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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 36461" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>MWM, I read your first sentences and the mental picture I got made me chuckle - I know it's not what you intended. You said something like, "we know the usual things like spanking do not work - I'd buy 'The Explosive Child'..." and I instantly thought of "and hit him over the head with it."</p><p></p><p>Because this is how we feel sometimes, I have to admit.</p><p></p><p>But really, humour aside - this is a hard one.</p><p></p><p>[A warning now - this is a long reply. Sorry.]</p><p></p><p>Frankly, if I know that my difficult child's behaviour has been made worse by either late medications, forgetting medications or a change of some sort, I tend to not even try to fix it. Because in trying to discipline what is basically undisciplinable, I make it worse. Instead, I focus on WHY he is in my face and try to remove the trigger.</p><p></p><p>LONG Example (sorry): When we were on holiday in Tasmania, we went to Port Arthur, a historic convict prison settlement which, when it was put there, was so isolated and hostile that no prisoner was likely to even TRY to escape. The few that did were always brought back, in one form or another. But with yesterday's events in mind, Port Arthur was also the site of a rather horrific one man shooting about 11 years ago.</p><p>difficult child 3 knew nothing of that later history, and practically nothing of the first. When you arrive at this place there are some fabulously preserved beautiful buildings, mostly Georgian in style, with others in ruins. Other buildings such as the church simply weren't completed and there is a beautiful lawn inside the shell. </p><p>But we were barely inside the gate when difficult child 3 began panicking. "We've got to get out of here," he kept saying. "Something bad is going to happen."</p><p>This wasn't a medication issue, it was panic overriding anything we normally can do to keep him under control. He was becoming increasingly noisy and disruptive and although he was supposed to be listening to the tour guide, I doubt he heard a word she said. </p><p>We could have kept punishing him, scolding him for his inattention and disruption. He was getting rude with us because we wouldn't immediately take him away from the place (it had taken two hours' driving to get there and cost a fortune to get in, we weren't going to waste our entrance fee). We could have also got cross with him for getting rude to us.</p><p>What did we do? We compromised, as best we could. We were prepared to walk away from the tour so at least his moaning wouldn't put people off or stop them from hearing the tour guide. But fortunately, being on the outskirts was enough to help others hear. We trailed after the group and took photos. husband handed the camera to difficult child 3 because he's a good photographer, but that didn't work this time, he was too afraid. difficult child 3 was still complaining but he stayed with us (I think he was even more scared of being separated from us) so we simply stayed to one side of the tour group and mother in law, who had been there enough to be able to explain a lot of things, became our unofficial tour guide. We saw everything, the tour soon finished and we were left to wander where we wanted to. Some areas difficult child 3 would not go near, when we went inside he stayed outside under the trees. But other ruined buildings he was happy to visit, although in general his mood was one of fear and desperation. When he's afraid and desperate he is rude and in your face. he WAS that. He kept saying, "We have to go, something bad is going to happen."</p><p>He finally got his own way, and was predictably rude about it. "At last! You finally listened to me!" he was saying as we left. husband said to him, "We are leaving because we are all ready to leave, it's not because of you." But it was, partly. There were things we could have stayed for, which we knew would be intolerable. By this point difficult child 3's daily medications were wearing off and his panic was beginning to get out of control.</p><p>Interestingly, he still had no knowledge of the massacre and only a scanty knowledge of the convict history, which we'd already encountered elsewhere on the holiday with no problems. To help him with his expected homework on Port Arthur, we bought a guidebook (and not to hit him over the head with it, although we felt like it!). The massacre is mentioned only on the last page, with no details other than the date and the number of people. The killer's name is never mentioned in print or verbally in that area.</p><p></p><p>The tickets were good for two days. easy child 2/difficult child 2 was desperate to get back to the place, but we knew we'd never get difficult child 3 back there. Just up the road was a wildlife park which difficult child 1 wanted to look at (so did we). So next day we went to the wildlife park. difficult child 3 was much nicer to know the next day, until it was time for Port Arthur to open and easy child 2/difficult child 2 wanted us to get a pass out from the zoo and drive her there. difficult child 3 was in the car with us because we were using the passout to buy some lunch locally. When he discovered we were going back to Port Arthur, he went into screaming panic. Even when we explained that we were dropping his sister off in the car park, he was almost hysterical in his insistence that he did not want to even drive down the road. So we drove the other direction, bought lunch, then husband dropped me and difficult child 3 back at the zoo before driving to Port Arthur.