Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New profile posts
Latest activity
Internet Search
Members
Current visitors
New profile posts
Search profile posts
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Forums
Parent Support Forums
General Parenting
What do I do?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="susiestar" data-source="post: 747424" data-attributes="member: 1233"><p>I have a son who behaved very much as your son is. It started about when his little sister became able to move around on her own. He was so sweet with her until then (he is almost 4 yrs older). He is in his mid 20s now and is such an amazing person. He very much has Asperger's (a type of autism spectrum disorder). I often found if I could figure out where the issue was coming from, we could talk through it when he was calm. Very often, it was actually his uber logical thinking and not understanding the complex social rules. Some of his teachers loathed me behind my back because I often stood up for him if his behavior was logical from his perspective. </p><p></p><p>At the age of 14, my son was so angry at me for forcing him to do therapy and for not allowing him to hurt his siblings, and for demanding that he behave in a somewhat reasonable manner if he expected to get what he wanted from us. His rage was so explosive and he was incredibly strong. He also had untreated sensory issues until around then. We had to move him out of our house to my parents. He kept trying to seriously harm or kill his sister (not a joke) and he was strong enough to overpower me. We let my parents have a chance to help him before we sent him to a therapeutic Boys Home about an hour away. My father taught jr high for decades and he also has Asperger's. They ended up working a miracle somehow. He has actually worked super hard to repair his relationships with each of us. None of us know quite how they did it. Well, other than my Dad making him do untold hours of yard work every time he got out of line. Plus my Dad out-stubborned him on some things. My mother nagged the social rules into him. </p><p></p><p>I would pick your battles and have a clear strategy for dealing with them. You might be helped by the book Parenting with Love and Logic. It won't help for everything, but it can give you some strategies for maybe dealing with a couple of issues at a time. </p><p></p><p>One member who was here years ago did something with her son that i thought was really interesting. When her son would act out for attention, she would make sure he had ALLLLLLLLL the attention he could handle. Sometimes making him stay in a room with her and her spouse staring at him for a set period of time. Rather than time away from attention, they would make him sit down and then they would just watch him. If he got upset at this, it lasted longer. I believe she also had times she would make him stay right with her, with a hand on her belt no matter what she had to do (except go to the bathroom, lol). That was NOT fun for him (or her) but it was effective at curbing a specific behavior or two.</p><p></p><p>Most of us here have kids that rewards and sticker charts don't work on, and never worked on. We have to share ideas and get creative. My mother has always said, "physical solutions for physical problems". She didn't mean "beat your kids if they mess up". She was QUEEN of creative discipline. Scary logical creative. My older brother had his own room. He insisted on coming out into the den to watch shows that were not allowed (Cinemax night time movies, that sort of thing). Then he would fall asleep in the den, sometimes without any clothing on. My mother was NOT. HAPPY. Asking him not to do it didn't work. Locking the dog in there to fart all night didn't work. Putting strips of duct tape all the way up his legs so they were each covered with them (and I mean ALLLLL the way up his legs) was her final step. It was maybe the 9th or 10th thing she tried. He slept like a rock, so he didn't wake up at all while she put the duct tape on him. Boy was that not a fun morning for him, but he stopped sleeping nude in the den. He also made a huge mess in the kitchen regularly and wouldn't clean it up. After deciding not to do the dishes for him, (after several months of this), she let them sit. For a week. Then she put them in his bed. They were NASTY and she put them inside his pillowcases and under his sheets. He came in late that night and had to stay up to do his bedding. He stopped leaving huge messes after that. She always tried talking to him first, and then insisting he do the chore, and then she got more and more creative the longer he insisted on not doing what she wanted. </p><p></p><p>If your son is throwing something, that is a physical problem. If you can, move things out of the way so he cannot damage anything. If something is damaged, teach him how to repair it, or give him chores to earn the money to pay someone else to fix it. Often you have to work WITH them to get the chore done, but it helps.