Hi everyone this is my first post. A little bit about me, I'm a married Mum to two boys, my eldest was diagnosed with autism in March after 7 1/2 years of being passed around various professionals and a dyspraxia diagnosis in 2021 he's recently started mainstream secondary school and my youngest has just had his first appointment due to concerns raised initially by his primary school consistent with ADHD. My boys are polar opposites, my eldest quite introverted with very narrow intense areas of interest and my youngest is like a puppy will talk to anyone, try anything but needs what the EP called brain breaks throughout the day.
My eldests diagnosis came as no surprise and as he has got older he has required more and more support at home due to his masking throughout most of primary school up until Yr 5/6. Support is woefully inadequate in our area so I have done everything I can using my background in child development and accessing what I can to understand the best ways I can possibly help him to live his best life. He has feelings charts, routine charts, star charts, a large selection of sensory toys, black out tent, games consoles, a handheld feelings fan, he is supported to attend a local youth club every week and we watch football together regularly which he absolutely loves. He's had CBT sessions around his anger and we encourage him to use his tools to both communicate how we can help him and how he can help himself but I'm truly at a loss. Unfortunately his anger has led to him hurting me, our cat and most of the time his brother to the point where I cannot leave them unsupervised. Sadly he's had a pretty horrific start to secondary school after being bullied last year so obviously we're not telling him that anger is bad or wrong just that we need to let it out in the right way but nothing seems to work. Someone I spoke to mentioned ODD as everything we say to him he seems to take as some deeply personal attack. Has anyone used anything for their kids or themselves to help with anger that has helped because I'm trying everything and I'm close to breaking point.
