Marguerite
Active Member
difficult child 3 had the language delay, but his older brother did not. And easy child 2/difficult child 2 was advanced in her language development. But it is all useful information which the neuropsychologist will be able to use.
I'm going to describe a fairly typical difficult child 3 rage as actually happened only about an hour ago - I figure the example could help you see not only the type of raging you can get with these kids, but also the way the Aspie thinking can greatly aggravate things and also responds to a different way of handling.
We just got back from Grandma's (we have dinner there every night, she lives a short walk away) after difficult child 3 had a rage. Grandma did not like what she saw; it began when a TV show was coming on that we felt difficult child 3 needed to see, and for once difficult child 3 seemed ready to watch it. He began chattering about the topic and what he knew about it, as the program was starting. I was trying to hush him down by saying, "OK, be quiet now please because the program is starting and we want to listen," but husband just couldn't handle it and shouted at difficult child 3 to be quiet (he later said, because he felt I was being ignored and disrespected, difficult child 3 was talking over the top of me telling him to be quiet).
That part of the problem is twofold - husband is really tired and stressed lately, plus he is also a bit Aspie in a lot of ways and tends to get reactive when stressed. Plus - difficult child 3 will NOT stop talking, especially in the evenings when he's a bit more tired plus ADHD medications are wearing off. When he talks, he HAS to finish what he is saying, has to finish his thought, even if I have indicated I know what he's saying. And husband does the same thing! Also, often what difficult child 3 is saying is only of interest to difficult child 3, and he WILL go in in meticulous detail about stuff we really don't want to know. So of course, difficult child 3 wasn't going to shut up fast, but I had 'primed the pump', so to speak, for him to shut up eventually. But husband reacted perhaps a bit too fast, and that set off the fuse.
So of course, difficult child 3 got upset at being shouted at, stormed off swearing, in GRANDMA's house and this meant that Grandma was unhappy and wanted to resolve this. She is very old school and I was now REALLY concerned, because she began the "Don't talk to your father in that tone" routine.
All of this began to escalate, and could have got very ugly except husband realised he had to back off, Grandma thankfully is sufficiently hard of hearing to not hear EVERYTHING difficult child 3 was muttering, and I then went out to difficult child 3 and told him to quiet down and to stop banging Grandma's stuff around, since it was Dad he was mad at and not Grandma.
Thankfully difficult child 3 watched the TV show (on Grandma's spare TV) and calmed down a fair bit. Then he decided it was time for him to go home (we let him go on his own when he wants to) but Grandma decided to make an issue. She said, "You owe your dad an apology and you owe me an apology."
Now, in difficult child 3's mind, no way did he owe his dad an apology - his dad had shouted at him first, that was uncalled for and he has to put up with too much shouting already. Therefore, difficult child 3 began to explain to Grandma, his swearing had been justified. Now with mother in law being a fair bit of a difficult child, this had the potential to get out of hand again, but it was Grandma's house so I couldn't tell her to not say anything. She has a right to have her say in her own home. But I did get to interrupt and say to difficult child 3, "What Grandma is trying to say - Dad didn't swear at you. And Grandma was not involved at all, but your response to her when you swore in her home upset her and that is what she wants an apology."
This pulled the problem (from difficult child 3's point of view) back to issues I knew he WOULD accept. So he thought about it and probably would have apologised to Grandma, only she again raised the subject of difficult child 3 swearing at his dad. So once more, difficult child 3 began to justify his response because he still felt indignant at being shouted at.
Now, in our experience - if we keep hammering him when he feels justified, we get nowhere. We have to gently show him that he is NOT justified. and the angrier he has been, the more he is likely to feel justified.
After difficult child 3 had walked home, we talked about the problem with mother in law. She began to get apologetic (the classic passive-aggressive response of someone who lifelong, has felt a need to have her say but then apologise for it). I think we managed to explain to her what was working, and what never had a chance to work. Again she tried to bring it back to "I never heard you talk to YOUR father that way," to husband. But that is a big part of the problem - we try to apply old standards to these kids and it just doesn't work. If anything, it makes things worse.
husband & I left soon after. In the few minutes it took us to walk home, we talked about how to handle it. husband is tired at the moment, not coping in other areas. There are a lot of things difficult child 3 wants to talk to him about, but it needs husband to be awake enough to focus. He didn't think he would be up for it tonight.
But as it turned out - they had to talk, there was a small crisis in the workshop and difficult child 3 was the witness who reported it to husband. They sorted out the problem together, handled "bloke stuff" well between them and any differences in other areas are now resolved.
