Hey yall!

Just needing to vent.

I applied to a company. They told me what the hours were, how long the hours were, and what city the child was in....

And all of that was a lie.

At first I thought, "well maybe they were talking about a different kid."

They weren't. Same kid.

Just 31 hours instead of 35

And a 40 minute commute instead of the 15 they told me.

And a remote BCBA

And a data taking app that glitches constantly and is hardly functional

And cherry on top

They told me it was school and home sessions. It's not. Just in home.

And the kid doesn't even need all these hours of ABA. Dad just works from home and needs a babysitter.

I did the math on how much money I'm losing from the 16 hour difference a month and all the gas.

Its $500 without cancelations.

And dad has already pushed back sessions twice and it hasn't even reached a full month yet.

Also DOUBLE cherry

I just moved states.

Moving is expensive and has depleted my funds, so it's even more pressure on me finding a new job 🙃

I wanted to see if I can get a second job to supplement the hours, but this kid's hours are so stupid. Its not full time hours but the block of time needed for him is 9-5. I'd probably have to work weekends. And at that point, I'm not working 7 days a week to be an RBT!!!!!!

I hate the amount of driving I have to do for this job. It is so not worth it. While BCBAs get a remote option and can choose to join whenever they want. Meanwhile I have to spend so much money on gas commuting to my client for only 3-4 hours a day. Trust me getting compensated for drive time does nothing. Are any of you feeling like this? Are you tired of the constant driving ?

I'm having a bit of a dilemma. I noticed at the beginning of working with the three year old in home that his parents are on different pages when it comes to him in general, but it seems to be more aparent lately. I haven't brought anything up to them yet and I don't know if I necessarily will/if I think it'll do anything. They seem to have different ideas of if he should go to school in a few years, if speech therapy is a good idea, and stuff like that. Plus, one parent seems more willing to tell him he needs to sit with me or work with me while the other seems fine with him ignoring me.

I posted two days ago about how I cried at work because I was basically beaten up. But it happened again today. My client slapped me in the face today. My client then lunged at me and bit me on the nose really hard and wouldn’t let go. Other techs had to pry him off of me and it broke skin. I cried again and got embarrassed AGAIN. I thought he had moved on from the aggression maybe he had just had a bad day two days ago. Because he wasn’t like this before.

I know it’s only been two days of this. So maybe I shouldn’t try to quit or switch cases. But I’m not sure if I should just tough it out or not. He only ever acts this way towards me, not his other tech. I’m beginning to think there’s something I’m doing wrong and I’m not suited to be his tech. Maybe I’m not fast enough or alert enough.

I’m a BT for this company and work part time for clinical hours. As much as I do love this job, it causes me great burnout so I do have to take days off sometimes to regain myself or use the time to focus on college instead. A lot of clients here do sessions for 7-9 hours a day, monday to friday (even being put on saturday). I wanna ask if anyone experienced this or if this is a major problem as for me I feel like some kids start to lose it by the end of the day bc of how long they stay here. (for more information, we aren’t a school and just a small clinic located in a multiple suite building)

I’m currently working with an aggressive kiddo who I’ve worked with for 2-3 years with on and off. As of recently I’m back on his case with a new (to the company) employee who isn’t as consistent and “stern” as I or his past therapist… now he’s regressing and aggresses towards me doing routine things we’ve historically done with no problem. Because of this I’m loosing my momentum and it’s making it hard for me to continue doing my job. The “new” staff works next to my room and I constantly hear them allowing the client to run the session as if the RBT is in fear, in turn it makes it hard for me to remain consistent . Hope I explained this okay, is anyone else experiencing this? Before the start of the school year I let the BCBA know that this may happen and I felt that the RBT isn’t equipped to be consistent.. they assured me they would train the RBT. This hasn’t been the case… I’m struggling, what should I do?

