anger

[taggingalong]

hi everybody. im sitting here near in tears. i came back home tonight after being in town any my 8 year old had been running around the house with a sharp knife. thankfully he just stuck it into my leather chair and not anyone else. lately he has become very aggressive and i just dont know how do deal with it. could anyone help me here. he has not been officially diagnosed with aspergers. any help i would be grateful for thanks everyone.

[Cat]

As a short term measure I would make sure that he is unable to get hold of any sharp knives (infact any knives) or sharpe instruments at all. It's better to be safe than sorry and when a child with an ASD snaps they act first and think later. We had things like knives under lock and key in our house for over two years.

 

Is your son being observed for AS and how far through the process is he? I would be tempted to contact whoever is seeing you at the moment and tell them that things are not good and this is now an urgent issue. Sadly you have to pres and press otherwise the 'profesionals' assume that you can continue to wait. You need some help now.

 

Cat

[spectrummum]

Many children will bite, scratch, kick, hit, and throw things unexpectedly at people, among other things. There are generally three things to check out right away with your daughter. They are:

 

 

How you (and the people around your child) react to the biting. When bit, most people react both outwardly (by yelling, making pained expressions on their face, pulling away quickly, among other things) and inwardly (getting mad, frustrated, annoyed, upset, or another kind of discomfort).

 

Many children will do behaviors specifically because of the reaction they get from the people around them. It can be very entertaining and interesting for some children to watch their parents gesticulate and have tremendous facial expression. You become like a cartoon, and most kids really like cartoons, specifically because of their exaggerated quality. whatever you react to in a child grows. Meaning, if your child bites you and you make a big deal out of it, she is more likely to continue biting you, because it's fun to watch you make a big deal out of anything. Once you've been bitten, protect yourself from it happening again, in a calm and easy way. Do not try and discipline them right now? you are most likely just encouraging the behavior by yelling or speaking with an irritated voice, etc.

Also, your internal reaction is vital as well. It's not that you are supposed to fake feeling calm, but that you actually do feel calm. This is important because we see repeatedly that children can sense how the people around them feel emotionally. If you feel bad (or sad, angry, frustrated, etc.), this counts as a reaction too! And you very well may be encouraging the behavior by having a discomfort. For ideas on how to feel comfortable when this is happening,

 

 

 

 

 

Another thing you can try: if she starts to bite, or you see warning signs that it's coming soon, offer her different physical stimulations. For example, squeeze her hands and feet, if she allows it, and even massage her jaw. Some children get bursts of energy, which can be released by your squeezes. You can also offer other kinds of physical activity, like doing a chase game.

[taggingalong]

As a short term measure I would make sure that he is unable to get hold of any sharp knives (infact any knives) or sharpe instruments at all. It's better to be safe than sorry and when a child with an ASD snaps they act first and think later. We had things like knives under lock and key in our house for over two years.

 

Is your son being observed for AS and how far through the process is he? I would be tempted to contact whoever is seeing you at the moment and tell them that things are not good and this is now an urgent issue. Sadly you have to pres and press otherwise the 'profesionals' assume that you can continue to wait. You need some help now.

 

Cat

thanks for your reply. i am waiting to have him statemented in school as well/ they are near sure it is asperger he has. does it sound like that to you. i just dont know any more. i have an appointment for the doctor next week with everything that he has done in the past wrote down. he was biting himself a few weeks ago too because again he said he was angry. i just dont know what he is going to do next. most things that i have read about aspergers seem to point to him. he is to be assessed soon as well.

[llisa32]

Hiya, is this the first time he's been running about with knifes?...just wondering if something is bothering him that he hasn't wanted to talk about and it was a way of either getting some frustration out or attention?

 

Can understand you being upset <'> , it's not nice to see our kiddies acting so violent...it's almost like a secret inner rage with mine sometimes - like a mini jeckell and hyde (scuse spelling).

 

Was he punished for having the knife?, mines thrown a pair of scissors down to the floor in a temper before, just missing my toes, and he got tv time and xbox taken away. Caused a huge tantrum, but had to force mysef to put up with the tantrum as was worried he might think he could get away with doing it again, and although I have big feet I like all my toes

 

Try not to let it get you down...if you are in the process of getting a diagnosis it prob is a good idea to either ring yr gp ot cahms and let them know an appt sooner rather than later is needed.

