By Jan Randall

“When the why is clear the how is easy.” Inspirational quote.

“Uh oh it’s all smashed” … the words that sent my blood pressure through the roof. Another glass had gone out Andrew’s second floor bedroom window onto the paved driveway below.

Andrew was about 14 when he started dropping drinking glasses, or my ceramic coffee mugs, out his bedroom window onto our driveway. The glasses didn’t just break, they exploded when they hit the pavement. Glass would be everywhere in about a 25-foot radius from the point of impact.

When he did it, I didn’t always catch it right away. Sometimes I would find the glass later or I would get a call from my mom, or dad who lived downstairs. (To say they were unhappy with this new behavior would be a serious understatement.) Most of the time though Andrew would come to wherever I was and loudly announce, “Uh oh it’s all smashed”.

After going out and cleaning up this disaster a few times by myself, I had had it! I started making Andrew come outside and clean up the mess he made, while I supervised, making sure that he didn’t get cut on a shard of glass.

I spent a long time trying to figure out WHY Andrew was dropping glasses out the window and I was frustrated that I couldn’t figure it out. So, I reached out to our autism specialist*. Together I knew we could get him to stop by understanding WHY it was happening. We both knew without finding WHY, we weren’t going to get far.

So, what did we know? We knew it didn’t happen every day, sometimes he would go a week or two without doing it. Then it might happen two or three times a week. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to the WHY.

We also knew Andrew had, for a couple of years, been throwing things like caps and rings from soda bottles, toothbrushes, and various other small items out his other bedroom window onto the roof of the carport. There were dozens of these items covering the roof, making an interesting looking collage of colors and shapes. While this was annoying it wasn’t destructive, and we KNEW WHY he was doing this. In his mind he did it to permanently “get rid of” things he didn’t like or want. But WHY were the glasses smashing on the driveway, instead of going on the carport roof?

The carport roof

If I’d brought someone in to do a typical Functional Behavioral Assessment (FBA) I am confident this is what we would have seen:

The Antecedent: Andrew being at home after school, or on the weekend.

The Behavior: He drops a glass out the window.

The Consequence: He and I go outside to clean it up.

Most people would conclude that he was engaging in “attention seeking behavior”, a term I loathe with a fiery passion.

They say two heads are better than one, but after a couple of brainstorming sessions, we kept coming up empty. That’s when I reached out to another autism specialist for a fresh set of eyes. He had worked with us when Andrew was young and though he hadn’t seen him in a while, I believed a fresh perspective along with his previous experience would help. Together we went over everything we knew about Andrew, including old challenges. For example: When Andrew was 9 he started peeing off the second-floor deck or out his bedroom window. One time he almost peed on his grandmother’s head.

It took much discussion, but we came to the conclusion that there were at least two reasons why the glassware was going out the window.

One reason was Andrew’s need for symmetry. (He is not OCD but he does enjoy order and things in their place). For example, if I had three blue glasses and two red ones, one of the blue glasses had to go. With my coffee mugs I had an assortment, but, in the assortment, two were identical, so one of the two had to go.

But the main and biggest reason glasses were getting tossed was boredom. Why was this so hard to figure out? Again, two reasons. One, most times I didn’t notice he was bored because I was busy! Two: because of his language challenges Andrew wasn’t able to come to me and say, “Mom I’m bored”.

So, if I was busy, and he was bored, a glass went out the window. Even though I was angry with him, when we went to clean up, Andrew had what he wanted and NEEDED, something to do!!. The behavior wasn’t attention seeking, it was communication. He was saying “Mom I’m bored, I have nothing to do.”

Ultimately a multi-pronged approach was used to get Andrew to stop throwing glassware out the window.

1 I switched over to ALL plastic drinking glasses. I did this because I wasn’t always going to be able to tell when Andrew was bored, and we wanted him out of the habit.

2 More importantly I started making sure Andrew had things to keep him busy. He didn’t (and still doesn’t) play video games or watch tv or movies. I started teaching him more skills to help around the house. He learned to fold towels, hang up shirts, roll socks, strip and make beds up clean, put clean dishes away, and hang laundry on the clothesline. I saved these things for him to do for when he got home from school. While he enjoyed helping, he loved being busy even more!

Andrew getting food for our dog.

3 We kept some symmetry for him. Since all our mugs were different, if someone gave me a set of matching coffee mugs I would store one mug away. Same for the plastic glasses. I made sure that we had sets of 2 or 4 of the same. There could be multiple different sets but no odd numbers.

Over time as Andrew matured and acquired new skills, all of our glassware came back and the need for symmetry was no longer an issue.

I’m glad that I had people who worked with me who understood that the glass throwing was more than just a behavior to be extinguished. That it was communication. Also, if I had just switched to all plastic glasses right at the beginning, we never would have figured out the ALL IMPORTANT WHY. I have no doubt that if we didn’t learn the WHY Andrew would have become more frustrated and developed even bigger behavior issues.

Andrew is an adult now, but he still can’t tell me “Mom I’m bored”. Now though, when he is bored, he looks for housework that needs to be done and he does it.

*An Autism Specialist is someone who has in-depth training, and expertise, in Autism. Generally, they collaborate with the parents, and/or educators of an individual with Autism in order to provide a fresh perspective as well as strategies around behavior challenges. They also design specific supports for the individual with Autism to enable them to be and do their best. The Autism Specialists our family has worked with have come from a wide variety of backgrounds including: a Doctor of Sociology, Doctor of Education, a psychologist, and two former special education teachers with master’s degrees. Autism Specialists have been and continue to be invaluable to Andrew’s continued growth and success.