URGENT HELP NEEDED - Out of control what do we do?

Its getting worse. Today hes smashed in the wall by throwing a huge computer chair at it. Hes smashed the wardrobe door off the hinges.

We've tried and tried, but any attempt to even speak to him results in literally going from 0 - 1000 in a second. Hes shouts screams and punches the walls.

Today he went for my wife. Next step is going to be the police. We've been here before a month or so ago - took him to A&E out of desperation - they did nothing. All the useless tossers at CAMHS have done is tell us its bad parenting and to ring the police.

Hes 14 a big lad. As I've said before, hes got OCD and possible Aspergers. We've tried it all but he just does what he wants. Hes told his mother he wishes she were dead quite a few times. Last week he told me he was going to ring social services and tell them I was hitting him so I'd get arrested. I just just see it all heading down the slope into oblivion at the moment and he doesnt see it, doesnt care, or doesnt register.

I can't go near him at the moment but hes just a danger at the moment at times - We're so on our own because there is no-one to help!

Deleted user over 6 years ago in reply to paulponty

It is hard, it's very hard, for everyone involved and you don't give yourself enough credit for just how well you're doing. You're doing the best you can in a sea of confusion. Try to think of it as you speaking English and him speaking Japanese.

House rules will be great. Firm and consistent boundaries, could work, to at least bring some order into the house and stop the destruction. It might take a while though, so it might require some more patience.

A punch bag could work great. Physical exercise works great for me. I really love boxing and Thai boxing as that takes the most amount of physical effort and works really well. Currently, due to exhaustion and lack of nutrition, and other things, I'm not able to even walk very far let alone excercise. But ever since I found out how helpful physical exercise was to me, when I was 20, I have exercised almost daily ever since. It has been a life saver for me. If he doesn't take to boxing, try and introduce him to other forms of physical exercise and sports that he can try, until he finds one he likes. If he can find a physical exercise that he enjoys it would be a huge benefit to him. And you! :)

As for the damage he's caused so far, chances are, no matter how you frame this to him, at present, he won't fully appreciate what it's all about. You could maybe make a list of the damage and the financial cost it would take to repair/replace the damage and one day, when your son is in a position where he understands, you could offer him the opportunity to make amends by paying you back.

It might be more worth your while to say that as a family, you have realised that you can no longer go on as you are. That you are introducing some new house rules and breaking the rules will have consequences, such as ....... and start again, with the new rules and consequences.

Also, think about getting some time away, just you and your wife, even if it's only for a few days, or a dedicated night out together on a regular basis, or something. This is about you and your wife as well, not just your son and the better you look after yourself and your relationship with your wife, the more help you will be to your son because some times, there's very little anybody can do, we have to weather the storms, and your relationship with yourself, your wife and your family and friends will get you through the storm.
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Deleted user over 6 years ago in reply to paulponty

That's a perfectly understandable response so an extremely difficult situation. Try to think of how well you're doing and not how badly you think you are doing. For example, think of how well you do to manage compared to parents who have children who are not on the spectrum, who's children are more like little angels than even the most average child. And think of that. Most children, are 'average' so most parents have no idea what you and your wife and your family are going through on a daily basis. They have no idea. You're doing a tremendously good job. Think of all the times you did walk away. Think of that. Think of how well you did to override what feels like a natural impulse, to loose it with your son. Don't think about the times that you did lose it. It's game over when that happens. But for that moment, only. When that happens, it's time to look after yourself. Bring your blood pressure back down etc. It's no time for judgement. For neither you nor your son. You're not thinking straight at these times. Don't dwell on these times. They are tiny and insignificant when compared to the love and compassion you have for your boy. It's not easy to understand us (aspies) so please don't give yourself a hard time on our behalf because you think you're not getting it right. What's right? You're doing your best and that is all that anyone can do.
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Deepthought over 6 years ago in reply to paulponty

paulponty said:
Thanks link doesnt work but I'll google it and see if I can find it.

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I tried to find another link myself, but could only find abstracts (simplified summations) of it, with Purchase PDF options. Although I know extremely little or next to nothing about computing, it might perhaps be that you do not have the appropriate PDF reader on your device. All the same, here is a 'copy-and-paste' job involving the most salient portions of the PDF.

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ABSTRACT

Some individuals with autism engage in physical aggression to an extent that interferes with not only their quality of life, but also that of their parents and siblings. Behavioural and psychopharmacological treatments have been the mainstay of treatments for aggression in children and adolescents with autism. We evaluated the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based procedure, Meditation on the Soles of the Feet, in helping three adolescents to manage their physical aggression. This procedure required the adolescents to rapidly shift the focus of their attention from the aggression-triggering event to a neutral place on their body, the soles of their feet. Incidents of aggression across the three adolescents ranged from a mean of 14–20 per week during baseline, 4–6 per week during mindfulness training, including zero rates during the last 4 weeks of intervention. Aggression occurred a rate of about 1 per year during a 3-year follow-up. Our results suggest adolescents with autism can learn, and effectively use, a mindfulness-based procedure to self-manage their physical aggression over several years.