 

We're all here to listen....so feel free to ask if you need some help/or need cheering up <'>

 

Take care

[taggingalong]

hi there no its not the first time. he tried to attack his 18 year old brother with one a week or so ago as well. my fault shoul have had them put away by this stage. he took this anger fit tonight because he couldnt find his gameboy. when i came home he was crying. i tried to be calm with him. told him how dangerous it was. i thought it best not to make the situation worse by starting a huge row in the house. the babysitter was terrified. sorry for rammbling on.

Hiya, is this the first time he's been running about with knifes?...just wondering if something is bothering him that he hasn't wanted to talk about and it was a way of either getting some frustration out or attention?

 

Can understand you being upset <'> , it's not nice to see our kiddies acting so violent...it's almost like a secret inner rage with mine sometimes - like a mini jeckell and hyde (scuse spelling).

 

Was he punished for having the knife?, mines thrown a pair of scissors down to the floor in a temper before, just missing my toes, and he got tv time and xbox taken away. Caused a huge tantrum, but had to force mysef to put up with the tantrum as was worried he might think he could get away with doing it again, and although I have big feet I like all my toes

 

Try not to let it get you down...if you are in the process of getting a diagnosis it prob is a good idea to either ring yr gp ot cahms and let them know an appt sooner rather than later is needed.

 

We're all here to listen....so feel free to ask if you need some help/or need cheering up <'>

 

Take care

[cattubb]

Morning,

 

i was at the end of my tether yesterday with Charlie, i am at the same stage as you: although the 'professionals' are sure its Aspergers, Charlie still has a few more assessments to go through. Anyway, Charlie has very violent outbursts and I have got to the stage of not knowing what to do as he just does not react to any sort of 'punishment'. I've tried talking calmly, shouting, conviscating toys etc etc - nothing works. It feels like you're banging your head against a brick wall because theres just no reaction and Charlie just doesn't acknowledge that hes done anything wrong.

 

Anyway, yesterday i decided to phone the NAS helpline (details on their website www.nas.org) they were brilliant: very helpful and it was very calming to speak to someone out of the situation as i am also on the point of tearing my hair out. The lady i spoke to gave me loads of good tips and is going to send info in the post. The thing i am going to do immediately is that she suggested we get a little trampoline so that when Charlie gets in a rage i firstly tell him he's feeling angry so he can eventually begin to recognise the emotion when he feels it and then put him on the trampoline so he can 'bounce' off all the negative energy.

 

At this stage i say anythings worth a try, and at the end of the day if Charlie doesn't like the trampoline i'll have fun bouncing on it (maybe i could use it to bounce off stress/tone up thighs ha ha ha ha)

 

Good luck and its def worth giving NAS a ring

 

cattubb

 

xxxxx

[wilson]

Hello Tagginalong,

 

 

I am certainly not suggesting that this is the case with your son, but both our sons have problems with violent outbursts largely as a result of learned behaviour. Their father regularly lashes out at walls and throws/breaks things when he is angry or frustrated (not to mention the language!).

 

 

I think the advice already given is excellent. Make sure your son understands that the behaviour is not acceptable ( you can see why this is a bit problematic in our house), encourage your son to talk about anything that may be bothering him. Lock away those knives. Finally, remain loving and supportive.

[Cariad]

We have a crisis team working with the DS atm, she comes down weekly and is assessing the behaviour. We are keeping a diary and camcording the DS's attacks and outbursts. We also can't tell him off or put him on the stairs etc or he knocks the spindles out and rips the wallpaper and runs into the rooms to attack us, nothing works. I'm sick of being bitten,kicked, scrammed and punched!

 

I'll let you know if there is a breakthrough with us and pass on some info when something works.

[spectrummum]

hi hun

 

 

Before you can tackle these types of behaviour you need a thorough understanding of what he is doing. You firstly need to observe the behaviour, record all the information and also the situations in which it happens. You can do this by using an ABC diary

 

Antecedents ? This is a description of what happens before the behaviour incident. Where it happens, who?s there, and so on. In other words this is the setting in which the behaviour occurs.