</p><p></p><p>It is also super helpful to insist that he do some regular, very physically demanding work or exercise. Wear him out at least a couple of days a week. You can send him out to dig a hole in the backyard, and then have him fill it up and dig another one. Have him trim bushes or mow the lawn. This is a strategy my dad used with MANY of the students with special needs that he taught. When he saw one of them getting upset or riled up, he would ask them to take a box full of books or whatever was heavy to a teacher on the other side of the school. It was always a teacher the student knew, and one who expected this to happen on various occasions. The other teacher would just keep the box until a child in the class got upset and then that child would carry the box back to my dad's classroom. It didn't always stop a meltdown or rage, but often it did. Carrying something heavy can work to help reset things. Why this works? I don't know. But the box had to be heavy (full of old textbooks or even bricks at one point). </p><p></p><p>You also might want to examine what is going on in the house when your son gets so angry. Is it loud, or is the house scented by something strong (cooking, air freshener, whatever), is he acting hyper like he needs to keep moving, is something itching him? This can be a sign that he is not responding to sensory input typically. MANY of our kids with special challenges have problems with how their brain processes information from their senses. It can completely overwhelm a person if this happens. If you can figure out a type of sensory stimuli that causes problems, you can work on helping the child cope with that. I am sure another type of therapy is the last thing you were thinking of, but occupational therapists can be a HUGE help with this. I only learned about this when my youngest had major problems and would become almost catatonic if he had too much stimuli. It could take days to get him out of that state. The change the therapy made in even one session was astounding to me. What the therapies do is help rewire the brain, to create new ways for the brain to handle sensory information. The book The Out of Sync Child can be a BIG help in learning about this. It helped us understand that our oldest NEEDED to be at my parents' house. Our house had 2 younger children who had a right to watch the shows they liked (that set our oldest child's every nerve on edge). The younger kids had the same right to be noisy when they wanted, or to have quiet when the needed it, that our oldest had. Our oldest just needed MUCH more quiet than the other 2 kids. My parents had a room on one end of the house for him, away from the noise of anything else going on. It made a huge amount of difference, just having all of the noise and activity of his siblings away from him. </p><p></p><p>The one thing I wished I had done was to not worked on so many issues at once. I think it would have been much better for us if I had let all but maybe one or two things be what we worked on at one time. Sadly, there was so much violence aimed at my middle child (my daughter), that I had to focus on most of it at once in order to protect her. </p><p></p><p>I hope that some parts of this are useful. I am sorry it is so long. I will say that the parents here are AMAZING! This forum was just an incredible help for my family.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="susiestar, post: 747424, member: 1233"] I have a son who behaved very much as your son is. It started about when his little sister became able to move around on her own. He was so sweet with her until then (he is almost 4 yrs older). He is in his mid 20s now and is such an amazing person. He very much has Asperger's (a type of autism spectrum disorder). I often found if I could figure out where the issue was coming from, we could talk through it when he was calm. Very often, it was actually his uber logical thinking and not understanding the complex social rules. Some of his teachers loathed me behind my back because I often stood up for him if his behavior was logical from his perspective. At the age of 14, my son was so angry at me for forcing him to do therapy and for not allowing him to hurt his siblings, and for demanding that he behave in a somewhat reasonable manner if he expected to get what he wanted from us. His rage was so explosive and he was incredibly strong. He also had untreated sensory issues until around then. We had to move him out of our house to my parents. He kept trying to seriously harm or kill his sister (not a joke) and he was strong enough to overpower me. We let my parents have a chance to help him before we sent him to a therapeutic Boys Home about an hour away. My father taught jr high for decades and he also has Asperger's. They ended up working a miracle somehow. He has actually worked super hard to repair his relationships with each of us. None of us know quite how they did it. Well, other than my Dad making him do untold hours of yard work every time he got out of line. Plus my Dad out-stubborned him on some things. My mother nagged the social rules into him. I would pick your battles and have a clear strategy for dealing with them. You might be helped by the book Parenting with Love and Logic. It won't help for everything, but it can give you some strategies for maybe dealing with a couple of issues at a time. One member who was here years ago did something with her son that i thought was really interesting. When her son would act out for attention, she would make sure he had ALLLLLLLLL the attention he could handle. Sometimes making him stay in a room with her and her spouse staring at him for a set period of time. Rather than time away from attention, they would make him sit down and then they would just watch him. If he got upset at this, it lasted longer. I believe she also had times she would make him stay right with her, with a hand on her belt no