What I'm trying to say - this situation tonight could so easily have got way out of hand with plates thrown, glass shattered and difficult child 3 screaming how he wants to die. Because we've had many of these 'mini-rages' since we used to have the much bigger ones, each time it's not so bad, it paves the way for the next one to not be so bad either. But it could so easily be once more tipped over into danger and serious aggression. Tonight we were lucky - mother in law could so easily have said something to trigger difficult child 3 and it could have got very nasty, fast.
Don't get me wrong - we don't walk around on eggshells. We don't let him do this and ignore it, hopping it won't get worse if we don't deal with it. No, we deal. But we do it in a way other people might not see as valid. But that's because I know this kid has a bigger conscience than people credit. It's just tat in some areas, he won't acknowledge fault until HE can see it. And sometimes that takes lateral thinking. Once he realises he was wrong (and this includes without us having to say a word, sometimes) he will voluntarily come to us and apologise. But he has only learnt to do that, because WE first set that example. WE had to be the heroes in this.
Some parents will say, "I am the parent. He was in the wrong. He has to apologise to me first, for breaking the window, before I apologise to him for shouting at him about it."
The trouble with this, is how can such a kid learn to apologise, if he's never shown how to or shown that it is the right thing to do? If we're always waiting for him to do it first, and WE never go first, how can he learn to?
The other part of apologising - we have to learn to do it unconditionally, so THEY can learn to apologise unconditionally.
In tonight's example - husband needed to apologise to difficult child 3 for shouting at him, but to not also say, "I only shouted at you because I thought you were disrespecting Mum." Such a statement added on devalues the apology and turns it into yet more criticism.
The way you want it to go - "I'm sorry for shouting at you."
Nothing more.
The fear is, that this tells the child that everything he said and did was justified. In actual fact, it needn't say anything of the sort.
Sometimes apologies can be piecemeal. Little bit by little bit. difficult child 3 began to apologise to Grandma. "I'm sorry I said what I said, but you don't know what I have to put up with, when it comes to shouting."
Nope, son, that is not how you apologise to Grandma.
Maybe tomorrow in the car, when he is calm and relaxed, he and I can roleplay the situation and practice how he could have apologised to Grandma. because however angry he is with his dad, there was no excuse to make his apology to Grandma conditional. If we roleplay it, we keep it calm and not blame-based. More a case of "There's nobody here to hear us, let's practice how it could have gone, so you have a better idea of how to handle it next time Grandma tries to have her say."
We do better when we avoid blame, fault, cause etc. Sometimes bad things just happen. Too often we focus on blame, when such a focus then 'infects' our interactions with our kids and especially if they are anxious, they get upset and fear being blamed when something just happens.
ON the subject of experts getting this wrong - difficult child 3's school counsellor, who seemed so effective in so many ways, was standing on the office steps with me just after we'd had a Learning Team Meeting. From our vantage point we could see a playground full of children all in school uniform of blue shirts and grey trousers. We could just pick out difficult child 3, on his own, walking along the painted lines tat marked out the basketball court on the bitumen. All around him were other kids also playing, running, chasing, talking, strolling, interacting - all but difficult child 3, who was carefully putting his feet one after the other as he walked along the white lines. His eyes were down as he watched where he put his feet. But from where we were, all those kids looked alike in their uniforms.
At this point the school counsellor said what I think must have been the stupidest thing I've heard form someone who SHOULD know better:
"Isn't it wonderful to see him blend in so well. You must be so pleased now that he is no longer autistic."
EXCUUUSE ME??!?
Autism is a diagnosis for life. A person can adapt, can learn to blend in, but is always in some measure apart, always having to work hard to seem like everyone else. And that supreme effort needs to be acknowledged. It can be Olympic medal standard effort and deserves recognition and praise, not being ignored.
School was horrible for difficult child 3. People describe it as an essential place to be for a child who needs lessons in social skills; but actually, school is perhaps the most unnatural place socially your child will ever have to deal with. difficult child 3 has done a great deal better socially since leaving mainstream. Studying at home is actually NOT bad for him socially as we were warned; it actually puts social interactions much more in his control and therefore reach. He is more relaxed, therefore more adaptable and more able to cope.
If your child is coping with school - great. But chances are, he's not doing too well and this often adds to the problems especially the raging. Just one more hassle for the child to have to take into account.
Marg
I'm going to describe a fairly typical difficult child 3 rage as actually happened only about an hour ago - I figure the example could help you see not only the type of raging you can get with these kids, but also the way the Aspie thinking can greatly aggravate things and also responds to a different way of handling.