</p><p></p><p>If at any stage we tried to get 'heavy' with difficult child 3 over this, it only made things worse. You can't scold someone out of a phobia. A lot of bad behaviour from our kids, especially when unmedicated, is our kids just not coping. They're not coping when people AREN'T getting cross with them, so how can we expect them to cope better when we punish? </p><p>What they need is to be able to remember that this behaviour is unacceptable, and they can stop it by doing x, y or z. In difficult child 3's case, all we could do was try to lower his anxiety level. If he had been angry, we would try to find why he was angry and sort that out - by either helping him deal with his anger appropriately, or isolation from the reason for his anger, or both. But we do our best to not react - rudeness which is connected with a reduced ability to cope plus a heightened arousal level is futile to try to correct. If you comment on it, the child knows it is wrong and is expecting some sort of punishment. If that punishment fails to materialise, the child at some level knows he got away with being rude, and this is more enabling for him to be rude again. Not good. </p><p>So we try to 'not notice'. We have a hard time convincing others to also not notice, or to leave it. i really hate it when other people step in and say, "You shouldn't talk to your parents like that - it is so disrespectful!" right when our kid is still angry or upset. It achieves absolutely nothing. We will discuss it with him IF we feel it's needed, WHEN we feel it's likely to have some impact.</p><p>People get upset at apparent lack of respect, because they are projecting their own fears about lack of control of younger ones in their environment, onto us. I have a strong enough ego to not get my feelings hurt if my child screams out, "I hate you!" with a string of obscenities. I do not do what my mother did and reach for the soap and washcloth. Instead I calmly say, "I'm sorry to hear that, because I love you. I don't love the behaviour, but I always love you." Then I leave the room. Or mentally switch off and begin some task, humming to myself to let them know I have disengaged.</p><p>A kid screaming in my face - I disengage. If they grab me physically for attention, I say, "Sorry - did you say something? I couldn't hear you, it was so loud it was distorting. You need to lower your volume so I can hear you better."</p><p>But generally, a kid screaming in my face is out of control, and you can't punish "out of control". A fireman screaming at me to get back, is not being rude - he's trying to keep me safe. He's desperately communicating to me. Our initial reaction might be, "He's so rude!" but then we look at the wider situation and see we were about to step under a falling beam. From the fireman's point of view, the situation was critical. From a difficult child's point of view, the situation can be similarly dire. WE perceive it differently, but we have to communicate that to a kid often beyond reasonable communication.</p><p></p><p>A kid whose medications are being tweaked is not in control. Just because they can hold it together for a short time doesn't mean a lot - ANYONE can do that, to a certain extent. I can walk a tightrope, for a metre or so. But If I had to walk a tightrope all day, I would fall off. If I have a lot of people I don't know watching me for a known short time, I will put all my effort into staying on the rope for that short time, so I acquit myself well. But when it's just my family I will relax. I feel safe with them.</p><p>difficult child 3 used to hold things together moderately well at school. His medications helped. They would be wearing off by the last half hour and he really had to concentrate hard to stay in control then. he didn't always succeed. And even with full medications on board, if he was upset badly enough, it would override his medication and the school would see problems.</p><p></p><p>Another reason - we tend to treat our families with more contempt than we treat others around us. There is a respect barrier in place for almost everyone outside the family. At home, we relax more. Someone else sits in our chair - we complain loudly and rudely, but if a visitor came who sat in our chair, we wouldn't react the same way. We'd grit our teeth but be polite. The visitor won't be staying more than an hour or so. Family is forever.</p><p></p><p>This goes both ways - difficult children treat us badly, but we also treat them badly. And if your child is still trying to understand social interactions, this makes it more difficult.</p><p></p><p>About difficult child 3's reaction to Port Arthur - when it came to writing up his notes, he had to use the guidebook because no facts had sunk in. He still doesn't know about the massacre there, knows nothing about yesterday's events and has forgotten about 9/11, which we only told him about several years later when he saw it on TV. He cannot handle that sort of thing, it devastates him to hear of it.</p><p>So why did Port Arthur upset him so much? We don't know. I'm not keen to say he had a psychic connection - I think it's more likely he was picking up on some sort of vibe from fellow tour members, because once we left the group he was a bit easier, but difficult again when back with a group for a boat trip to the Boys Prison. Basically, he seems to be highly empathic - surprising, in autism. But perhaps it's part of his study of human nature, in his attempts to mimic normality. </p><p></p><p>And that's just one more thing about difficult children - they can surprise you.