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© 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Prior to the intervention, the mother of each adolescent met with the senior author for a day during which they were taught the procedural steps of Meditation on the Soles of the Feet (Singh et al., 2003), and the steps for training their child with autism. The mothers were also instructed to practice the procedure themselves for a month prior to teaching it to their child.

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Table 1

Training steps for Meditation on the Soles of the Feet procedure.

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1.) If you are standing, stand in a natural rather than an aggressive posture, with the soles of your feet flat on the floor.

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2.) If you are sitting, sit comfortably with the soles of your feet on the floor.

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3.) Breath naturally, and do nothing.

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4.) Cast your mind back to an incident that made you very angry. Stay with the anger.

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5.) You are feeling angry, and angry thoughts are flowing through your mind. Let them flow naturally, without restriction. Stay with the anger. Your body may show signs of anger (e.g., rapid breathing).

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6.) Now, shift all your attention fully to the soles of your feet.

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7.) Slowly, move your toes, feel your shoes covering your feet, feel the texture of your socks, the curve of your arch, and the heels of your feet against the back of your shoes. If you do not have shoes on, feel the floor or carpet with the soles of your feet.

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8.) keep breathing naturally and focus on the soles of your feet until you feel calm.

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9.) Practice this mindfulness exercise until you can use it wherever your are and whenever an incident occurs that might otherwise lead to you being verbally or physically aggressive.

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10.) Remember that once you are calm, you can walk away from the incident or situation with a smile on your face because you controlled your anger. Alternatively, if you need to, you can respond to the incident or situation with a calm and clear mind without verbal threats or physical aggression.
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Intervention

Following baseline, the adolescents were individually taught the mindfulness procedure by their mothers. Initial training was conducted during a daily 30-min training session for 5 consecutive days. During these sessions, the adolescents were seated comfortably in a soft chair, with their feet flat on the floor, and hands resting gently on their thighs. They were instructed to close their eyes to increase concentration and narrow their focus to the present moment. Then their mother provided the instructions in a calm and soft voice, taking them through the steps outlined in Table 1. This involved teaching the adolescents to shift their attention from the emotion (e.g., anger, fear, frustration) or other triggers that normally preceded the aggressive behaviour to a neutral object—the soles of their feet. They were encouraged to practice the procedure at other times, at least twice a day, with the help of their mothers, as necessary. This practice did not require the presence of any trigger for their aggressive behaviour, but they were encouraged to use the procedure especially when such a trigger to their aggressive behaviour was present. Once the adolescents had learned the basics of the Meditation on the Soles of the Feet procedure, they were given an audiotape of the instructions (recorded on their iPods) to use for self-practice. During the mindfulness training phase that followed the week of intensive training by their mothers, each adolescent was required to practice the technique at least twice a day with their mother and to use it whenever an incident occurred that could elicit aggressive behaviour. Formal training was terminated when each adolescent did not engage in aggressive behavior for four consecutive weeks

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Follow-up

Following termination of formal training, each adolescent was periodically reminded by his parents and siblings to continue practising Meditation on the Soles of the Feet in an effort to maintain meditation stabilization, which is a state where the ‘‘mind engages the object of observation of its own accord’’ (Gyatso, 1999, p. 59). They were given no further instruction. Given our extensive experience teaching and using this procedure, we anticipated the participants would become so attuned to their environment and their interactions that the mere occurrence of an unpleasant situation with their parents or siblings would automatically evoke mindfulness, rather than aggression or some other maladaptive behaviour. Follow-up data were collected for 3 years following termination of the intervention to assess maintenance of treatment gains.

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Results

Fig. 1 presents baseline >(diagrams not here included)<, mindfulness training, and follow-up data on physical aggression for each of the three adolescents. During baseline, Mike, Chris, and Steve exhibited an average of 14, 20, and 16 aggressive acts per week, respectively. During mindfulness training, their aggressive acts were reduced to an average of 6.3, 4.1, and 4.7 aggressive acts per week, respectively, with 0 during the last 4 weeks of intervention. During follow-up, Mike, Chris, and Steve engaged in 4, 3, and 3 aggressive acts in the 3-year period.

