Published on 12, July, 2020
Our high functioning 14 year old grandson to whom we are legal guardians is pulling our house down around our ears! We get damage when he is in meltdown and we get damage when he is happy or bored (usually sensory issues) and its becoming harder and harder to keep a decent home around us.
Goodness knows I'm no longer houseproud...that was beaten out of me years ago but we are finding it hard to keep just the neccessities that you would keep around any home. Anything that isn't huge gets hurled at walls and down the stairs, anything huge will often get tipped over (wardrobes etc). Glasses, cups, saucers, plates, doors get kicked and split, lining paper (we don't wallpaper anymore just paint over the lining paper) gets stripped off, the stair carpet got ruined when he threw a pot of paint down the stairs that hit the stairwell and exploded everywhere. We eventually got the insurance to pay out for about half of what we needed to get redecorated and a new stair and landing carpet but within a week of the new one being down our grandson had started to pull tufts out with his teeth (never done that before). Now the stair carpet is balding badly all the way down on the edge of the steps. Yesterday morning he wanted something that was being washed in the washing machine and wouldn't wait....he broke the washing machine trying to get it out...new washing machine bought same day. If another person tells me that they can't see how an autistic child is more expensive to raise than a NT child I will spit in their eye!!! We pile our possessions into rooms that we keep locked to protect them or they wont last five minutes. Its hard to remember to lock the doors behind you in your own home. This week's tally of damages are: one washing machine, a broken printer, numerous paving slabs in the garden (broke into the shed and got a hammer out) items of his own clothing (thread pulling until the item falls apart, and the top to a George Forman grill. Last week there was stuff broken and next week will be no different I shoudn't think. This year so far we have had salt poured into my steam iron, a hose pipe turned on a poked through the boiler vent outside flooding the boiler and kitchen, a hole burned in his roller blind ( he found the one fire lighter we have hidden in a top locker in the kitchen) and a patch of his carpet melted, the plastic coating on my airer melted, the arial on my digital radio snapped off and chewed (would you believe), various things drawn on or snipped when he found some scissors, my lovely polished floorboards in the bathroom pulled to pieces (he found a crack and started work on it), a broken shower, and various broken locks where he has kicked doors in to find things he wants. And.....amazingly we are still sane...well sort of haaaaaa.
Hi Longman,
I found your response to be fascinating and most informative. As our grandson attends an additional needs school, his classmates have varying levels of difficulty and they exhibit some similar behaviours. I think the question here should be not, is he being bulled but rather 'does he have the concept that he is being bullied?' I think he might. He frequently tells us that other boys have been horrible to him...but of course he is quite capable of behaving in exactly the same way himself and has. he isn't being bullied out in public as he can't go out alone yet...he will tend to run off. He also calls us bullies because we insist that he conforms to the house rules for the safety of all of us. We are very caring but if we refuse to allow him to do what he wants he will accuse us of being harsh and cruel. Your final paragraph rings very true to us. He isn't violent at all as school but most days will come home with steam coming out of his ears ready to start banging around and swearing about something that somebody has said or done.