Autism or bad behaviour

I’ve been through similar struggles with my 9-year-old son who has Autism. It’s tough figuring out what’s Autism and what’s just typical kid behavior. Keeping a journal helped us spot triggers for meltdowns, like sudden routine changes or too much screen time. When it comes to discipline, we focus on natural consequences and calming strategies rather than punishment.

you are not the only one I have meltdowns too and sometimes its little things like that and I wish I can stop the meltdowns and they are not working for me

It's horrible when your child behaves in such a violent way, I dont think you're a bad parent. Autistic children can be naughty as well as autistic. Maybe he will be able to tell you a bit mroe about what upset him so much when he's calmed down a bit, but he my not know himself or be able to verbalise it. Is he stressed about being assessed? COuld he feel insecure and fear abandonment is the diagnosis is positive? Children often think that if something is "wrong" with them that they are wrong.

Hi, here are few things you can look at: is this meltdown or temper tantrum? Meltdown is caused by a situation/emotions or environment that is too much and upsetting so much that the person can not control themselves. I went through this as a child and teenager. But I was never understood and always laughed at for this reason. My meltdowns were absolutely awful, destructive and just terrible and it took me long time to recover. It also took me years to find strategies to avoid them.

temper tantrum is basically a manipulative behavior, goal oriented “I want something”. 
Afrer having a meltdown I felt absolutely exhausted and terribly ashamed and embarrassed. 
you can look some articles about how to handle a meltdown, how to help the person calm down. This behavior should be consulted with a therapist and the therapist should help you find a way to help your son and whole family. Here on this site there is also a guidance how to help with meltdown but I can’t copy the link. 

Hi, don't blame yourself, you are not a bad parent.

You don't say what triggered the behaviour, so it's difficult to advise. Whatever it is, you did the correct thing in putting him into a quiet place on his own to calm down.

Once he is calm, try talking with him about why he behaved as he did, what upset him. Explain that hitting other people is not acceptable, and that he must go go to his room if he feels upset about something and cannot control himself. Whether it is autism causing this.or not, he needs guidance on how to manage his behaviour.

I would not give any punishment this time, as it is the first time he has behaved that way. Once you establish why he behaved that way and have made it clear how he should manage things differently, you can then tell him what the consequences will be if he hits someone again.

Whether autistic or not, I feel that all children need structure and rules. Allowing violent behaviour with no consequence may allow it to escalate, and will signal to his brothers that either it's ok to hit people, or that he is being treated favourably to them.

One thing you could consider is a punch bag in his room for him to take out his frustration on?

Couple of things...

1. If that's you in your profile pic, sooner or later someone will tell you that publishing personal identifying information is considered a safety issue. Not me obviously, I'm just warning you that those sort of people exist.. ;c)

2. If your kid is 7 and Autistic he probaby doesn't need too much "punishment" as life and his peer group wil be handing some of that out already. I never had a space in my life that I didn't create for myself where no one was seeking to punish me for being me, and it did give me a rather unhelpful attitude in life, until I started to get over it, a process I'm still involved in, that early life trauma really sticks don't it?  

5 -15 "Timeouts" in order to cool down, like my gran used to impse on me, are of course useful, if used sparingly and I early on established a 2 way no violence rule in my house with my (ADD) kid. (Like I had to with her mother at the beginnning of the relationship) 

I instinctively knew that threats would not work with my kid, (they didn't often work on me) and making threats that you do not or cannot deliver on will get you in a BIG HOLE really fast, I watched loads of my peers make that blunder.

EVERYONE told me "you are her parent and not her friend", advice which I ignored, thankfully.

People told me that her conduct was poor, when she was at the age your kid is , and she didn't "treat adults correctly". I ignored that too, quite successfully.

MY child has out performed the children of my critics in pretty much every case, in terms of adjustment to the adult world, and making it adjust to her, where neccesary, so I guess we did something right. I did an awful lot of exlaing WHY "you shouldn't do that".

I hope some of that is useful or useable. I experienced bad parenting but learned form it and delivered good parenting, based on respect, and where neccessesary providing an explanation of the power dynamics to my child rather than just "because I say so". I DID use silly humour a lot to defuse some situations, particularly "wilful refusal to do something neccesary" if the negotiating was not going to work. 

I felt that if I have to "punish" her then I'd kinda lost already. 

Good early post BTW, and welcome to the forum!

She backed me into a corner once about what punishment would I inflict on her later, so I told her that I didn't know right now, but it would be almost as bad as in the land far away where they make bad children into sausages.. In my best theatrical "I'm bullsh77ing you" voice, so as she wasn't traumatised. From that point on, most minor conflcit situations could be fairly quickly resolved with a bit of banter (that sounded very distrubing to other adults) but which worked very well for us, adn if it DIDN't work, then I knew there was a real problem and she wasn't just "being naughy". 

Oh, and I never lied to her, ever (except on one occasion, when she caught me doing something genuinely inexplicable to her at that time). "Lies to children" does make the parents lives easier, admitedly, but then the kid has to unravel the false information later, and when they do YOUR credibilty is toast.