We just got back from Grandma's (we have dinner there every night, she lives a short walk away) after difficult child 3 had a rage. Grandma did not like what she saw; it began when a TV show was coming on that we felt difficult child 3 needed to see, and for once difficult child 3 seemed ready to watch it. He began chattering about the topic and what he knew about it, as the program was starting. I was trying to hush him down by saying, "OK, be quiet now please because the program is starting and we want to listen," but husband just couldn't handle it and shouted at difficult child 3 to be quiet (he later said, because he felt I was being ignored and disrespected, difficult child 3 was talking over the top of me telling him to be quiet).
That part of the problem is twofold - husband is really tired and stressed lately, plus he is also a bit Aspie in a lot of ways and tends to get reactive when stressed. Plus - difficult child 3 will NOT stop talking, especially in the evenings when he's a bit more tired plus ADHD medications are wearing off. When he talks, he HAS to finish what he is saying, has to finish his thought, even if I have indicated I know what he's saying. And husband does the same thing! Also, often what difficult child 3 is saying is only of interest to difficult child 3, and he WILL go in in meticulous detail about stuff we really don't want to know. So of course, difficult child 3 wasn't going to shut up fast, but I had 'primed the pump', so to speak, for him to shut up eventually. But husband reacted perhaps a bit too fast, and that set off the fuse.
So of course, difficult child 3 got upset at being shouted at, stormed off swearing, in GRANDMA's house and this meant that Grandma was unhappy and wanted to resolve this. She is very old school and I was now REALLY concerned, because she began the "Don't talk to your father in that tone" routine.
All of this began to escalate, and could have got very ugly except husband realised he had to back off, Grandma thankfully is sufficiently hard of hearing to not hear EVERYTHING difficult child 3 was muttering, and I then went out to difficult child 3 and told him to quiet down and to stop banging Grandma's stuff around, since it was Dad he was mad at and not Grandma.
Thankfully difficult child 3 watched the TV show (on Grandma's spare TV) and calmed down a fair bit. Then he decided it was time for him to go home (we let him go on his own when he wants to) but Grandma decided to make an issue. She said, "You owe your dad an apology and you owe me an apology."
Now, in difficult child 3's mind, no way did he owe his dad an apology - his dad had shouted at him first, that was uncalled for and he has to put up with too much shouting already. Therefore, difficult child 3 began to explain to Grandma, his swearing had been justified. Now with mother in law being a fair bit of a difficult child, this had the potential to get out of hand again, but it was Grandma's house so I couldn't tell her to not say anything. She has a right to have her say in her own home. But I did get to interrupt and say to difficult child 3, "What Grandma is trying to say - Dad didn't swear at you. And Grandma was not involved at all, but your response to her when you swore in her home upset her and that is what she wants an apology."
This pulled the problem (from difficult child 3's point of view) back to issues I knew he WOULD accept. So he thought about it and probably would have apologised to Grandma, only she again raised the subject of difficult child 3 swearing at his dad. So once more, difficult child 3 began to justify his response because he still felt indignant at being shouted at.
Now, in our experience - if we keep hammering him when he feels justified, we get nowhere. We have to gently show him that he is NOT justified. and the angrier he has been, the more he is likely to feel justified.
After difficult child 3 had walked home, we talked about the problem with mother in law. She began to get apologetic (the classic passive-aggressive response of someone who lifelong, has felt a need to have her say but then apologise for it). I think we managed to explain to her what was working, and what never had a chance to work. Again she tried to bring it back to "I never heard you talk to YOUR father that way," to husband. But that is a big part of the problem - we try to apply old standards to these kids and it just doesn't work. If anything, it makes things worse.
husband & I left soon after. In the few minutes it took us to walk home, we talked about how to handle it. husband is tired at the moment, not coping in other areas. There are a lot of things difficult child 3 wants to talk to him about, but it needs husband to be awake enough to focus. He didn't think he would be up for it tonight.
But as it turned out - they had to talk, there was a small crisis in the workshop and difficult child 3 was the witness who reported it to husband. They sorted out the problem together, handled "bloke stuff" well between them and any differences in other areas are now resolved.
What I'm trying to say - this situation tonight could so easily have got way out of hand with plates thrown, glass shattered and difficult child 3 screaming how he wants to die. Because we've had many of these 'mini-rages' since we used to have the much bigger ones, each time it's not so bad, it paves the way for the next one to not be so bad either. But it could so easily be once more tipped over into danger and serious aggression. Tonight we were lucky - mother in law could so easily have said something to trigger difficult child 3 and it could have got very nasty, fast.
