Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi. This is my first ever thread on any site.
Up until now I thought we were doing really well but we have hit a really big roadblock now. My son is diagnosed autistic and so am I myself which yes at times this really helps. My son has always had a bit of an issue with hitting other children at school, there is never a Pacific target, never any reason for him attack them, no warning, and the planning of what he will do is becoming dangerously worrying now, the incidents have also become more and more and he is also become better and better and knowing how to wait till he is unsupervised. We have taken hes favrote things away as concesquences for his actions, we have done talk after talk, drawings, online games and videos, support workers, increased support at school and nothing seems to help him. When we have taken his favrote things from him it just dosent seem to bother him in anyway, no tantrum nothing. I have tried to sit and talk to him about his feelings and nothing, done drawings to help him express himself and nothing. I've tried to give him ideas that he can do in his room by himself in case he just dosent have the confidence to express things directly to us and nothing. We have no physical actions that he does that show us anything, we literally have nothing that he physically or mentally show us how he feeling in any sort of communication. I have a psychiatrist hopefully getting involved and going to see if I can get him a support worker again but I really dont know what to do and he is becoming more and more dangerous to himself and others around by the day. I think we are looking at his 6th suspension now in the last just over a year for violence, hes 12 years old and only getting bigger and stronger and I'm really worried hes going to hurt someone soon or get hurt himself.
Any help, suggestions, experiences, literally anything would be helpful right now, even someone who would be possibly be up for just chatting to me about this. I've tried to look more work sheets, apps, videos but I'm really starting to get lost in it all.
Thankyou so much for reading and reply or contacting me if you do
Alex
I think i get what you are saying, but NAS69412 aidie really? His son isnt going to turn into Mike Tyson overnight and chew anyones ear off :) and not so much for him to experience the hit back, but just so he has got a safe environment and someone who he can lay into (his Dad) without there being negative consequences or assault against his fellow peers
not such a bad idea in that he might experience getting hit back. But be warned someone trained to box is more capable of killing someone.
NAS69412
Alex,
I'm not sure what kind of advice you are looking for or things that you haven't tried already. I think theres something obvious you havent considered. But, some thoughts would be;
Get some boxing gloves and pads, get into a safe environment and start sparring. Let him lay into you and vice versa. Get a boxing back or one of those boxing weeble things. The one thing he likes to do (be it right or wrong) is physical contact, so use it as a strength and develop it into a positIve coping strategy for him.
Then from there, he may be really into some kind of physical sport (Boxing, Martial Arts etc and he may have a gift)
Could be your son just enjoys being empowered and even if on the surface, its negative to hit his peers but this could be a way of release of a lot of stress, helping him avoid a sensory overload or meltdown.
It could be the feeling of punching someone makes him feel calm, a lot of people with neurodiverse conditions like strong sensations (myself I grind my teeth, pick my fingers, chew whole packets of gum, I literally drink hot sauce, I listen to really loud music etc) all for that strong sensory feedback, like a bear hug almost.
He could be completely mis-reading that his peers are attacking him or trying to intimidate him
Sounds to me you havent seen this way of thinking. No harm trying, no?
Daniel
the NAS help section is here
www.autism.org.uk/.../contact-us
Hello, I don't have any expertise to offer but I didn't want to see your post unanswered, it must be so difficult. Is your son also like this at home, or just at school? If it's just at school it sounds as if he can't cope with the school environment and the school need to be working out what is causing your son to feel so stressed that he is being violent like this.
It should not just be for you to work out alone, the school should be getting specialist advice to help them support your son.
I hope you can get some help soon, have you tried speaking to SENDIASS or the NAS helpline?