I wish I knew what to do

[Bunny]

Ugh!! I hate the whole, "I'm boooorrrreeeddd!!!!!" thing. difficult child started to do that a little yesterday during the party, but I told him that it was not a play with him kind of day. Will he watch a movie? That helped difficult child yesterday. Or can he play a game on the computer?

 

[family mum]

I suggested going into our hot tub and he agreed, but apparently he and little sis her playing out there this afternoon and have managed to fry the motor on it by getting water into the mechanism. Great, another expense, when I'm on sick leave! Okay, I'm off to play board games with him to keep him occupied. REALLY don't feel like it, but I feel like another meltdown even less.

 

[DammitJanet]

Im sorry you are going through this but I am going to give you some really off the wall advice from the parent of an Aspie who is enamored with video games. Let him play them. My son is now almost 31 and has always loved video games and the worse the better. He played all those war games from very young ages. I guess we rented whatever he wanted to play whenever he wanted to play it because he would play it with Tony. Then when he got a computer he played all those computer games on there. He doesnt have a violent bone in his body. He says that playing violent video games gives people a way to work the anger and irritability out on the screen instead of hitting a person in real life. Its much better to bomb a whole fleet of ships on some video games than beat the living daylights out of your brother.

Billy now works hard at a full time job and he gets irritated lots of times at either management or idiotic customers but he comes home and puts on his headphones and blasts his way on whatever game he is playing for an hour or so and he is happy as a clam after that.

 

[keista]

Janet, that logic works for some kids, like mine, but not for family mum's. She only took away the violent war games because he was being very violent.

 

[buddy]

Yup, same here ...can't even watch hockey fights or Disney movies with any cartoon fights. Tae kwon do etc...total nightmare. For some kids. No biggie ....for violent kids it is too reinforcing of that behavior.

 

[susiestar]

Wiz did totally the opposite of Billy, Janet. Anything violent and he was a total terrifying monster even at early ages. If it is okay on the computer or in his imagination then it is okay to do to people, esp mom and younger sibs. Same problem as Buddy with Disney movies and classic cartoons. Wiz once almost killed Jess when she was 2 by trying to drop a big rock on her like he saw in a Roadrunner/Wiley Coyote cartoon with Gpa. My dad was SOOOOOOOO upset over that because he just loved those old cartoons and to have Wiz use them to justify something that almost killed Jess (I managed to pull her out of the way as he brought a rock as big as her head down on her head!) just broke his heart. My dad claims to not remember it because it was so traumatic to him.

We also had TKD be a nightmare in spite of a super strict master who trained Olympic competitors and always stressed to never fight in reality and never use TKD to hurt someone. Wiz sat out of a LOT of classes because the instructor asked Jess if he had used those skills to hurt her and she or I said yes. It never made a dent.

the waiting periods are awful, but inevitable. At least you got the report. I am sending hugs and some extra armor to help you through.

I know you don't want to over-use the hospital and cops, but the more you use them the higher up on the priority list you go. PLEASE don't let fear of 'overuse' of those resources keep you from following through if you said you will do it. Not following through every single time is more damaging with an AS child who is violent than anything else. They wll then always expect this to be the time that you don't follow through.

As for the "I'm bored" stuff, we found that chores worked pretty well to stop the whining. NONE of my kids ESPECIALLY Wiz would EVER tell me they were bored because they KNEW they would end up with a chore. That was a pet peeve of mine - I hate the whining esp as they had tons of activities and projects and toys that were not electronic.

 

[lovelyboy]

I agree with the violent games causing violent behaviour....
Aaagggghhhh.....during the holiday, my husband thought it will be ok to BREAK our rules!!!!!!and let difficult child play a violent game.....it started of ok, but progressed to more violent scenes.......My ghg was in such a good space until he started playing it.....he doesnt neceserily get violent but he wants to act like the game caracters, playing very rough and picking fights with little brother!!!! Hubby realized his BIG mistake and then we had to take the game away!!!! BANG.....meltdown for more than a hour!!!!!!! The thing is....while playing those games some adrenalin and stuff is released into their blood, but not doing the physical actions to get rid of these hormones....builds up and realy makes them feel crancy afterwards....! My hubby play these games, but he is an adult so he knows how to handle these crancy feelings afterwards....my son, being on the spectrum is very visual, so he remembers EVERY detail and then came to explain to me in detail how the game taught him to kill some one!!!! OMW! That was the end!

