Aggressive Behaviour

[smiley]

Hi all,

 

I'm having some difficulty here and would appreciate some advice about what to do.

 

M has recently begun to get aggressive towards people (me included). It began at home, where he became very angry and frustrated and lashed out at me - even getting to the point where he found something sharp and threatened to cut me. I'm sure we all believe our children are not capable of this - but M, up until this time, has the most caring, sensitive and gentle nature.

He can be prone to aggression - but it has, up until now, been in the form of self-preservation on his part, and is as a reaction to a stressful situation, rather than a deliberate (wrong word??) act.

 

It was his birthday at the weekend and both myself and another mum 'caught' M and another child kicking a friend in the tummy at his party. I was horrified - needless to say, he had the riot act from me there and then, was made to sit out for five minutes, apologize to his friend and use some of his birthday money to buy his friend something - as well as writing a letter saying sorry.

 

I'm having trouble finding the right route to discipline him. I don't believe M is behaving in this way because he's autistic, rather than, I believe M has reached the stage many kids (especially boys) do at his age (8 and just started Juniors). (He is very easily led and after talking to him - i can see that the initial 'idea' was from another child.) But, because he is autistic, his reactions and understanding of the situations are more difficult, - am i making sense??

 

There is no doubt in my mind that there will be triggers i.e; stress at school, build up to birthday, stressed out mummy, etc... , and i have kept that in mind. But, i'm fairly hard-nosed when it comes to violence and impoliteness and do tend to try to stamp on it. Not sure if that's the right thing to do......??

 

How have you approached disciplining your AS child if / when aggression (not self-preservation) happens??

 

Ta xx

[AnnieH]

Hi there. I know what you mean. My DD is 8 and yesterday she punched her little sister (6) in the face and cut her lip, made her bottom tooth wobbly (if it wasn't already)

 

I was at a loss really as to what to do, because nothing seems to work.

[cmuir]

Hi

 

This may not be helpful, but I'm afraid I disagree with the bit ... "I don't believe M is behaving in this way because he's autistic". I agreed with the bit ... "easily led".

 

I've seen my 5 year old son (has AS) behave horrendously towards others and apparently taking great delight in hurting someone else or an animal/beastie without an audience of other children and without provocation. In my son's case, I strongly believe that on occasions he acts the way he does because of a lack of awareness (ie socially in particular). I definitely think that my son can behave badly just like any NT child, however, there are lots of aspects about his behaviour that are odd/different. Other children sadly sometimes pick up on my son's lack of awareness and because he's easily led and wants to fit in and influence him to do something which ultimately lands him in trouble. My son also has to be constantly reminded about rules, behaviour, etc as he has an amazingly long memory, but poor short term memory. In addition, my son can lose control very easily - meltdowns can last for eg 1 hour, yet once out of it, acts like nothing has happened. I strongly believe that's because he's forgotten or has some kind of block about what has just occurred.

 

Everyone is different, but I guess I'm saying that we all need to be really cautious about attributing behaviours to an ASD (could be too easy to do that), but we ultimately need to be mindful that having an ASD is a massive thing which can influence lots of things.

 

It's so difficult knowing how to handle things appropriately. It's best to remain calm without shouting but to change your tone of voice/firm. I attended a course which I learned that with some people with an ASD it's best to allow 6 seconds for them to process what's said to them and using simple and clear instructions ie instead of saying "Come on Robert move it, we're going to be late, put your socks, shoes and jacket on and then lets get to school" and then barking the same again a minute later. Much better to say "Robert, socks, shoes, jacket on, then school".

 

In the past I had massive problems taking my son to a playpark or softplay area. He always ended up lashing out at other children for no obvious reason. It was a real nightmare. I ended up drawing him a type of social story and reminded him that if he hit, kicked or shouted then we'd get back in the car and come home. Subsequently, there were several occasions when I had to show him that I meant business and I had to do just that with him. He now repeats that to me when we're going anywhere and things are much improved.

 

How about a kind of reward chart where your son could earn tokens? Charts can be tricky if a child has something taken away. I found it worked much better by eg telling me son that for good behaviour he could earn 3 tokens a day (morning/noon/night). At the end of the week if he'd have to have earnt X amount to get a reward (ie stickers or toy). If he didn't achieve amount then it would simply take a bit longer, rather than taking something away (usually cause a meltdown!).

 

I definitely think you had the right idea about teaching your son that there was a consequence to his inappropriate actions ie apology, letter and gift.

 

Best wishes.

 

C.

[Frangipani]

I agree with CMuir 'Quote" Easily Led - and in my sons case setup to do things as they the NT kids knew they could say to my son to do something ahhh gosh, and yes without thinking he would do it, because they would have a good old laugh about at his expense but he thought he was being cool and funny. Couldnt see they were laughing behind his back.

 

Edited January 24, 2007 by Frangipani

[Suze]

<'> hi smiley, gosh he sounds like my boy at that age.I found the only way to help/combat this behaviour was to watch him like a hawk , especially around other kids.My son was and is easily lead , and very socially unaware, this means he could hit other kids and his immaturity means others would pick on him.The last time he played out , some thugs lobbed stones at him.My sons 11 now and I,m afraid he does,nt do parties , or play out at all.........he does,nt want to.For instance a bouncy castle, or wacky warehouse scenario would be asking for trouble and would end in misery all round.He has one friend who comes round and they play trains together, but since sept no friends have been near, its sad really .

[loulou]

Hi Smiley,

 

I think you totally did the right thing about the party incident <'> .

 

My son is 8 and he can hit/kick/bite me (and others) when stressed/anxious. I don't feel this is a deliberate act to hurt me, more of a "self preservation" as you describe. When he hurts me in this way, i don't "punish" him, but i always firmly say, "No kicking!" or "No biting!" etc. After his meldowns, he gets upset that he has hurt me and I just try to reinforce that he musn't do it (trying not to make him feel any worse than he already does ).

 

He does however hit in an aggressive way when he doesn't get what he wants, or if he has decided that he's not going to do what i ask. This is where i find it really difficult to discipline him, because it usually ends up making things worse and he is very very strong.

 

His psychologist has recommended trying to reward "good" behaviour, rather than trying to punish the bad (sanctions don't seem to work). Like Caroline suggested, the psycholgist has recommended i try some kind of reward system, ie for not hittting. I'm definately going to give it a try.

 

Keep up the good work <'> (it's so tiring though isn't it?) ,

 

Loulou xx

[MichelleW]

I had a similar incident with J when he was in year 1 (aged about 5 and a half) . A couple of boys had told J to kick another boy. Luckily the school were very good about it. They explained to J why he shouldn't kick other children. And they called in the parents of the other two boys, and basically told them (and I suppose the two boys also) that their behaviour was considered a form of bullying of a child with special needs in addition to that of the child who was kicked. I think the playground teachers keep a good eye on J to make sure he is OK, and as far as I know, it hasn't happened again.

 

I also agree that rewarding good behaviour can work, but I think it depends on whether the child can understand consequences. Up until now, J could never understand the idea of star charts, but I've just started one to encorouge him to go to school! It seems to be working, though it could be exphensive as I've promised him a playstation game if he gets 10 stars - two weeks of getting up, getting dressed and going to school well.