Published on 12, July, 2020
My 5 year old son has suspected Autism but won't start the assessment process until the Autumn. We've been doing as much research as we can and are trying our efforts to prevent/respond better to meltdowns. Now on week 2 of the school, we are on daily meltdowns.
He gets aggressive and really angry during meltdowns and we have tried following the advice of letting him have space for his meltdown and leaving him until he has calmed down or advising him to go to his quiet tent or giving him a squishy toy to play with. But what do you do when you try to leave the room and he runs after you trying to hit you if you are within reach? If one parent say goes upstairs if he has been hitting then, he will then go and find the other parent and start hitting them instead?
We try to hold his hands and explain calmly that we need kind hands or simply "you do not hit" and move away from him. But short of locking ourselves in the bathroom while he tries to break down the door to get at us, I don't know how you are meant to calm down a child who is so determined to hurt you, while keeping him and you safe?
We luckily don't have any other children and he is only 5 but the older he gets, the more he can hurt us and we worry about him being aggressive to other children if he was to have an aggressive meltdowns at school (he usually masks at school so they rarely see this side of him) or if he tries to hurt his Grandparent's who look after him during the holidays.
The rest of the time he is the most loving and affectionate child but we are really struggling with his aggressive meltdowns.
Thanks if anyone can give me any tips!
When I was that age, if I lost my emotional balance I was made to sit on a bed for a time out.
I'd be reseated as soon as I got up and if I resisted, a slap on the leg (I only got the one) was the final punishment but I was MADE to sit quietly for between 5 and 15 minutes.
I was, in short, forced to learn to regulate my emotions at a young age rather than in late adolescence early adulhood as seems to be the norm nowadays.As an adult you KNOW you can force a child to obey you, very often by simply having the more powerful and well developed mind, no violence required.
Forcing your child to learn to regulate their own emotiions at age five, might well save them a fortune in prescription charges as an adult. IN MY OPINION, based on my own single example.
Instead of making my kid sit on the bed alone I went the extra mile and explained exactly why her behaviour was working against her best interests. I was largely dispassionate or humourously dismissive when my chilld exhibited "challenging" behaviour.
If a child initiates violence, they are seeking a response and or trying to control the situation. In my case on the two occasions my child initiated violence against me, I adminstered a very measured "short sharp shock" without anger (although on the occasion she walked up and bit me quite hard to get my attention, she did get a monet of annoyance out of me) and explained the concept of the "wheel of violence" which her having just experienced a full turn of said wheel, picked up very quickly. It's no godo fighting with your kids or "trying to control them", under certain circumstantaces being the Adult means you have to be as implacable as gravity for, ooh, about a whole 15 minutes to stop your kid falling into a pattern of behaviour that will gie them trouble in later life.
I'm only qualified to speak because my kid regularly thanks me & her mum for her childhood character traiing. And I can see that in comparision to the more progressive parents kids she's turned out to have a good head on her shoulders, and she thinks before she acts..
My secret weapon when she was really gettting the better of me by bad behaviour was a mix of dark humour and uncertaintly. I'd force a pause in the action and address her behaviour and explain how I couldn't thik f a punishment now but woudl coem up iwth one later at a time that suited me. "Do you want that?" Most days I could get her to CHOOSE her way out of bad behaviour, and overall I had a real nice ride compared to many parents.
Because I remembered at all times I AM THE ADULT.
Of course it all goes to pot as soon as they get to proper school, but if you can teach him not to "melt down" destructively now whilst his little brain is still programmed to learn and obey. And also teach him to do "chores" and do them well...