We have the same issue with my 7 years old wanting to call everyone poopypants. Attention seeking for sure.

Some kids rebel when you try to stop behaviors. That doesn't mean medication is necessary. It just means that you're not going to get your child where you want them in the learning process by trying to stop them. Every child is different and some do great when you work on just getting them to stop it.

Well, part of it is when he sees the look of disapproval on your face or he gets you to light up your face in some way, that encourages it more. The beauty of this is that you can use this sort of obsession as a learning tool if you can learn to enjoy it. I heard of a family where the child was repeating over and over events that took place on the Jerry Springer show so the parents set up an actual Jerry Springer show with relatives for the audience and brought out a microphone. They used this set up to teach interactive question and answer skills and social interaction. They all laughed and went along with it. A great idea is to use the obsession to your advantage somehow. My son was and still is obssessed with Christmas trees. Instead of getting sick of Christmas trees I learned to enjoy them and my son could only scribble so I joined him in scribbling and started drawing Christmas trees. I taught him language in the process of him asking for me to draw as well as after drawing him a gazillion trees, he started making them himself, now he can draw rainbows, people, snowmen, grass and other things from his own initiative and motivation. The great thing about these obessions is that you can take advantage of those to get his attention motivated to want to learn rather than just obsessing.

My son used to say "poo poo!" all day long. I joined him in the joy of saying "poo poo" for a long time and eventually he didn't need to say it anymore because he wasn't getting the negative reaction and we started to build on a positive connection to one another by my acceptance of the word. After a few months, he just didn't need to say it anymore.

@A MyAutismTeam Member Miles is 6yrs old with PDD-NOS. I know that he is an attention seeker. He does most things for attention! Ha who doesn't lol. As far as challenging behaviors: Tantrums, verbally combative. We do a lot of role playing, analyze the shows he watches and discuss the inappropriate behaviors. He can tell you if prompted if the character is displaying good or bad behaviors. He can also tell you whether his behaviors are good or undesirable. When it comes to applying it to his own situations therein lies the issue!

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