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Discussion

We investigated the effectiveness of Meditation on the Soles of the Feet

as a self-management strategy for physical aggression by three adolescents with autism. The three adolescents were able to learn and use this mindfulness procedure to manage their aggressive behaviour towards parents and siblings. The multiple baseline design used in this study enables us to infer, with some degree of confidence, a causal relationship between the mindfulness procedure and the reduction in aggression. Introduction of mindfulness training with the first adolescent did not result in decreased aggression in the second and third adolescents and, similarly, introduction of mindfulness training with the second adolescent did not result in decreased aggression in the third adolescent. While the data show a clear and sustained decrease in aggression during mindfulness training, the changes over time were variable within and among the adolescents, and effective control of aggression took between 23 and 30 weeks to reach the criterion of no aggressive incidents for four consecutive weeks. However, once the adolescents achieved self-control of their aggression, they had only one or two aggressive incidents during each of the following 3 years.
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paulponty over 6 years ago in reply to Deleted user

Yeh I know you're right but its so hard. Especially when you have other people in the family to look after as well. And when you can see the harm that hes doing to himself. As you say its hard to understand.

Same when you help him so much - it still goes nowhere. And when you try to help and he lies, goes behind your back etc. And when people are trying to help and he just does not bother - I think thats the worse. Hes had exercises to do/things to try from counsellor and he just doesnt bother.

We do really need to get a handle on discipline though. Been reading about that today. About making house rules that are clear etc. and making sure he knows the consequences.

BTW - been looking at punch bags on amazon. lol. Good idea?

What about the damage hes caused so far? Should I make him responsible for what hes done (i.e. paying for new chair etc?)

paulponty over 6 years ago in reply to Deleted user

Well I dont think I;m doing that well. I find it so hard to NOT lose my rag with him. The number of times I've lost if with him - sometimes I have to walk away. Mrs is the same. We have to calm each other down at times when hes done something.

DongFeng5 over 6 years ago in reply to paulponty

paulponty said:
Anyway CAMHS are now going to start CBT for his OCD and also start an aspergers assessment.

Might I respectfully suggest that you deliberately labour the point re: possible Aspergers with the folk who are booking/conducting the CBT?

I am no expert, but I gather that CBT may sometimes make things worse if Aspergers is involved. It may perhaps be possible to tailor the CBT for Aspergers, but they can't do that if they don't know that Aspergers is a possibility in your child's case.

Best of luck.

Deleted user over 6 years ago in reply to paulponty

Great news about CAMHS and the psychiatrist appointment. You're doing a great job, I know I couldn't have handled a child like me, no way. And there are no hard or fast rules of how to approach matters but we need to learn about consequences like everybody else. I didn't really get taught them when I was at home, and I'm certainly not blaming any of my behaviour on my parents, far from it, they deserve a medal for sure for bringing me up, but it's taken me a long long time to learn about consequences, or maybe that's just part of my condition why it took ,e so long. Who knows! Lol! But I have finally got a better understanding now.

Deleted user over 6 years ago

The thing is. You’re coming at this from the wrong angle. You see, he didn’t smash the wall in by throwing a huge computer chair at it. He didn’t smash the wardrobe door off its hinges. It may have looked like that, to you, in your world. But he’s not in your world. He’s in his. He didn’t smash the wall in. He tried desperately, in vain, to say, help me, please god help me. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t like what’s happening to me. I didn’t mean to say I hate you. I don’t know why I said that. I don’t even know what it means. I’m all alone and I’m scared. Please. Please god will somebody help me.

He doesn’t see what you see. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. It doesn’t register in his mind like it does in yours. You’re right about that. We see the world differently. That means, that when he gets overwhelmed and completely confused, when he’s in pain, but has no idea why or what to do about it, he's not aware of his behaviour in the same way that you are. You see him as throwing a chair, breaking doors, not caring and not understanding. You got the last part right as well. We don’t understand. Not in the same way that you do. But we do care. We do love. But sometimes, we just cannot or do not know how to tell you or show you, and often, it comes out as precisely the opposite.

I don’t mean that how it might sound. You’re not doing anything wrong, you’re doing a great job, this is difficult for both sides. I was just trying to let you know what it’s like from his side. You could be my parents talking about me when I was a kid. And yes, I did end up in prison. The only thing that did for me was make me feel like I finally ‘fitted in’. In prison, we were all prisoners. Simple. Finally, I was the same as everybody else. I didn’t want to leave. I seriously did not want to leave.

Best wishes with it. Coming on here and talking about it might not always give you all the answers, but it helps. I hope that just writing about it has helped you to some degree.

paulponty over 6 years ago in reply to Welshlass75

Yeh I've read about each day starting afresh. Son does really not like losing his PC even for an hour or two.

