| Teaching social skills instead of punishing is | | | | behave. Breaking positive and wanted behaviors |
| important for parents of children with Autism. | | | | down into small teachable skills is possible. If |
| Many times our children mimic what they see us | | | | nothing else we can buy a book to learn those |
| do. They also learn to react with anger if we | | | | small skills. |
| react with anger. This is even truer with a child | | | | Long term this will pay off for children with |
| with a disability. | | | | Autism. They will revert back to the skills that |
| If we are going to teach our children differently, | | | | they learned. When they are under stress or |
| parents need to model what they want their | | | | frustrated they can revert back to those skills. |
| children to do. This includes a more thoughtful | | | | Punishment on the other hand does not teach any |
| response to instances of misbehaving. We teach | | | | real skill. The hope is that the punishment will be a |
| everything else to a child with autism. | | | | deterrent so our child does not repeat the |
| We teach simple things like putting on a shirt. We | | | | behavior. This might be true, if a young child can |
| teach more complex things like speaking and | | | | reason that far. |
| learning to read. Why do we punish when | | | | Most of the time a child just tries a different |
| someone misbehaves? | | | | behavior which may or may not be the one |
| They obviously do not know how to do some | | | | parents are looking for. Then we may be right |
| things like behave. We need to teach how to | | | | back at the place where we started. |