VenusDoom

This whole situation is just so hard to deal with and understand sometimes. He hasn't got his full DX yet. We know that he definitely has some time of Autistic Spectrum Disorder, I am guessing AS> but he has such huge anxiety issues that we aren't yet sure if that is just part of the AS or whether it is something more. Perhaps once we learn how to better deal with his AS issues then the anxiety will lessen. As I said, we are right at the start of the diagnosis and are real beginners. I mean, we have always known our son and he has always had the AS tendencies, but they didnt seem so huge until the anxiety kicked in. Some days I feel everything is going great and its not so hard after all. Other days I feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall and making everything worse. As you can probably tell, its been a difficult evening! I am trying to get him to go to bed without a nappy on. He's almost 6 years old but so far has not been able to sleep at night without wetting the bed. Because his night time has changed we have had a full evening of anxiety attacks, attempts to vomit, tears, hypervenitaling. All the usual. Im shattered.

Good point. Its just getting used to it and remembering to. When there are 4 kids running around the place, making a lot of noise, carrying on... it can be hard to remember how to word things for L. So easy to just say things the wrong way. Especially when youre just learning about all this and everything seems so new and confusing. I shall make a mental effort to try this for a few days and see if it makes a lot of difference. thanks.

I should also mention that he does have regular tantrums like any other 5 year old, at times. Say if he wants pudding but hasnt finished his dinner. Those tantrums are dealt with as a tantrum. These other 'tantrums' are something else. He was watching TV and was asked to go get dressed. Perhaps it was because the request was unplanned, unexpected. I would usually give him a warning so that hes prepared but his Dad hasnt yet got used to that way of doing things. Its very hard to explain in text, and I feel from your responses that I didnt do a very good job at it the first time.

Wow, so much information to take in. I really just wanted to know if anyone elses child really thought they heard things that hadnt been said. Wasnt quite expecting a total analysis of my parenting skills. Sometimes it is very hard to tell the difference between what is AS related, and what is just bad behaviour. However, our son is generally very well behaved. Exceptionally so. He has some anxiety problems and goes into panic attacks that involve sweating, hyperventilating, stomach pains, and such like. The time out on the stairs technique does not work for our son. WHen he is genuinely just mesbehaving we are able to deal with it well enough and he always apologises. But sometimes he has these huge spats where he gets hysterical about something, and its hard to completely understand where its coming from. When I said it turned into a 20 minute screaming match, I didnt mean that his Dad was screaming back at him. His Dad has more trouble dealing with things than me. They do seem to wind each other up. At the time I Was in the bath so could hear it but was unable to physically intervene. But the screaming was coming from our son who seemed more upset that his Dad had apparently said he hated him than anything else. Anyway, I just wanted to know if anyone else had a child who thought they heard things that didnt happen, or whether he might just (like someone already said) felt that his Dad hated him and verbalised it in his head himself. Sitting still on the stairs amounts to torture for our son. Our OT suggested that he bounce on the trampoline when he feels stressed. She said that he needed the movement to get his mind off of things. Sitting in one spot on the stairs, as Super Nanny suggests does work for our other children, but with L it just makes him more anxious and panicky. Im quite willing to admit that I have no idea what Im doing half the time with L. His diagnosis is only new and we haven't yet received much help. However, I have been a parent to 4 children for 15 years now and am well aware of the difference between my other children and L. I;ve seen many tantrums over the years and have tried every technique going on my other kids. The same things just dont seem to work with L.

Hi, Wondering if anyone else has experienced this. My 5 years old Aspie has some huge meltdowns. Today he wanted his Dad to go upstairs and get his clothes for him. And when his Dad said he could do it himself and was just being lazy, my 5yo just lost it and it ended up with a 20 minute screaming match. It is impossible to reason with him when he is like that. Anyway, he insisted during this meltdown that his dad had been saying things like "I hate you". I was there and know for a fact that his Dad never said that. Its not the first time this has happened. Its like he gets an idea into his head and then thinks it actually happened. No matter what we say he still insists that his Dad said that he hates him. Has anyone else had problems like this?? I just dont know what to do about it.

I'm wondering if giving him a stress ball or some sort of fiddley toy to play with in bed , will give his fingers something to do other than pick at his nails. I looked on ebay for sensory, fiddley toys. They were charging a fortune for squeezy things that you could get in the pound shop for pennies.

It is comforting to see that my son isn't the only one. There are others out there.

Thanks for all the replies. The problem is that he isn't biting them, so that stop n grow polish wont help. He picks them. Toes n all.

Hi there, My 5 yr old is picking his toe and finger nails bare at night time. He is ASD and has a lot of anxiety. I dont seem to be able to stop him from picking so badly. His nails are almost totally bare. Has anyone else had this problem? And did they find a solution to it? THanks