Samuel's WorldObsessive Behaviour Disorder - what is it?
Samuel’s OBD
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I can remember specifically one day when I realised that Samuel was different to other children and it was when we walked to school one day last year in 2005, Samuel took over 1 hour to reach school – not because he was dawdling or complaining – but because he had to collect all the red rubber bands the postman had dropped on his rounds along the way!! My patience level wained that day and for Grace as well as he repeated the whole exercise again on the way home at 3pm following another trail of rubber bands! Samuel collected so many we made a large ball out of them much to Samuels delight….
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From rubber bands it was stones or pieces of glass that looked like jewels – I wish he could have stuck with the rubber bands! That became more of a problem as these so called jewels were smaller than rubber bands and so took longer to find! After a couple of weeks of this hoping it would soon pass I had to give in to driving the car so that we could pass all of these temptations along the route!
And more!..........
Acorns, conkers, leaves, can tabs – the part you pull back, milk bottle tops – what more can you find along 1 main road!
The Office Man!
It was last year when Samuel would constantly come home from school with yellow post it note pads in his pocket and blue tac. His poor teacher kept on going to her desk only to find it had walked off! After several weeks of still more blue tac the worst was yet to come…... “Mrs Coates – Samuel has put blue tac up his nose” Its normally a pea or a sultana – but blue tac? Thankfully it did surface – but it did not stop him from loving blue tac.
What toy would you like – a remote controlled dinosaur or a box of paperclips?
What would you choose? – I would like a go of the dinosaur but for Samuel it would have to be the paperclips. If you removed all of Samuel’s toys from his bedroom and kitted him out with every office supply/stationery from Staples or Office World it would make his day. Pens, pencils, sharpeners, rubbers, tippex tape, cellotape – has to be on the reel – and labels!!!.......
Who can I get to sign next?
We recently went to St Georges Hospital for his assessment and for the whole 5 hours that we were up there Samuel proceeded to obtain every member of staff’s name by asking them to sign one of his labels he had taken with him, of which he had 100. He could have taken a gameboy or a colouring book – just a pen and a box of labels. He was highly amusing and bravely marched up to any doctor that happened to pop out of their consultancy room.
The Annoying Obsessions for Samuel
These are upsetting for Samuel as he just has to do certain things just the right way in the right order – sometimes he has to touch an object 4 times then 8 times, a prod here or there on me or daddy but it has to be on the same spot and if it does not feel right he will have to repeat the action again and again. Thankfully Samuel has not prodded a person he does not know on the street yet or tapped a person’s bottom just like he has to tap mine!
10p, 20p – is that my £1?
Coins, coins, coins – Samuel is like a metal detector – if there is money around he will sniff it out! Each year I have a large old sweet jar which I put all our copper and 5p’s into and at the end of each year we all go down to Sainsburys to their cash counter machine to see how much we have. It usually goes towards our Christmas Tree – its a way of showing Grace and Samuel how to save pennies and what you get at the end of it. It was only after I had moved the jar one day from behind the curtain that I realised that more was going out than what was going in! £3 worth of 5p’s was found in Samuel’s bedroom in columns all in a row..
Samuel’s bedtime routine
God forbid if I forget what to do next in what order as Samuel will pick me up there is no doubt! We all like to do things sometimes in a neat way – I know I do – In anything Samuel does during the day it is always the same way at the same time – watching television – Samuel has to watch a programme on the same seat with the cushions arranged in a set pattern next to him – having dinner at lunchtime – if I did not warn Samuel that we would be having a cooked dinner when he normally has a sandwich it would start a full meltdown of rage.
Visual Timetables do help
These have been a real asset!!!! Bought my one off Ebay – but they are easy to russle one together – a laminated card with velcro rows, an assortment of pictures ranging from “go to the toilet”, get dressed, brush your teeth” Each night I change the tasks for the following day so that when Samuel comes down in the morning he can look at it and know what he is doing. Explaining his actions in pictures is much better than just in words which sometimes mean nothing to Samuel.
I wonder what he might want to collect tomorrow??
images by www.freeimages.co.uk
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