 

Behaviour ? This is a clear description of what you see and hear your child do.

 

Consequences ? This is a description of what happens just after the behaviour incident, including your reaction.

 

Describing the Antecedents

You need to record the time, day and date.

 

Anyone else who is present, when the incident occurred.

 

The location the exact place where it happened

 

What happened just before the behaviour, what was the child doing?

 

Describing the Behaviour

Give as accurate account as you can, every behaviour that happened for instance he may have scratched someone, and himself kicked a table etc all at the same time so you need to be as accurate as possible.

 

Describing the Consequences

How did you react or the people around you. Did anyone intervene?

 

How long did it take for you or anyone there to react? For example did you send him to his room as soon as the tantrum started or did you wait for a length of time?

 

How did the child behave after your or anyone else?s reaction was it worse or not?

 

How did things turn out in the end, did he scream even louder, did you give in, or did you do something else to solve the problem.

 

Starting the Diary

Use only one behaviour at a time. Decide which behaviour you want to decrease.

 

Do the diary for about a week.

 

Try to fill it in as soon after the behaviour as occurred so everything can be noted.

 

 

 

 

 

Coping with problem behaviour

After completing the diary you should see a pattern developing. You may also realise what triggers the behaviour. Below are some things you can do to cope with these behaviours.

 

Organize something to distract the child with something he likes doing.

 

Avoid the word NO as this may add fuel to the fire.

 

Encourage the child to relax, to calm down. A quiet comfortable room, relaxing music. You could even try and get them to use their ritualistic behaviour as a means of relaxation or diversion.

 

 

 

 

It is important to return the child to the original situation as soon as they are calm as to prevent them from learning that disruptive behaviour can be used to avoid something they don?t like.

 

 

 

Physical activity is another way of helping them to blow off steam.

 

When the child is not able to control their own behaviour, you may have to try and stop it verbally. The child needs to know that you mean, what you say. You could use a simple command like ?Sit down? and quickly follow this with a ?Do? command.

 

Sometimes you may need to leave well alone and let them ?weather the storm? . If possible remove yourself from the room but make sure that the child is completely safe eg. No objects to damage himself etc. you need to calm yourself before you can go back and deal with the behaviour. As a last resort you may have to restrain the child but only do this if you know how to do it.

 

 

 

The idea is, is to replace the challenging behaviour with a more desirable behaviour. Reward and reinforcement are a very good method.

 

Always reward desirable behaviour no matter how small, you will know your own child what rewards him.. You could use a star chart or if the child does not understand this you could use other rewards like letting him have a certain toy, giving him a sweet. If he likes praise give him lots, clapping and telling him how clever he is.

 

This should reinforce the behaviour, eventually as he will become to realise that he will be rewarded for this behaviour and hopefully will want to do it more.

 

Try and ignore undesirable behaviour if at all possible, and when he shows desirable behaviour hopefully he will come to realize that he gets rewards for certain behaviours.

 

If you can, try not to react to undesirable behaviour as this has gained a reaction. Autistic people do not understand emotions so they will enjoy just getting a reaction from you especially if you are shouting , this may seem like a reward to the child and they may display the undesirable more just for the reaction. The best way is to stay calm and try not to change your own behaviour. Because of the situation I know how difficult this can be but you need to be in control. Then you are in a better position to deal with it. The child will react to what you are doing because he can?t understand your behaviour..

 

 

Time out

Using time out should only be used if the child understands why you are using it.

 

Because ?

 

1. It may be rewarding to an autistic child and so the problem behaviour is more likely to re occur

 

2. He may find it difficult to understand why he is receiving time out and so will not make the link between the behaviour and the consequences. So this will make time out less effective.

 

Using time out

Choose the room or place you are going to use. The idea is to keep him away from other people or away from whatever he was doing that sparked the behaviour.

 

Use it immediately after the behaviour occurrence.

 

You should start time out by using only a few minutes at a time, and then removing the child from the room. If the behaviour is still happening keep taking him back so he understands why he is in the room on his own

 

You must use it consistently.