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 36461, member: 1991"] MWM, I read your first sentences and the mental picture I got made me chuckle - I know it's not what you intended. You said something like, "we know the usual things like spanking do not work - I'd buy 'The Explosive Child'..." and I instantly thought of "and hit him over the head with it." Because this is how we feel sometimes, I have to admit. But really, humour aside - this is a hard one. [A warning now - this is a long reply. Sorry.] Frankly, if I know that my difficult child's behaviour has been made worse by either late medications, forgetting medications or a change of some sort, I tend to not even try to fix it. Because in trying to discipline what is basically undisciplinable, I make it worse. Instead, I focus on WHY he is in my face and try to remove the trigger. LONG Example (sorry): When we were on holiday in Tasmania, we went to Port Arthur, a historic convict prison settlement which, when it was put there, was so isolated and hostile that no prisoner was likely to even TRY to escape. The few that did were always brought back, in one form or another. But with yesterday's events in mind, Port Arthur was also the site of a rather horrific one man shooting about 11 years ago. difficult child 3 knew nothing of that later history, and practically nothing of the first. When you arrive at this place there are some fabulously preserved beautiful buildings, mostly Georgian in style, with others in ruins. Other buildings such as the church simply weren't completed and there is a beautiful lawn inside the shell. But we were barely inside the gate when difficult child 3 began panicking. "We've got to get out of here," he kept saying. "Something bad is going to happen." This wasn't a medication issue, it was panic overriding anything we normally can do to keep him under control. He was becoming increasingly noisy and disruptive and although he was supposed to be listening to the tour guide, I doubt he heard a word she said. We could have kept punishing him, scolding him for his inattention and disruption. He was getting rude with us because we wouldn't immediately take him away from the place (it had taken two hours' driving to get there and cost a fortune to get in, we weren't going to waste our entrance fee). We could have also got cross with him for getting rude to us. What did we do? We compromised, as best we could. We were prepared to walk away from the tour so at least his moaning wouldn't put people off or stop them from hearing the tour guide. But fortunately, being on the outskirts was enough to help others hear. We trailed after the group and took photos. husband handed the camera to difficult child 3 because he's a good photographer, but that didn't work this time, he was too afraid. difficult child 3 was still complaining but he stayed with us (I think he was even more scared of being separated from us) so we simply stayed to one side of the tour group and mother in law, who had been there enough to be able to explain a lot of things, became our unofficial tour guide. We saw everything, the tour soon finished and we were left to wander where we wanted to. Some areas difficult child 3 would not go near, when we went inside he stayed outside under the trees. But other ruined buildings he was happy to visit, although in general his mood was one of fear and desperation. When he's afraid and desperate he is rude and in your face. he WAS that. He kept saying, "We have to go, something bad is going to happen." He finally got his own way, and was predictably rude about it. "At last! You finally listened to me!" he was saying as we left. husband said to him, "We are leaving because we are all ready to leave, it's not because of you." But it was, partly. There were things we could have stayed for, which we knew would be intolerable. By this point difficult child 3's daily medications were wearing off and his panic was beginning to get out of control. Interestingly, he still had no knowledge of the massacre and only a scanty knowledge of the convict history, which we'd already encountered elsewhere on the holiday with no problems. To help him with his expected homework on Port Arthur, we bought a guidebook (and not to hit him over the head with it, although we felt like it!). The massacre is mentioned only on the last page, with no details other than the date and the number of people. The killer's name is never mentioned in print or verbally in that area. The tickets were good for two days. easy child 2/difficult child 2 was desperate to get back to the place, but we knew we'd never get difficult child 3 back there. Just up the road was a wildlife park which difficult child 1 wanted to look at (so did we). So next day we went to the wildlife park. difficult child 3 was much nicer to know the next day, until it was time for Port Arthur to open and easy child 2/difficult child 2 wanted us to get a pass out from the zoo and drive her there. difficult child 3 was in the car with us because we were using the passout to buy some lunch locally. When he discovered we were going back to Port Arthur, he went into screaming panic. Even when we explained that we were dropping his sister off in the car park, he was almost hysterical in his insistence that he did not want to even drive down the road. So we drove the other direction, bought lunch, then husband dropped me and difficult child 3 back