New aspergers parent

Hi - My son is also 6 and I can totally understand your frustration with your family so you are not alone I can assure you.  My son was always well behaved with my sister until just the other day when he became violent in her presence.  This has totally silenced her unwanted comments. She even rang me to ask how to deal with the situation.  Perhaps you can leave your son with some of your relatives that try and judge you so they can soon see for themselves and then perhaps if they really do want to try and help you they will then have a greater understanding of your situation. 

In terms of outbursts in the home, our son is usually OK but can get really frustrated with certain things and some background noises.  For example he kept getting really angry and storming out of the room for what we thought was no reason (we initially put it down to the fact that he was not getting attention).  This we quickly found was not the case.  It was two things - one was a background chant on a football match on TV that my hubby was watching.  The other was a man who said the lords name in vain OMG on Midsomer Murders one afternoon, that resulted in his nearly launching himself through the TV!  I have learned to observe him more and now if I see him getting tetchy about anything before it totally escalates I divert his attention and then when I feel he is calm enough to talk about it I ask what made him feel frustrated.  He can usually describe as 6 year olds can in his own words - enough to make me understand.  Also recently there is a piece of laminated card called the 5 point scale which was given to me by our local ASD support person in the council.  She said I should show my son it as it is just the numbers 1-5 with a face picture beside each one, ranging from happy being 1 to 5 a red angry face.  At first our son said it was stupid but one day when he was just about to go into a rage he marched into the room and held the card up to my face saying " See this?  I am a number 5".  Though shocked I immediately acknowledged he showed me how angry he was feeling and asked how I could help him get back down to a number 1.  He then went back to his room and then a minute later came and told me he felt like a number 2 and that he had missed Power Rangers Mystic Force because we had taken him to the Seaside last week!  So - to summarise - daily I am getting to know what is triggering him off.  I then tell him I can see you are feeling "angry/a number 5" and I want to help you get back back down to a number 1 etc etc.  Then when things have calmed down I go and give him a big cuddle and tell him how proud I am that together we have made him feel calmer.  The outbursts have reduced dramatically and as I never raise my voice but explain in a little more detail the behaviour I want to see then he gets it.  The other thing I do if he does get really angry and physical is tell him "go to your room until you can calm down.  The behaviour I want to see is ....that you come and apologise for hitting your sister for example and then we can move on".  I always do this in the same calm way every time with no variation.  If my hubby raises his voice to our son then this inconsistency seems to set him off on a treadmill again so this is also something we now have to be totally together on in terms of the way we deal with him - always needs to be exactly the same. Hope this is helpful. 

Hi - My son is also 6 and I can totally understand your frustration with your family so you are not alone I can assure you.  My son was always well behaved with my sister until just the other day when he became violent in her presence.  This has totally silenced her unwanted comments. She even rang me to ask how to deal with the situation.  Perhaps you can leave your son with some of your relatives that try and judge you so they can soon see for themselves and then perhaps if they really do want to try and help you they will then have a greater understanding of your situation. 

In terms of outbursts in the home, our son is usually OK but can get really frustrated with certain things and some background noises.  For example he kept getting really angry and storming out of the room for what we thought was no reason (we initially put it down to the fact that he was not getting attention).  This we quickly found was not the case.  It was two things - one was a background chant on a football match on TV that my hubby was watching.  The other was a man who said the lords name in vain OMG on Midsomer Murders one afternoon, that resulted in his nearly launching himself through the TV!  I have learned to observe him more and now if I see him getting tetchy about anything before it totally escalates I divert his attention and then when I feel he is calm enough to talk about it I ask what made him feel frustrated.  He can usually describe as 6 year olds can in his own words - enough to make me understand.  Also recently there is a piece of laminated card called the 5 point scale which was given to me by our local ASD support person in the council.  She said I should show my son it as it is just the numbers 1-5 with a face picture beside each one, ranging from happy being 1 to 5 a red angry face.  At first our son said it was stupid but one day when he was just about to go into a rage he marched into the room and held the card up to my face saying " See this?  I am a number 5".  Though shocked I immediately acknowledged he showed me how angry he was feeling and asked how I could help him get back down to a number 1.  He then went back to his room and then a minute later came and told me he felt like a number 2 and that he had missed Power Rangers Mystic Force because we had taken him to the Seaside last week!  So - to summarise - daily I am getting to know what is triggering him off.  I then tell him I can see you are feeling "angry/a number 5" and I want to help you get back back down to a number 1 etc etc.  Then when things have calmed down I go and give him a big cuddle and tell him how proud I am that together we have made him feel calmer.  The outbursts have reduced dramatically and as I never raise my voice but explain in a little more detail the behaviour I want to see then he gets it.  The other thing I do if he does get really angry and physical is tell him "go to your room until you can calm down.  The behaviour I want to see is ....that you come and apologise for hitting your sister for example and then we can move on".  I always do this in the same calm way every time with no variation.  If my hubby raises his voice to our son then this inconsistency seems to set him off on a treadmill again so this is also something we now have to be totally together on in terms of the way we deal with him - always needs to be exactly the same. Hope this is helpful.