Published on 12, July, 2020
hi
does anyone know how to discipline a asd child? my 4 year old son is very hyperactive and quick to aggression. so as you can imagine he is very easily upset and quick to have a meltdown. i am trying to catch it before he has a meltdown but it can be so quick it can be impossible to stop. i know his triggers but can not always eliminate them for example like his little sister crying. i generally use timeout for any hitting but when he gets worked up i know he finds it hard to not hit. also if i did put him on timeout when having a meltdown it would just esculate the problem. at the moment when he has a meltdown i first do what i can to calm him down and feel better. but when he is then calm what do i do to then get him to realise that he can't hurt people? he is also so heavyhanded when playing and doesn't realise he is hurting other children. i don't know what to do. i don't want him to hurt people and lose friends as he is already saying to me he's noticed he's different to other people, losing friends would make it harder for him.
One of the emotive points here is the word discipline. This word is a trigger for outraged and its worth trying to struggle to understand why this is so.
A child needs to learn not to be violent for its own safety and everyone else's. Discipline often means that punishment is involved and i suspect that it is this meaning of the word that outraged is reacting to. Any form of punishment will difficult for an autistic person to understand and it is liable to result in escalation and worse behaviour.
so, what can you do?
be calm
be logical
be consistent
challenge by asking questions
you need to train and educate and challenge bad behaviour.