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Advice on dealing with autistic daughter and her sibling

Nova66

Hi all.

We are parents of a recently-diagnosed autistic 11 year old girl. 

We are trying to find the balance betwen disciplining her appropriately for bad behaviour but at the same time making necessary allowances for her autism and lack of ability to control her emotions.

If she starts to get angry about something like being asked to stop watching tv and tidy her room, we do negotiate and agree, for example, that she can watch tv for another 10 minutes as long as she then tidies her room.  This seems to work quite well. 

We do punish her (by sending to her room, not allowing something she wants etc) when she shouts insults at us or her younger brother (8 years old) though.

We always accept her apologies afterwards and reassure her that we understand her and love her.

One thing we are finding particularly hard is knowing how to handle her brother.  His behaviour has got progressively worse since his sister's diagnosis - he has been rude to us, shouting and screaming, insulting us.  He says he sees her "getting away with it" and doesn't understand why she can shout and scream but he can't.

We are not sure how to handle this - to some extent we do hold them to account for their behaviour by different degrees - she is autistic, he is not.  But that's seen by him as unfair, and we understand that.  Just not sure how we should deal with it.

Be stricter on her?  More lenient on him?

Any advice would be really appreciated!

Thank you

Parents

  • I think it's a very difficult and will probably never be a perfect one. There are some good books for kids out there that might help you explain it to your son. I think talking to your son about it and explaining that his sister finds things difficult sometimes etc. But I'd also try to let him have extra bits sometimes but not for shouting. Acknowledging that it's difficult for him when his sister gets such an such so if he does such and such he can have an extra 10 minutes of whatever too.

    As for should you be stricter with your daughter, it's very difficult to answer without knowing her. It very much depends on whether she's pushing the boundaries and then getting cross or struggling with the situation and going into crisis. There can be a very fine line between the 2.

    I don't know what you usually do but 1 suggestion would be to give her the 10 minute warning before you ask her to turn the TV off. Rather than asking her and it turning into a negotiation to prevent dysregulation. You might already do this and still find you need the negotiation which is fair enough.

    Good luck. It's not an easy situation.

  • in reply to Expecto_Patronum

    Thanks so much for replying.

    Yes, trying to explain a bit more to our son sounds like a good plan.  I guess it's important that he understands her difficulties but at the same time knows it's not a licence to be unpleasant towards him.  Good point that it's also difficult for him.

    Regarding the fine line - absolutely - it is hard to tell which it is sometimes.

    10 minute warning - we've learnt that this does indeed work better for her.  She responds better when she knows what to expect, rather than having something sprung on her.  She sometimes manages to negotiate a bit - e.g. watch til the end of the program (if it's say 12 minutes left for example) rather than off in 10 mins.

    Thanks again!

  • in reply to Nova66

    No problem. I think negotiating for the end of a program if it's near to the end is fair enough. That's quite a reasonable wish and would be a source of frustration if not. It is probably just a matter of making sure she doesn't increase how much she tries to negotiate to keep extending her time. That's when it can come problematic and about control rather than need.

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  • in reply to Nova66

    No problem. I think negotiating for the end of a program if it's near to the end is fair enough. That's quite a reasonable wish and would be a source of frustration if not. It is probably just a matter of making sure she doesn't increase how much she tries to negotiate to keep extending her time. That's when it can come problematic and about control rather than need.

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