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How do you "discipline"
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<blockquote data-quote="aeroeng" data-source="post: 536684" data-attributes="member: 6557"><p>My difficult child is much better now, but he was the same way. Terrible explosions, things damaged, holes in the walls and all of it. We did call the police, and he did spend some time in the emergency room, and a short stent in a day treatment facility. (totally incompetent place, did not help at all, but did let difficult child know we would not just take it at home). We felt much like you do now. Very frustrated and struggled with discipline. Nothing worked, and most actions only increased the frequency and level of the explosions. The two things that helped the most for use were natural consequences and finding triggers. </p><p></p><p>Natural consequences are those that just result from the behavior. You smash the phone against the wall it gets a crack. You now have to use a phone with a crack. We refused to replace anything broken, or fix the holes in the walls. (after they all go off we'll fix them then). When people come by we don't hide them. We get a lot of disapproving looks, but we always got that anyway. difficult child had to eventually face the holes himself. One day when we were away he found poster board and covered all the holes. This happen two years after they were made, but it forced difficult child to address his past behavior. </p><p></p><p>As impossible a task it was, if we could discover the triggers and learn to head them off things improved. difficult child had a significant difficulty organizing his thoughts. Things like he did not want his brother to touch his computer, yet he wanted his brother to fix his computer. The fact that both things can't happen at the same time would trigger him off because he could not think it through by himself. If I could see it before hand I could employ a technique called "reflecting" this is very much like some of the activities in Dr. Green's book, but with additional details. With reflecting we would slowly state what was bothering difficult child. (you state, he corrects, you re-state ... ) Once it was explained and made clear he was very good and then coming up with a reasonable solution. The hard part was catching the triggers first. With time, he did learn how to organize his thoughts and things started improving.</p><p></p><p>Strategies we used included keeping my voice calm when he was exploding. To keep myself calm I would use the "Hal" voice, the one from the movie 2010. I would say, "I'm sorry difficult child, I'm afraid I can't do that." Just like the impersonal computer. (Some day he will see the movie and gasp.) But, the Hal voice kept ME calm and helped. Sometimes I would need to simply walk away. I remember one day, grabbing "difficult child in Training" and pulling him out of the house as difficult child raged and knocked over furniture. "difficult child in Training" was very upset. I looked him in the face and said that there is nothing in that house that is more important then you or your brother. Hugged him and we both left. As soon as there was no one to "preform" for difficult child would calm down. We never replaced the broken items, and there were many nice things we would have loved to purchase but felt "why it will just get broken". </p><p></p><p>This is more about how we survived then how we disciplined, but by surviving and working on the mental organization skills things got better. Today difficult child still has some issues, but is so much better. I have confidence he can become a mature adult someday. Would it have been better if we disciplined more? I don't know? We sure tried everything we could. More aggressive discipline only seemed to make it worse. Could someone else have done better? Maybe. But I did the best I could and things are better now.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="aeroeng, post: 536684, member: 6557"] My difficult child is much better now, but he was the same way. Terrible explosions, things damaged, holes in the walls and all of it. We did call the police, and he did spend some time in the emergency room, and a short stent in a day treatment facility. (totally incompetent place, did not help at all, but did let difficult child know we would not just take it at home). We felt much like you do now. Very frustrated and struggled with discipline. Nothing worked, and most actions only increased the frequency and level of the explosions. The two things that helped the most for use were natural consequences and finding triggers. Natural consequences are those that just result from the behavior. You smash the phone against the wall it gets a crack. You now have to use a phone with a crack. We refused to replace anything broken, or fix the holes in the walls. (after they all go off we'll fix them then). When people come by we don't hide them. We get a lot of disapproving looks, but we always got that anyway. difficult child had to eventually face the holes himself. One day when we were away he found poster board and covered all the holes. This happen two years after they were made, but it forced difficult child to address his past behavior. As impossible a task it was, if we could discover the triggers and learn to head them off things improved. difficult child had a significant difficulty organizing his thoughts. Things like he did not want his brother to touch his computer, yet he wanted his brother to fix his computer. The fact that both things can't happen at the same time would trigger him off because he could not think it through by himself. If I could see it before hand I could employ a technique called "reflecting" this is very much like some of the activities in Dr. Green's book, but with additional details. With reflecting we would slowly state what was bothering difficult child. (you state, he corrects, you re-state ... ) Once it was explained and made clear he was very good and then coming up with a reasonable solution. The hard part was catching the triggers first. With time, he did learn how to organize his thoughts and things started improving. Strategies we used included keeping my voice calm when he was exploding. To keep myself calm I would use the "Hal" voice, the one from the movie 2010. I would say, "I'm sorry difficult child, I'm afraid I can't do that." Just like the impersonal computer. (Some day he will see the movie and gasp.) But, the Hal voice kept ME calm and helped. Sometimes I would need to simply walk away. I remember one day, grabbing "difficult child in Training" and pulling him out of the house as difficult child raged and knocked over furniture. "difficult child in Training" was very upset. I looked him in the face and said that there is nothing in that house that is more important then you or your brother. Hugged him and we both left. As soon as there was no one to "preform" for difficult child would calm down. We never replaced the broken items, and there were many nice things we would have loved to purchase but felt "why it will just get broken". This is more about how we survived then how we disciplined, but by surviving and working on the mental organization skills things got better. Today difficult child still has some issues, but is so much better. I have confidence he can become a mature adult someday. Would it have been better if we disciplined more? I don't know? We sure tried everything we could. More aggressive discipline only seemed to make it worse. Could someone else have done better? Maybe. But I did the best I could and things are better now. [/QUOTE]
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