 

[bigbear11]

Wow... (((HUGS))). So sorry that you are going thru this. It is so very hard to deal with the violence and the stress it puts on your relationship with your husband. We have that issue from time to time. When TRex rages for 2 hrs and is destructive and violent toward us... it is so hard to maintain your "cool". Sometimes both my husband and I are in a good place and (more often) sometimes not. Unfortunately it seems we get angry at each other for losing it with her. Our anger doesn't last too long... we both realize that we are doing the best we can but it just seems like such a waste of energy.

It sounds like you are trying to find the answers and getting help. I suppose this is a journey for all of us so that is all you can do. We are in the process of getting TRex into a fetal alcohol clinic to assess what she is really dealing with... not sure we kow yet. Things have been great for the last 2 weeks but you never know.

As someone else said... make taking care of yourself (counseling, medications, exercise... whatever) a priority as well. I haven't always and now that I am, it is so much better dealing with everything else (not easy by any stretch but definately better).

 

[family mum]

Quick update,
I should be trying to sleep since I have to be up early to get to the hospital in the AM for his testing, but like everyone else, I'm stressing instead.

Today was a pediatrician. day for my boys. difficult child was pleasant for about 20 min. before he started refusing to take medications and refusing to follow through on weekend chores that never got done. Naturally the "I'm bored" in monotonous and repetitive way continued intermittently throughout day. I did get him to do his chores because he wanted to go out to the dollar store to buy gum (his $) but I would only agree to bring him after he finished the chores. it was a very crazy windy day weather wise, we even had some freezing rain in the early morning. Our gazebo has blown off the patio, the deck chairs blew around, 1 is now at the bottom of the pool. Needless to say, he couldn't go out and blow off steam.
little sis was home from school early and they occupied themselves with lego for a while but when she had enough he didn't do so well. he started following her around even when she went to clean the bathroom, flushing the toilet each time she tried to put soap in it. Things progressed for about an hour, an hour and a half, with him pulling leaves off hibiscus plants, tossed out seeds that I was starting to germinate on a window sill, spitting on kitchen floor, blocking sis from coming up the stairs and then shoving her, licking corn on the cob that I was preparing to go with dinner and spreading the corn husks about the kitchen, that sort of stuff. Except for shoving sis and grabbing my wrists very hard he did not get as violent as he can sometimes. ( Oh, he did grab my hair but hesitated and did not pull it, difficult child's hair is also pretty long so I also took a handful of his but without any pressure, and I talked to him about choices and the moment I felt the tension of his fingers release I let go as well. I think that almost counts as a small victory.)

I can't really say why his tantrum fizzled out before erupting on a larger scale. ( No, that's not true, i know what happened, I decided I was going to take my own advice and do some Yoga. I guess he decided it wasn't any fun if I wouldn't fight with him and the other two hung out in their rooms. He ate dinner with me and the other 2 kids nicely even if it was way quieter than usual. Things had all calmed down when husband arrived home. Evening progressed with watching TV ( he even came and asked me to watch with him) and going to bed, almost without incident. ( Had to come into little sis's room to mock good night rituals.
I'm worried about getting him to appointment tomorrow, even more worried about getting him to return on wed, and even more worried when ho goes back to school on thurs. and realizes that he has missed the Shakespeare play that he was looking forward to seeing.

Okay, that wasn't so quick after all.

Wish me luck..

 

[recoveringenabler]

I hope you get some sleep tonight and wake up refreshed and peaceful. HUGS to you. Good night.

 

[Liahona]

Good luck. You are on the right track. Things won't be this bad forever.

 

[lovelyboy]

Agh I hate it when they repeat other people in a spite full way...
My son still has 3 weeks of holiday with no friends around.....cant entertain himself....keeps on repeating the same questions.....irritating me......trying to get my attention.......
I truely think they sometimes do annoying things to keep themselves occupied or to get attention!
Goodluck with the assessment!

 

[buddy]

good luck with your testing!

 

[family mum]

Need to leave in 10 minutes, he says that he's going to school rather than to hospital. The day is starting well, not!