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Increasingly dangerous and violent meltdowns

Bumbledore

Hi,

My wife and I are really struggling with our 7yo son. He is a twin, which makes things trickier in other ways as his twin doesn’t have ASD. 

I wanted to reach out as we’re really struggling in differences of opinion and we’re really stuck and feeling (me more so) a lot of shame, so please consider that when replying. 

our sons default response in many, but not all situations, is to be violent. Sometimes it’s a pinch if he doesn’t get something he wants and distraction or redirection doesn’t work. When he has a meltdown, he can trash the house and break things and can often do things that are dangerous that could hurt him or us. If we attempt to intervene, he becomes very violent towards us. 

we do the repair afterwards pretty well but don’t know if there should be any consequence, albeit small, for when he has hurt someone? The breaking things is different, that’s material and we’re not worried about ‘stuff’. We do our absolute best to not discuss and consequences during or immediately after any meltdowns but it always comes up and that’s because we’ve done it so far so it’s now a feature. Should this continue in a small way as he understands that it’s coming or could we try something different? 

some of it is hard as he’s a twin and trying to get them both to understand that there different ways things are handled. Anyway, I look forward to hearing any suggestions:thoughts  on what I’ve said. 

thanks 

Parents
  • Bumbledore said:
    we do the repair afterwards pretty well but don’t know if there should be any consequence, albeit small, for when he has hurt someone?

    This is a tricky one.

    You run the risk of being attacked by some if you suggest any sort of punishment and I'm not sure he is old enough for this to work effectively, especially if he is autistic.

    My thoughts would be that you need to locate a child behavioral specialist with experience in dealing with autistic children.

    This won't be cheap but when you consider the potential consequences if his violence leads to damage to someone then it makes a lot more sense.

    I doubt any here are qualified to offer advice and getting that from some random off the Internet is not the best plan.

    You can track one down fairly easily via Psychology Todays list:

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/counselling

    Enter your location and then click on the All Filters button when the list appears - I would select Chld, Anger Management and Autism as the three filter options.

    Look at the qualifications and experience of the list of potential candidates and interview them before engaging with them.

    That would be how I would do it anyway. Good luck.

Reply
  • Bumbledore said:
    we do the repair afterwards pretty well but don’t know if there should be any consequence, albeit small, for when he has hurt someone?

    This is a tricky one.

    You run the risk of being attacked by some if you suggest any sort of punishment and I'm not sure he is old enough for this to work effectively, especially if he is autistic.

    My thoughts would be that you need to locate a child behavioral specialist with experience in dealing with autistic children.

    This won't be cheap but when you consider the potential consequences if his violence leads to damage to someone then it makes a lot more sense.

    I doubt any here are qualified to offer advice and getting that from some random off the Internet is not the best plan.

    You can track one down fairly easily via Psychology Todays list:

    https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/counselling

    Enter your location and then click on the All Filters button when the list appears - I would select Chld, Anger Management and Autism as the three filter options.

    Look at the qualifications and experience of the list of potential candidates and interview them before engaging with them.

    That would be how I would do it anyway. Good luck.

Children
  • in reply to Iain

    Hi Iain,

    thanks for replying. We desperately don’t want to punish him, it feels completely wrong and we’re really stuck. It feels wrong in my gut. We always talk about consequence with him not punishing as it’s a less venomous word. Our normal option is if he’s damaged something, we get him to help us fix/tidy it up as we feel that’s important. Obviously we can’t do anything like that when it’s related to violence! 

    we had considered a behavioural specialist, it’s a big step though, you’re right. We just thought we’d see if other parents had had similar issues and had some ideas. I’m thinking about it now and his bedroom is very busy and has lots of stuff that could be reduced so it’s less over stimulating and dangerous, it’s not really a safe space at the moment as he has to share with his brother. Might have to try that. 

    thanks