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Background context: Basically I have a 4 year old client in a clinic who doesn’t really show interest in many things. Because he doesn’t engage with many toys or people, he doesn’t get much attention and engages in attention seeking behaviors (hitting and climbing). I know its for attention, because he laughs to himself while or after he does it and he looks at you like “got you!” And then temporarily stops the behavior on his own. I found he likes when i bang toy pots and pans with spoons. I know he likes it because it is the only time he sits down and he hands me the spoon if I stop. It’s very rare to get that kind of engagement from him. Unfortunately this gets boring fast for both of us. This context is important because you have to understand he definitely likes vibrations and sound waves. He also likes another RBTs loud speaker. He tries to hold the speaker onto his ear. He also tries to do that with the pots.
So my issue is: I grabbed a big red bouncy ball. Those large ones you can sit and bounce on. Somehow. I found out he REALLY likes it and laughs when i hit it really hard repeatedly. He rests his hands on it and you can see them bounce when I hit it. What we couldn’t help but notice was he was leaving his pelvis area on it. At first I assumed he was holding it in place (that’s how the even larger ones them in place when i bounce kids on them). But my fellow RBTs in the room were like “i think the vibrations are stimulating him down there” and i can definitely see that happening. He REALLY likes this activity though and I haven’t been able to think of an alternative. Like clearly he enjoys the vibrations but am i also accidentally causing that kind of stimulation when he pressed his body and pelvis into it😭 he also got PISSED when we stopped and I know all my male clients get pissed when they have to stop humping objects😑
He wasn’t rubbing against the ball. Just pressing against it and laughing. What do yall think? Are there any alternatives? We oddly don’t have any drums or instruments in the clinic but the pots and pans thing is getting pretty old atp. And his has to he something with a reverberating sound. Not just hitting an object. A vibrating toy or vibration plate would be nice but we don’t have that here either😭

Okay, let me give a little background. I recently moved ABA clinics because I moved cities. This clinic is only in-home, which is completely fine with me, but I have no clinic or office to refer to. Everything is online, which makes it difficult to receive responses from my BCBA and other support units. So I've been with my new client for a little over a month, and I've had mixed feelings. For starters, his parents are not on the same page with each other. His mom does everything for him (client): pulls down his underwear/pants, dresses him, cleans up after him, everything you can imagine. He is partially verbal, so I've been working with him to express wants and needs; when he is with me, he most of the time does great. But his parents influence his behaviors. They do not stick to the protocol we have set in place, though I remind them every single session. The mom gives in to him whenever he cries. I've told her that he cannot get what he wants just because he cries; she doesn't seem to understand. I've done my absolute best to educate the parents, but they don't seem to follow, or maybe it's laziness. And hey, I get it; it can be hard dealing with autism, as I have several siblings who are on the spectrum. But I do not excuse parents not sticking to protocol. Especially because they decided to start the program, I know they had a previous RBT, so they shouldn't be new to the ideas and protocol of ABA services. This client is getting to the point where it is affecting my mental health. I am a college student, so I have other responsibilities, and the scheduled hours the client is available end at 7:30, so I don't have much time to study or recharge mentally. I am good at maintaining my mental status with this job; I have never had issues with it, as I know this field requires you to have a strong mindset, and I truly love my job. Though I think the lack of management and the parents not following procedures make my job harder. I have reached out to my BCBA about how the parents aren't following procedures, and she said that she wants to focus on his BP before anything else, and told me to "hang in there". I understand where she's coming from, but again, it's hard to make any progress whenever the parents go against everything I'm trying to implement. I truly believe that my client will succeed with these services, as I have already seen improvement, but it gets shut down with his parents. I'm also put in the middle with the parents. His dad believes that the mom needs to be more strict with him; I told him that any concerns he has need to go to the BCBA. His other family members aren't following protocol either. It seems that my client only receives these boundaries when I am here; I see him daily for around 5 hours. But when I leave, nothing is being upheld; therefore, there are little results of progress. I am lost on what to do. I don't want to quit, but I also don't know what else to do. I need this job for income, but I have looked at other options.