Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi , My name is jez and i have a 9 year old son with high functioning autism. He is very bright and he is wonderful but recently he has been taken out of the classroom every day due to his disruptive behaviour. Today he was excluded for violently attacking 2 children and a teacher.
The school have always been very helpful and supportive and we have accessed support from the childrens centre, local camhs, doctors, psychiatrists and nurses over the last 4 years, it has recently been decided that therapies are not beneficial to him as he refuses to engage.
His father and I have tried every strategy we can think of and everything that has been suggested to us from the services. But now, we are stuck. My heart is breaking because i dont want this for him, if we cant keep him on the right track im afraid that he will suffer and his future will be bleak.
Does anyone have any suggestions that can help us manage the violent behaviour? We have nowhere else to turn xxxx
The aggression is a symptom of him not being able to make sense of his world. We tend to need logic and reasons to do things and often the adults around us demand chaotic actions and tell us things that make no sense or cannot really be true - we are just supposed to just deal with and accept all this randomness and it causes us stress and anxiety that we can't deal with.
Have you looked at his world and how the surrounding randomness impinges on him? How crazy/chaotic are school rules? How noisy or random is home life? Does he have anything where he can take refuge from it all and does he get to indulge in hobbies or something that he can control or enjoy to dissipate the anger within?
I have spent years looking into his world but im aware i will never truly understand.
He enjoys school because of its structure and rigidity, home life is good however a little stressful at times because im studying full time and so his routines can sometimes be interrupted but we avoid this as much as we possibly can.
He doesnt seem to understand why people are not accepting of him lashing out, and im sure he feels frustrated. He loves to play computer games and he is fascinated with historical architecture, but he is very switched on and has learned that if he kicks off at school he will be allowed to play computer games or read books away from class.
Thankyou for replying