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Managing aggression - help!

legomum

My 6 1/2 year old with HFA is having a lot of tantrums when things don't go the way he wants or when he cannot have his own way. To an extent he's always done this but he seems to be going through a particularly bad patch and we haven't been able to work out why. We are trying various things to manage this e.g. working on him recognising his feelings and trying to teach him what to do when he starts to feel angry etc. (see post on other thread).

Because he is so violent while he is having a tantrum, (attacking myself, his Dad and his siblings) we take him to his room until he has calmed down. However for 10 mins or so he throws, rips and breaks things and if anyone goes in to try to stop him he physically attacks them.I don't like to just let him do this because he could injure himself. Also he shares the room with his brother and will often target his things. Our house is quite small so there is nowhere else he could go. I have tried the garden but he throws things at the windows!

I have told his brother I will replace anything he breaks and am thinking of going into the room armed with a large cushion to protect myself (!) while I keep an eye on him until he calms down! After a few minutes it's over and he's back to being his normal lovable self.

Please can someone give me some advice on how to handle this?

Parents

  • Hi there

    I know how you feel. My nearly 10 yo has very frequent, violent meltdowns which include him trying to strangle anyone within his reach when he has them.

    Firstly it's important to try to find out what triggers him, this can be almost anything, from foods to lighting to something somebody's said etc, keep a diary for a couple of weeks. When you know the triggers you can put distraction techniques in place to try to  avoid the full on meltdown. We find a great one for releasing the anger in a safe way is to rip out a couple of pages in an old phone directory or say 20 pages in a catalogue (there is a certain well known high street shop!!). This really works for us. If our son is in full blown meltdown then the only way that works for us is to get him into a safe place, usually his room and let him get the anger out and just leave him to it, I usually have to stand outside the door for my own safety until he's calm. The windows etc are locked as he tries to climb out otherwise.  Afterwards we have a hug and work through what set him off.

    Sorry for the long post and good luck. 

Reply

  • Hi there

    I know how you feel. My nearly 10 yo has very frequent, violent meltdowns which include him trying to strangle anyone within his reach when he has them.

    Firstly it's important to try to find out what triggers him, this can be almost anything, from foods to lighting to something somebody's said etc, keep a diary for a couple of weeks. When you know the triggers you can put distraction techniques in place to try to  avoid the full on meltdown. We find a great one for releasing the anger in a safe way is to rip out a couple of pages in an old phone directory or say 20 pages in a catalogue (there is a certain well known high street shop!!). This really works for us. If our son is in full blown meltdown then the only way that works for us is to get him into a safe place, usually his room and let him get the anger out and just leave him to it, I usually have to stand outside the door for my own safety until he's calm. The windows etc are locked as he tries to climb out otherwise.  Afterwards we have a hug and work through what set him off.

    Sorry for the long post and good luck. 

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