Don't get me wrong - we don't walk around on eggshells. We don't let him do this and ignore it, hopping it won't get worse if we don't deal with it. No, we deal. But we do it in a way other people might not see as valid. But that's because I know this kid has a bigger conscience than people credit. It's just tat in some areas, he won't acknowledge fault until HE can see it. And sometimes that takes lateral thinking. Once he realises he was wrong (and this includes without us having to say a word, sometimes) he will voluntarily come to us and apologise. But he has only learnt to do that, because WE first set that example. WE had to be the heroes in this.
Some parents will say, "I am the parent. He was in the wrong. He has to apologise to me first, for breaking the window, before I apologise to him for shouting at him about it."
The trouble with this, is how can such a kid learn to apologise, if he's never shown how to or shown that it is the right thing to do? If we're always waiting for him to do it first, and WE never go first, how can he learn to?
The other part of apologising - we have to learn to do it unconditionally, so THEY can learn to apologise unconditionally.
In tonight's example - husband needed to apologise to difficult child 3 for shouting at him, but to not also say, "I only shouted at you because I thought you were disrespecting Mum." Such a statement added on devalues the apology and turns it into yet more criticism.
The way you want it to go - "I'm sorry for shouting at you."
Nothing more.
The fear is, that this tells the child that everything he said and did was justified. In actual fact, it needn't say anything of the sort.
Sometimes apologies can be piecemeal. Little bit by little bit. difficult child 3 began to apologise to Grandma. "I'm sorry I said what I said, but you don't know what I have to put up with, when it comes to shouting."
Nope, son, that is not how you apologise to Grandma.
Maybe tomorrow in the car, when he is calm and relaxed, he and I can roleplay the situation and practice how he could have apologised to Grandma. because however angry he is with his dad, there was no excuse to make his apology to Grandma conditional. If we roleplay it, we keep it calm and not blame-based. More a case of "There's nobody here to hear us, let's practice how it could have gone, so you have a better idea of how to handle it next time Grandma tries to have her say."
We do better when we avoid blame, fault, cause etc. Sometimes bad things just happen. Too often we focus on blame, when such a focus then 'infects' our interactions with our kids and especially if they are anxious, they get upset and fear being blamed when something just happens.
ON the subject of experts getting this wrong - difficult child 3's school counsellor, who seemed so effective in so many ways, was standing on the office steps with me just after we'd had a Learning Team Meeting. From our vantage point we could see a playground full of children all in school uniform of blue shirts and grey trousers. We could just pick out difficult child 3, on his own, walking along the painted lines tat marked out the basketball court on the bitumen. All around him were other kids also playing, running, chasing, talking, strolling, interacting - all but difficult child 3, who was carefully putting his feet one after the other as he walked along the white lines. His eyes were down as he watched where he put his feet. But from where we were, all those kids looked alike in their uniforms.
At this point the school counsellor said what I think must have been the stupidest thing I've heard form someone who SHOULD know better:
"Isn't it wonderful to see him blend in so well. You must be so pleased now that he is no longer autistic."
EXCUUUSE ME??!?
Autism is a diagnosis for life. A person can adapt, can learn to blend in, but is always in some measure apart, always having to work hard to seem like everyone else. And that supreme effort needs to be acknowledged. It can be Olympic medal standard effort and deserves recognition and praise, not being ignored.
School was horrible for difficult child 3. People describe it as an essential place to be for a child who needs lessons in social skills; but actually, school is perhaps the most unnatural place socially your child will ever have to deal with. difficult child 3 has done a great deal better socially since leaving mainstream. Studying at home is actually NOT bad for him socially as we were warned; it actually puts social interactions much more in his control and therefore reach. He is more relaxed, therefore more adaptable and more able to cope.
If your child is coping with school - great. But chances are, he's not doing too well and this often adds to the problems especially the raging. Just one more hassle for the child to have to take into account.
Marg
Your new boyfriend sounds like a keeper. After my divorce from ex I landed a peach of a boyfriend! He and I were friends for about 2 years prior to my divorce so he knew about my difficult children. I warned him on top of it in so many ways to try to scare him good to be sure HE was sure he wanted to get into this relationship when the time came. He still wanted in. Although he hadn't lived it and the difficult children were not quite as bad as they are now, 6 years later he is still with me, putting up with the verbal abuse, physical abuse, etc. that they now dish out to HIM as well. Yes, it's trying on him and he is frustrated as all get out and he will say you told me it was bad and I knew this but never thought it would be get this bad. He loves me and because of that, he continues to deal with it. If your new boyfriend is like this, he too will continue and since you say he has a BiPolar (BP) son, then he also has a background history that has prepared him. Sounds good to me.
