Teaching Patience

As I have mentioned before, Ethan has Aspergers, and as a result of this, he sometimes has great problems with patience.
If something doesn't go as planned immediately for him, it is likely to be scrunched up and thrown violently as far away as possible.
This was always a problem when he was at school, work which in his mind has too many errors, or the wrong look, or not enough content, would be destroyed in a fit of exasperation. He would then finish off the grump by sitting with his arms tightly folded staring off into space completely ignoring the teachers pleas to get him to start over again.

Obviously, now that he is a little older he has learned to cope better in situations where his fuse runs short (usually because of his brother annoying him, which in the past would result in tears and often the need for a plaster and some hugs).

However, I noticed the other day that he still attempts things with a 'must complete perfectly' mentality. It's as if he is in competition with himself over everything.
Take for example, a drawing he was doing. He was designing a complete new race of alien beings, and his work was several pages long with diagrams for landscapes, building types, weather systems, different sorts of vehicles, and of course, what each species of alien being looked like, along with a list of individual attributes for each. However, when one of the designs went slightly wrong - and I couldn't even see what he was referring to when he pointed it out - he very nearly lost his rag to such an extent that everything could have been destroyed. Which would have been a real shame, since he had spent so much time working on it. 

So, I decided to think of ways to try and improve his general level of patience, and to try and teach him the advantages of having a longer fuse than most. 

I am an extremely patient person. It takes alot these days for me to snap. But I also appreciate that this is something which has developed with age, rather than it being something which I was born with. As a teenager I was hideously short tempered. I do believe that having children has taught me the skill of allowing the little things to just wash over me, and it was this I wanted to impart to Ethan.

So, after some scouring of the interweb, I came up with....a rubber band ball. 

I could apply the teaching of physics to it (because at first Ethan saw little point in actually doing it) and at the same time, I hoped the simple task of sitting, and adding each band would increase his patience.

Of course, at first, the bands popped off, and some snapped, and Ethan would growl and slam his fist into the sofa cushions, and call the whole thing daft..but we persevered, and I showed him different ways of applying the bands to reduce the number of times they would ping off, and gradually I noticed him 'sinking' into the activity.
He even took his ball into the bath with him yesterday!

We talked about the importance of not loosing faith in whatever we are doing. And how some things which seem important at the time - like getting a race finished, or a drawing perfect, or a shoelace to tie up without being too tight - usually aren't.

I think it was the first time anyone had approached him with a different angle, a different thought process to employ when things seem too much. 

I understand that with Aspergers, most of the time their reactions are just that..impulsive reactions to external stimuli which occur before they have the time to think it through. But I also believe that patience can be taught, and subsequently learned.

He is now painting the downstairs bathroom as I also believe this is a good life skill, and quite a relaxing one once you get into it.

Loz