Dont know if this is the right forum for this discussion but im new to this site...
Hi I’m a dad to three children, my oldest is a beautiful little boy, he 6 years old, and autistic, I love the little guy more than anything in the world, her was diagnosed at the age of two, he was nonverbal until last year when he basically decided that he wanted to speak, hes never been too much of a handful, he has learning difficulties, struggles to write anything but his name, can only spell a few words like his name and d-o-g, c-a-t ect but this is all amazing to us, we were told he would never be able to do any of this… the thing is as he is getting older, and he is becoming ever more his own little person and has basically stopped listening to me and his mammy, we can tell him 1000 times not to do something but he still does it, we’ve tried many many types of punishment (hate the word punishment but you get what I mean) from the naughty step, being sent to his room, time out, his own space, a tap on the hand ect none of this phases him or works… We were watching a Marvel cartoon just last night and the hulk kicked someone in the head, without a second thought he copied it and nearly kicked my head off (no more marvel cartoons), he was told off but it didn’t register with him that he had done wrong, an hour later he tried to do the same again… Things are beginning to get on top of me as a parent, I no longer know what to do, I’m beginning to question my parenting skills, am I doing something wrong, am I a good parent, what can I do to help him? Do I go down the drug route and try Ritalin as suggested by one of his doctors or can anyone help suggest a better treatment… The only reason I do not want to go down the drug route is that I had a friend at school that used to take Ritalin and it used to change him in to a completely different person, he just wasn’t himself, I don’t know if that’s what I want for my little boy…
Thanks for listening to me…
Marko
