Where Dollar Bills Come From

Tate has very little understanding about time. He picks random times out of the air when he wants to give us a time frame. He might say, “At 11:00 I want to go get ice cream” yet he has no idea when 11:00 is. He might tell us that he has been in his room for ten hours when it was only thirty minutes or that he was at school for seventeen hours. Some mornings when I drop him off he will tell me, “You’ll be back in 23 minutes.”

Money and the value of a dollar has been very hard for him to grasp as well. He does not understand that the price tag on a DVD and a cart full of groceries would not be the same. In order to teach him something about money, Tate’s wonderful behavior consultant thought it might help if he had a chore and the ability to earn some money, along with shopping trips so he can buy some of the things he wants using the money He EARNED. It is actually going very well. I decided that unloading the dishwasher would be a good chore for Tate because he has excellent matching skills and he would just have to match each dish or utensil to its correct cabinet or drawer. It took a while but he has become an expert dishwasher un-loader. If I remember correctly he has only broken a couple of glasses so far. Tate gets one dollar every time he does his chore and he is usually able to earn one dollar a day. Occasionally if he asks for a break and wants to forfeit his dollar, I agree and unload the dishwasher myself. Tate has been keeping track of how many times he has unloaded the dishwasher and I believe it is a fairly accurate count. He almost always gives at least a little bit of a protest about the "hard" work. I usually call, “Tate, the dishwasher is ready for you to unload.” He will say, “But mom! I have done it 67 times now!” Then I will say, “That is a lot of times but it has to be done everyday.” He will end with something like, “This will be 68. Maybe this will be the last time. I will really miss it.” (I think he is really catching on to the sarcasm thing I blogged about a while back. Blog post: What brought you here?)

Tate keeps his money in a “safe” with a plastic combination lock. He is learning to count it. He still needs a lot of help with the coins but the paper money he is managing fairly well. So far the timing has been working out for us. Usually a DVD Tate wants will come out about the time he has around $20.00 saved. A couple of times when I saw he was going to be a couple of dollars short we’ve come up with another job or two he could do. Picking up sticks in the yard before we mow is something he HATES to do and can think of so many excuses when I suggest it. It can be 3:00 in the afternoon without a cloud in the sky and he will tell me it is about to rain or that it is too close to bedtime. The kid with almost no imagination can get pretty creative if he is trying to avoid manual labor. Two or three times we’ve even picked up sticks next door in Grandma and Grandpa’s yard for $1.00. Several times lately as we were getting in the car to go somewhere Tate has said, “If this is a trick to get me to pick up sticks in Grandpa’s yard, count me out!” That really cracks us up. He thinks we are all slave drivers.

A couple of days ago when I handed Tate his daily dollar he paused and asked, “Where do you get these dollars anyway?” Because Tate does not often ask the whys, or the where or how questions, I was thrown for a second. I had to think fast but talk slowly or I'd lose his attention. I reminded him about the kind of work his dad does and explained that people pay his dad for doing the work (Well, most of them do…. But that is another blog post for another day. HA) Tate did not walk away before I was done talking as he sometimes does. He listened. I had to keep the explanation short. I wanted to get more detailed and explain banks and checks and deposits but I knew better. It is a fine line I walk when teaching Tate. He asked a question and cared enough about the answer to stay and listen. I think he even understood. I have to celebrate the small things. Small things are really big things in our world.

Impulse Control

She's into everything!

One of the biggest concerns we have about Sydney is her lack of impulse control. If she thinks it, she says it. If she sees it, she reaches out to touch it. If she wants it, she grabs it. A person with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome often lacks the “filter” the rest of us have. Because Sydney doesn’t plan ahead, natural consequences and cause-and-effect are not really the teachers that they should be. Sometimes she does learn to control a behavior or an impulse in a certain situation because of repetition. But, if that same situation doesn’t come up again for a while, she will probably forget and have to relearn the consequence. It is frustrating to us all, her included I imagine. 

This evening we did a little shopping. Levi had some birthday money to spend. Sydney emptied her piggy bank a few nights ago and had twenty dollars. Numbers mean nothing to her but I patiently explained at length what twenty dollars could and could not do for her. We went to Target. She saw many things she wanted that were way out of her price range and just could NOT understand why she couldn’t walk out with them but I stood firm. She settled on a small squishy dinosaur that was only a few dollars. She loves those squishy toys. Her sensory needs are extraordinary. Levi didn’t find what he wanted in Target so we went over to Best Buy. Sydney saw a DVD box with a dolphin on it. It was Season One of the old television show, “Flipper” and it was only $9.99, on sale. She was THRILLED when I said she had enough money left to buy it. Sydney has two favorite animals: cows and dolphins. Once, at the end of the school day she did not come out with her class. She had a substitute teacher that day and the sub and I had to hunt Sydney down. She was in the library looking for a book about dolphins. She did not understand why the grownups did not know that was where she would be. It was only logical she thought. UGH!

Sydney with her brothers, Levi and Tate.
She sometimes just called them "the brothers."

  
After Best Buy we went to Walmart to get a few things. Sydney wanted one of everything we saw.  I told her over and over she didn’t have enough money left to buy anything else and she was not going to get anything in Walmart. She whined. She shed a few tears. She kept asking. I asked her to stop. I told her to stop. I demanded she stop. I finally got down and quietly chewed her out for misbehaving. I told her to watch the boys and see how they were acting. They were not getting anything in Walmart but they were not complaining. I lectured her about being thankful for what she had gotten at the other stores. I talked to her about how much she was going to love watching her dolphin show when we got home. I told her NOT to ask me for ONE more thing in Walmart. I asked her if she understood. She said she did. I had her repeat to me that she would not ask for anything else, “not one more thing.” We got about ten feet from where I had stopped to lecture her and she saw a book. Can you guess what I heard? “OH MOM, LOOK! I WANT THAT BOOK! Can I have it?” I said “SYDNEY!  REMEMBER? Not one more thing?” She looked at me like she had no idea what I was talking about.   

Almost every evening, at some point, Sydney and Shawn play a game of cards. It has helped her a lot with number recognition and she loves nothing more than having Shawn’s undivided attention. They usually play “Go Fish” but some nights it is “Slap Jack” or another game. She talks the ENTIRE time they play. She chatters without taking a breath. She CAN NOT keep quiet about what cards she has either. She will tell Shawn what her cards are as soon as they begin, no matter how many times we remind her to keep quiet. Sometimes she tells him by saying “Dad, do NOT ask for 2s or 5s.” Last night, when one of her cards fell on the floor she hollered, "Don't look at that Queen!" She cracks us up every night. Sydney has such a great Daddy. He is so patient. He got a double dose of impulse control so he has enough for both of them. 

If you found this post interesting, here is a similar one: heart attacks and loose teeth.

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