I need help

From the BTDT* crowd. If you have a child who obsesses, I would love for you to share your experience. Please understand I don't mean a kid who was totally caught up in one thing for a while and then eventually got over it and went back to a variety of interests, I mean a kid who is always obsessed about something.

I don't think I would have known the difference before living with Frankie. He has been obsessed with WoW and we got him for a while to spend some time with another game. He did, and the rest of the day he could talk about nothing else. We have tried a couple of times to get him interested in all sorts of things. It either doesn't work at all, or he gets this intense, obsessive interest in it. It really looks like he can shift interests, but whatever he is interested in consumes him.

Though he complained very much about Brian not letting him hang out with his friends, and about how he does not have any friends of his own, he is very resistant to any suggestion that might change that. He does not want to go to the GLBT-youth support group, or any other youth group. He does not want to go to organizations for kids in foster care. He does not want for us to invite one of the couple of kids his own age at his school over to hang out with him at the house.

I mention this because I think it is part of the same issue. I think the reason he has trouble making friends is that he can't maintain an interest in what other people care about. His own obsessions take over. It is all he can talk about. It is more complicated than that, but that is part of what is going on.

I mentioned Asperger's to Hubby, who is a special education teacher, and he said to me in his Mister Rogers voice, "Children with Asperger's have difficult understanding other people's emotions. Frankie has trouble regulating his own." Okay. Check. But again, the diagnosis might not really matter. I need to decide how to deal with it.

Idea One: accept and enjoy Frankie just the way he is. Whenever I have decided to try to change something basic about a kid it has just made me crazy. As I have said before, I suck at behavior modification. When kids have made major leaps in their development or behavior it has always been because they have decided to do so.

To be clear, I am able to enforce basic rules and insist on basic respect. Last night, when Frankie ran out slamming doors I walked down and, with a quiet but insistent voice, made him come back up, speak appropriately with Brian (they did not resolve anything) and then walk quietly to bed without slamming doors. I can refuse to buy junk food, or let them spend more time than I think they should on video games. All that I can do.

But "being obsessive" is, I suspect, too much like "being deceptive" or "being shy." It is part of who he is and I have doubts that any level of concern or intervention on my part is going to make an immediate difference. It will either go away because it is symptomatic of something that can be treated (possible, but I'm not counting on it), or because he heals after years in a safe environment.

Idea Two: Get some good ideas from people who deal with this on a regular basis for how to respond to it.

I feel like I have a handle on how to help Frankie deal with any instance of frustration melt-down. I point out to him that him that he is getting frustrated and he should apply his skills. I stay quiet myself. I tell him to take a deep breath. I let him talk for a while and then I tell him it is my turn and I insist that he listens to me. It takes some energy, but at the end of it, Frankie is calm again.

And I have realistic expectations about his over-all behavior. My goal is not: help Frankie become the sort of kid who handles frustration well. My goal is just to help him calm down whenever he is doing poorly.

But I don't know whether I should do something similar with the obsessive behavior, and if so what exactly it should be.

Of course sometimes the frustration and obsession overlap. Last evening he was trying to do something that probably can't be done. He was anxious and was not letting it go. I told him, "I will help you with this one more time, but that will be it."
He said, "I know."
"I don't think you did know until I told you."
"No, I do know. This time it will work."
"Frankie, put your hands in your lap and listen to me." (Pause to wait for him to assume good listening posture). "I know this is important to you, but it is not important to me. I am willing to help you one more time, but if it doesn't work, I am going to do something important to me."
He seemed to get it.

And when it didn't work I left. After a while he came back and announced that he was going to take a completely different approach to the problem. He was calm and spent some time thinking out loud about what might work. He was less intense, but he was still stuck on the same thing. (And yes, it was a WoW thing, but I don't think that is the point).

So this is long, but I really need some feedback here. Is my usual approach of acceptance plus boundaries to protect my own piece of mind the right way to go? Or is there something else I should be trying?

So...ideas anyone?

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*Been There Done That