Published on 12, July, 2020
I have a 12 year old son with a diagnosis of Aspergers.
We have recently been struggling with him being extremely rude and dismissive of us and refusing to do simple things that are asked of him.
The only thing he wants to do is sit in his room and play online with other kids from school.
He can become extremely angry if he is challenged about something and has recently been known to hit and throw things around his room and threaten to hit me.
Myself and my husband are struggling to know how to best manage this, we have tried speaking with him when he is calm, we have tried punishing him and removing his games but nothing seems to be working.
It is proving very difficult to know what of this behavior is typical teenage behaviour and what is his Aspergers.
Any advice would be welcomed at this point!
Thank you.
I wish I could help but my son is only 6 and his behavior is so out of control (sometimes, the others times he’s absolutely amazing!) but it’s when we tell him no or if he doesn’t get his own way.... he swears, and just doesn’t care. It’s makes me so sad that myself a very happy person with a gentle temperament can’t help my only child.
Hi NAS70827,Sorry to hear you're having trouble with your son's anger and aggressive behaviour. We do have some advice pages here on the NAS site about relevant subjects - this one has suggestions for anger management: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behaviour/anger-management/parents and the advice on meltdowns might also be relevant - https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behaviour/meltdowns/all-audiences - with info on how to anticipate meltdowns, identify the causes and minimise their intensity when they do occur. If you'd like to speak to someone for advice directly, you can try our regular helpline which can be found here - https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/help-and-support/helpline - or our Parent to Parent line where you can get emotional support from a trained volunteer who is also a parent to a child with ASD - https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/help-and-support/parent-to-parent Hope this will be of some help, Best wishes,Ross - mod