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is this it for the rest of our lives?????

mummy of 3

Hi all our son was diagnoised last year at the age of 6 with ASD after fighting for nearly 4 years for help. He went through a stage of being aggressive towards me physically around 4 years old after 6 or so months it gradually stopped unfortunatley now the aggression has come back ten fold and hes now 8 and nearly as tall as me. I cant control him when hes aggressive towards me as i just dont have the strength. His temper is out of control he gets angry over everything and then he starts thrwoing things at me or running at me to hurt me. We have a 4 yr daughter and 11 month old baby son and he is so aggressive towards his sister ive had to explain to the school the marks on her body because of him. We have no support from anywhere.No family who is willing to get involved they all just think hes a naughty child and we have no professionals who want to help we have called so many people but we just get told " your doing fine just carry on" or "the goverment cutbacks mean we cant help you". Im at my witts end im crying all day everyday im scared of my own son and im scared for our daughters safety around him. My husband works 50 hours a week and he tries his best to help but hes finding it hard watching me struggle and being upset all the time. Ive had to give up work to be at home for our son but im missing work as it was my 5 mins of being me just me nobody else yeah i know that sounds selfish but its how i feel. Is this really how its going to be for the rest of our lives?? Ive always tried to see the positive side of the diagnosis but now all i see is the negative and no light at the end of the tunnel sorry to go on i have no where else to turn xx

Parents

  • Hi there.

    In answer to your question - is this for the rest of our lives, then I would say no. Hang in there and things will slowly improve. When my son was about 4 (before he was diagnosed) I was really scared of him and his tantrums. He'd kick out and fight us and yell and I was on edge the whole time, dreading the next one.

    Then I decided that it was rediculous. I'm an adult and I can deal with his behaviour. So I started to make myself have a "ho hum, here we go again" kind of attitude to it instead, and believe me, it worked. I stopped being scared of him and just used to pick him up and dump him on the stairs to get over it.

    Now, I'm not belittling what you're experiencing - it gets harder to do that as they get older. My son is now 11 and is nearly as tall as me and beefy. But, he rarely has tantrums and I can only think of 1 time in the last few months when I've had to man-handle him - which took all my strength.

    As they mature, in my experience they do get better at articulating their feelings - if they have the right support. You're obviously a great start as you care so much. And fight like hell for additional support. Don't give up on that. You all deserve it.

    As others have said, don't be afraid of showing your emotions clearly. You need to be so clear with your son so he isn't confused by what he's seeing. Yes, it might shock him to be shouted at, but he will get over that and should understand that you're angry at what he did. We also implemented sanctions for that kind of behaviour - taking away his favourite things like computer and tv time.

    A good technique we were taught by our support worker was counting to 10 to get him to a time out place if he was tantrumming. We explained it to him when he was calm, so that he understood that we would start at 5 minutes time out and each time he refused to go, we would add a minute until we got to 10. If we got to 10 minutes, then he would also lose a treat like some of his tv time. The key was to give him time between each increase to process the information and decide that now was the time to go to time out. That, by the way, has also worked with our other kids!

    Anyway, I hope some of this is useful - and please don't despair. Things will improve. Take control and be strong.

    Best wishes!

Reply

  • Hi there.

    In answer to your question - is this for the rest of our lives, then I would say no. Hang in there and things will slowly improve. When my son was about 4 (before he was diagnosed) I was really scared of him and his tantrums. He'd kick out and fight us and yell and I was on edge the whole time, dreading the next one.

    Then I decided that it was rediculous. I'm an adult and I can deal with his behaviour. So I started to make myself have a "ho hum, here we go again" kind of attitude to it instead, and believe me, it worked. I stopped being scared of him and just used to pick him up and dump him on the stairs to get over it.

    Now, I'm not belittling what you're experiencing - it gets harder to do that as they get older. My son is now 11 and is nearly as tall as me and beefy. But, he rarely has tantrums and I can only think of 1 time in the last few months when I've had to man-handle him - which took all my strength.

    As they mature, in my experience they do get better at articulating their feelings - if they have the right support. You're obviously a great start as you care so much. And fight like hell for additional support. Don't give up on that. You all deserve it.

    As others have said, don't be afraid of showing your emotions clearly. You need to be so clear with your son so he isn't confused by what he's seeing. Yes, it might shock him to be shouted at, but he will get over that and should understand that you're angry at what he did. We also implemented sanctions for that kind of behaviour - taking away his favourite things like computer and tv time.

    A good technique we were taught by our support worker was counting to 10 to get him to a time out place if he was tantrumming. We explained it to him when he was calm, so that he understood that we would start at 5 minutes time out and each time he refused to go, we would add a minute until we got to 10. If we got to 10 minutes, then he would also lose a treat like some of his tv time. The key was to give him time between each increase to process the information and decide that now was the time to go to time out. That, by the way, has also worked with our other kids!

    Anyway, I hope some of this is useful - and please don't despair. Things will improve. Take control and be strong.

    Best wishes!

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