at the zoo before driving to Port Arthur. If at any stage we tried to get 'heavy' with difficult child 3 over this, it only made things worse. You can't scold someone out of a phobia. A lot of bad behaviour from our kids, especially when unmedicated, is our kids just not coping. They're not coping when people AREN'T getting cross with them, so how can we expect them to cope better when we punish? What they need is to be able to remember that this behaviour is unacceptable, and they can stop it by doing x, y or z. In difficult child 3's case, all we could do was try to lower his anxiety level. If he had been angry, we would try to find why he was angry and sort that out - by either helping him deal with his anger appropriately, or isolation from the reason for his anger, or both. But we do our best to not react - rudeness which is connected with a reduced ability to cope plus a heightened arousal level is futile to try to correct. If you comment on it, the child knows it is wrong and is expecting some sort of punishment. If that punishment fails to materialise, the child at some level knows he got away with being rude, and this is more enabling for him to be rude again. Not good. So we try to 'not notice'. We have a hard time convincing others to also not notice, or to leave it. i really hate it when other people step in and say, "You shouldn't talk to your parents like that - it is so disrespectful!" right when our kid is still angry or upset. It achieves absolutely nothing. We will discuss it with him IF we feel it's needed, WHEN we feel it's likely to have some impact. People get upset at apparent lack of respect, because they are projecting their own fears about lack of control of younger ones in their environment, onto us. I have a strong enough ego to not get my feelings hurt if my child screams out, "I hate you!" with a string of obscenities. I do not do what my mother did and reach for the soap and washcloth. Instead I calmly say, "I'm sorry to hear that, because I love you. I don't love the behaviour, but I always love you." Then I leave the room. Or mentally switch off and begin some task, humming to myself to let them know I have disengaged. A kid screaming in my face - I disengage. If they grab me physically for attention, I say, "Sorry - did you say something? I couldn't hear you, it was so loud it was distorting. You need to lower your volume so I can hear you better." But generally, a kid screaming in my face is out of control, and you can't punish "out of control". A fireman screaming at me to get back, is not being rude - he's trying to keep me safe. He's desperately communicating to me. Our initial reaction might be, "He's so rude!" but then we look at the wider situation and see we were about to step under a falling beam. From the fireman's point of view, the situation was critical. From a difficult child's point of view, the situation can be similarly dire. WE perceive it differently, but we have to communicate that to a kid often beyond reasonable communication. A kid whose medications are being tweaked is not in control. Just because they can hold it together for a short time doesn't mean a lot - ANYONE can do that, to a certain extent. I can walk a tightrope, for a metre or so. But If I had to walk a tightrope all day, I would fall off. If I have a lot of people I don't know watching me for a known short time, I will put all my effort into staying on the rope for that short time, so I acquit myself well. But when it's just my family I will relax. I feel safe with them. difficult child 3 used to hold things together moderately well at school. His medications helped. They would be wearing off by the last half hour and he really had to concentrate hard to stay in control then. he didn't always succeed. And even with full medications on board, if he was upset badly enough, it would override his medication and the school would see problems. Another reason - we tend to treat our families with more contempt than we treat others around us. There is a respect barrier in place for almost everyone outside the family. At home, we relax more. Someone else sits in our chair - we complain loudly and rudely, but if a visitor came who sat in our chair, we wouldn't react the same way. We'd grit our teeth but be polite. The visitor won't be staying more than an hour or so. Family is forever. This goes both ways - difficult children treat us badly, but we also treat them badly. And if your child is still trying to understand social interactions, this makes it more difficult. About difficult child 3's reaction to Port Arthur - when it came to writing up his notes, he had to use the guidebook because no facts had sunk in. He still doesn't know about the massacre there, knows nothing about yesterday's events and has forgotten about 9/11, which we only told him about several years later when he saw it on TV. He cannot handle that sort of thing, it devastates him to hear of it. So why did Port Arthur upset him so much? We don't know. I'm not keen to say he had a psychic connection - I think it's more likely he was picking up on some sort of vibe from fellow tour members, because once we left the group he was a bit easier, but difficult again when back with a group for a boat trip to the Boys Prison. Basically, he seems to be highly empathic - surprising, in autism. But perhaps it's part of his study of human nature, in his attempts to mimic normality. And that's just one more thing about difficult children - they can surprise you. Marg [/QUOTE]
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