Hello community
My 6 year old son is very likely autistic, we are going through the assessment process and all the individual learning plans. School is being very supportive.
I'm looking for help from people with more experience - what should we guide our son to do when he gets overwhelmed by frustrations, stimulation or invasion of his space. He has activities at school to help keep him on the level, big movement spaces and jumping about, which work very well, but it all requires setup time.
Just as one example scenario, he may be playing with the other kids in the playground, when one or more of them change the rules and try and take the thing he is playing with to do something else with it. What should we help him learn to do with the massive bubbling frustration this causes inside him?
He's done biting, screaming very loudly, hitting and pushing, all of which have over the last few years been curtailed and he's learned that they aren't appropriate for school. We worry that if he doesn't have any outlet that is at least not harmful to others that he can do quickly, he will internalise the overwhelm and it will over time, lead to self harm and depression. Having survived that myself, I really don't want it to happen to my son.
So - what do we tell him to do and help him practice at home?