matter what she had to do (except go to the bathroom, lol). That was NOT fun for him (or her) but it was effective at curbing a specific behavior or two. Most of us here have kids that rewards and sticker charts don't work on, and never worked on. We have to share ideas and get creative. My mother has always said, "physical solutions for physical problems". She didn't mean "beat your kids if they mess up". She was QUEEN of creative discipline. Scary logical creative. My older brother had his own room. He insisted on coming out into the den to watch shows that were not allowed (Cinemax night time movies, that sort of thing). Then he would fall asleep in the den, sometimes without any clothing on. My mother was NOT. HAPPY. Asking him not to do it didn't work. Locking the dog in there to fart all night didn't work. Putting strips of duct tape all the way up his legs so they were each covered with them (and I mean ALLLLL the way up his legs) was her final step. It was maybe the 9th or 10th thing she tried. He slept like a rock, so he didn't wake up at all while she put the duct tape on him. Boy was that not a fun morning for him, but he stopped sleeping nude in the den. He also made a huge mess in the kitchen regularly and wouldn't clean it up. After deciding not to do the dishes for him, (after several months of this), she let them sit. For a week. Then she put them in his bed. They were NASTY and she put them inside his pillowcases and under his sheets. He came in late that night and had to stay up to do his bedding. He stopped leaving huge messes after that. She always tried talking to him first, and then insisting he do the chore, and then she got more and more creative the longer he insisted on not doing what she wanted. If your son is throwing something, that is a physical problem. If you can, move things out of the way so he cannot damage anything. If something is damaged, teach him how to repair it, or give him chores to earn the money to pay someone else to fix it. Often you have to work WITH them to get the chore done, but it helps. It is also super helpful to insist that he do some regular, very physically demanding work or exercise. Wear him out at least a couple of days a week. You can send him out to dig a hole in the backyard, and then have him fill it up and dig another one. Have him trim bushes or mow the lawn. This is a strategy my dad used with MANY of the students with special needs that he taught. When he saw one of them getting upset or riled up, he would ask them to take a box full of books or whatever was heavy to a teacher on the other side of the school. It was always a teacher the student knew, and one who expected this to happen on various occasions. The other teacher would just keep the box until a child in the class got upset and then that child would carry the box back to my dad's classroom. It didn't always stop a meltdown or rage, but often it did. Carrying something heavy can work to help reset things. Why this works? I don't know. But the box had to be heavy (full of old textbooks or even bricks at one point). You also might want to examine what is going on in the house when your son gets so angry. Is it loud, or is the house scented by something strong (cooking, air freshener, whatever), is he acting hyper like he needs to keep moving, is something itching him? This can be a sign that he is not responding to sensory input typically. MANY of our kids with special challenges have problems with how their brain processes information from their senses. It can completely overwhelm a person if this happens. If you can figure out a type of sensory stimuli that causes problems, you can work on helping the child cope with that. I am sure another type of therapy is the last thing you were thinking of, but occupational therapists can be a HUGE help with this. I only learned about this when my youngest had major problems and would become almost catatonic if he had too much stimuli. It could take days to get him out of that state. The change the therapy made in even one session was astounding to me. What the therapies do is help rewire the brain, to create new ways for the brain to handle sensory information. The book The Out of Sync Child can be a BIG help in learning about this. It helped us understand that our oldest NEEDED to be at my parents' house. Our house had 2 younger children who had a right to watch the shows they liked (that set our oldest child's every nerve on edge). The younger kids had the same right to be noisy when they wanted, or to have quiet when the needed it, that our oldest had. Our oldest just needed MUCH more quiet than the other 2 kids. My parents had a room on one end of the house for him, away from the noise of anything else going on. It made a huge amount of difference, just having all of the noise and activity of his siblings away from him. The one thing I wished I had done was to not worked on so many issues at once. I think it would have been much better for us if I had let all but maybe one or two things be what we worked on at one time. Sadly, there was so much violence aimed at my middle child (my daughter), that I had to focus on most of it at once in order to protect her. I hope that some parts of this are useful. I am sorry it is so long. I will say that the parents here are AMAZING! This forum was just an incredible help for my family. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
Parent Support Forums
General Parenting
What do I do?
Top