5 year olds diagnoses in February and since then I have been lost in a fog and rollercoaster since then!
One of the challenges we have is that our child has always found a way to brake his toys and night light!! We soon realised it was because he was working out how they work, why they do what they do. We come from a very practical family! How ever I do find this very challenging when knowing what to buy that is child proof!!! Do I go with his interests like space? I don’t like the idea of a plug in in case he gets an idea and plays with that one! Or go for a colour one?? I would just like to have a light that doesn’t get broken or am I asking of to much and this is the reality of Autism?
Welcome to the forum.
I had to grin when I read your description of your son. I've often thought that I should have been a Quality Assurance tester for a manufacturer of unbreakable or "child-proof" products. I would have been doing just that kind of thing at his age (I still do. Never lend me a clicky biro - after about the third strip-down and re-assembly, I always lose the little spring under the furniture!)
He has a passion for wanting to know how things work, which is an admirable thing. And he's getting pretty good at getting inside things to find out. These are valuable talents, and it's probably best to work with them by finding safe alternatives that satisfy his curiosity. As he develops, the things that pique his interest will become more advanced; solving the problem of the light is one thing, but he'll get bored with those soon enough and start looking for something else to perform his experiments on. So I would try to keep one step ahead of him if you can, and maybe challenge him with toys or projects that involve these skills, like little table-top science experiments, and maybe even a few things which would normally be considered a bit advanced for his developmental age. If his fascination is with how things work, this needn't mean expensive toys; any old (safe!) bric-a-brac which has bits you can pull apart might do; as I said, I'm still fascinated by office stationery!
In essence, you need to find a decoy to distract him from his current test subjects and fulfils whatever need this is satisfying; at least until you are certain that you can teach him to respect that certain objects have "no user modifiable parts inside" (or until he learns to put them back together again!)