In the past hes been "banned" more than hes been on it though and it doesnt seem to help. Hes good for a day or two then hes unbanned - then a day later hes off again.

It really is appalling that it gets like this in this country and its got to get to crisis point before you can get any serious help.

Welshlass75 over 6 years ago in reply to paulponty

Thats great news about CAMHS. The only consequenses I could give T was loosing his internet or gaming time, because thats all he cares about. He always had consequenses to his actions. But each day started with a clean sheet.

In my experience you only get help once your child is under police investigation and then you get the condesending "how have you done this for so long, "you are doing a great job" etc etc

I do hope you get somewhere so you can avoid the road we are on.

paulponty over 6 years ago

Prayers answered. CAMHS called this morning and it looks like they're FINALLY going to so something. Also, hes got psychiatrist appt booked for next week to probably up his meds.

Anyway CAMHS are now going to start CBT for his OCD and also start an aspergers assessment. Apparently that takes some time and involces multiple visits?

Been reading about PDA and also Conduct disorder (which is your son welshlass75?). To be honest, PDA sounds very much like him rather than conduct disorder.

Trouble is there are so many of these things.....

I'm sure we do it all wrong though. Its hard not to hold a grudge when he kicks off but I guess if its a mental thing. As I've said a million times. there is no support for parents at all. You feel helpless.

At what point do you punish a teenager and want point do you say "ok we'll see whats bothering you"? As I've always said, in an ideal world everyone has time to sit down and think etc but in the real world we've got jobs, other children etc. Its tough like yesterday to come home to find wife upset, son had pretty much threatened her and he'd thrown a heavy chair and smashed the wall in. Do we make him pay for the damage or let it go?

paulponty over 6 years ago in reply to Deepthought

Thanks link doesnt work but I'll google it and see if I can find it.

Yes was womndering about punch bag to be honest....

Deepthought over 6 years ago

paulponty said:
I can't go near him at the moment but hes just a danger at the moment at times - We're so on our own because there is no-one to help!

Consider perhaps the information via the following link:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/3507054/Singh_et_al.__2011_._A_mindfulness-based_strategy_for_self-management_of_aggressive_behavior_._._._Research_in_Autism_Spectrum_Disorders.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1515561010&Signature=dGWh7cKWuKmTBlHtYCxE2C8i81I%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DMindful_Parenting_Decreases_Aggression_a.pdf

Another consideration that has worked for a number of male teenagers on the spectrum ~ is a punching bag, in order to serve as an alternative and healthy focus for the aggression.

paulponty over 6 years ago in reply to Welshlass75

GP is useless too - even forgot to send camhs referral off first time. As if it wasnt urgent!

Welshlass75 over 6 years ago in reply to paulponty

No, Midlands but am from SW Wales originally

Welshlass75 over 6 years ago in reply to paulponty

I know it's hard but need to keep on at CAMHS......and need to get the GP on board. He got diagnosed when he was 4 with autism. I moved away then came back in 2009....his violence was escalating & I was going to the Drs every week saying I wasn't coping, look at bruises etc. Finally after 6 months of letter back & for from GP to CAMHS they finally saw him & medicated him there & then. But something has to give before he seriously hurts you. Hope you do get some answers soon.

paulponty over 6 years ago in reply to Welshlass75

Wow. EXACTLY like my son. Seems to have no idea at all. Was the nicest kid you couild have and can be a really nice kid. Same here its sorry sorry sorry then same thing again. When hes off its like its a different person.

Welshlass75 over 6 years ago in reply to paulponty

I do love him to bits & he is an amazing lad when he is stable. He only got a diagnosis of Conduct disorder last year. He has no concept of consequences to actions and he has no concept of putting himself at risk aswell as others. I thought the police being around would be enough but it didn't work, when the police took him they had him in the custody suite but CAMHS wouldn't come out to assess so he ended up spending the night in the cells because he fell asleep. TBH hasn't made a difference he has attacked most of the carers in the home....but it is a case when he is in that rage there is no reasoning etc & afterwards he's like what happened, I'm sorry till the next 1.

paulponty over 6 years ago in reply to Welshlass75

Not in SE Wales are you? :-(

GP, paid counselling, paid psychiatrist, camhs referral. We havent involved social yet because I am a bit wary of them makijng things worse.

paulponty over 6 years ago in reply to Welshlass75

I guess you tried it all with him. With my son he really does not seem to give a monkeys. I know he has mental health issues but he just does not see whats coming at all and seems determined to dig his heels in and act how he wants regardless of the circumstances.

Im really hoping I can get through to him. He needs possibly a bit of a shock to wake him up a bit. Now that would be good - a bootcamp weekend or something.

I love him to bits as I'm sure yo do with your son but its got to end somewhere.