 

Always reward for the first appropriate behaviour they do after time out.

 

Do not hold it against the child after you have completed the time out and he has calmed down because he will not understand your reaction. You need to get back to normal as soon as possible.

 

 

 

So as you can see you need to reward and reinforce desirable behaviour as much as possible, so as you can decrease undesirable behaviour. All the methods as described are only ideas, they may not work for your child but you may be able to use one or two of them.

[taggingalong]

[quote name='spectrummum' date='Aug 19 2007, 01:19 AM' post='166874'Before you can tackle these types of behaviour you need a thorough understanding of what he is doing. You firstly need to observe the behaviour, record all the information and also the situations in which it happens. You can do this by using an ABC diary

 

Antecedents ? This is a description of what happens before the behaviour incident. Where it happens, who?s there, and so on. In other words this is the setting in which the behaviour occurs.

 

Behaviour ? This is a clear description of what you see and hear your child do.

 

Consequences ? This is a description of what happens just after the behaviour incident, including your reaction.

 

Describing the Antecedents

You need to record the time, day and date.

 

Anyone else who is present, when the incident occurred.

 

The location the exact place where it happened

 

What happened just before the behaviour, what was the child doing?

 

Describing the Behaviour

Give as accurate account as you can, every behaviour that happened for instance he may have scratched someone, and himself kicked a table etc all at the same time so you need to be as accurate as possible.

 

Describing the Consequences

How did you react or the people around you. Did anyone intervene?

 

How long did it take for you or anyone there to react? For example did you send him to his room as soon as the tantrum started or did you wait for a length of time?

 

How did the child behave after your or anyone else?s reaction was it worse or not?

 

How did things turn out in the end, did he scream even louder, did you give in, or did you do something else to solve the problem.

 

Starting the Diary

Use only one behaviour at a time. Decide which behaviour you want to decrease.

 

Do the diary for about a week.

 

Try to fill it in as soon after the behaviour as occurred so everything can be noted.

 

 

 

 

 

Coping with problem behaviour

After completing the diary you should see a pattern developing. You may also realise what triggers the behaviour. Below are some things you can do to cope with these behaviours.

 

Organize something to distract the child with something he likes doing.

 

Avoid the word NO as this may add fuel to the fire.

 

Encourage the child to relax, to calm down. A quiet comfortable room, relaxing music. You could even try and get them to use their ritualistic behaviour as a means of relaxation or diversion.

 

 

It is important to return the child to the original situation as soon as they are calm as to prevent them from learning that disruptive behaviour can be used to avoid something they don?t like.

 

 

 

Physical activity is another way of helping them to blow off steam.

 

When the child is not able to control their own behaviour, you may have to try and stop it verbally. The child needs to know that you mean, what you say. You could use a simple command like ?Sit down? and quickly follow this with a ?Do? command.

 

Sometimes you may need to leave well alone and let them ?weather the storm? . If possible remove yourself from the room but make sure that the child is completely safe eg. No objects to damage himself etc. you need to calm yourself before you can go back and deal with the behaviour. As a last resort you may have to restrain the child but only do this if you know how to do it.

 

The idea is, is to replace the challenging behaviour with a more desirable behaviour. Reward and reinforcement are a very good method.

 

Always reward desirable behaviour no matter how small, you will know your own child what rewards him.. You could use a star chart or if the child does not understand this you could use other rewards like letting him have a certain toy, giving him a sweet. If he likes praise give him lots, clapping and telling him how clever he is.

 

This should reinforce the behaviour, eventually as he will become to realise that he will be rewarded for this behaviour and hopefully will want to do it more.

 

Try and ignore undesirable behaviour if at all possible, and when he shows desirable behaviour hopefully he will come to realize that he gets rewards for certain behaviours.

 

If you can, try not to react to undesirable behaviour as this has gained a reaction. Autistic people do not understand emotions so they will enjoy just getting a reaction from you especially if you are shouting , this may seem like a reward to the child and they may display the undesirable more just for the reaction. The best way is to stay calm and try not to change your own behaviour. Because of the situation I know how difficult this can be but you need to be in control. Then you are in a better position to deal with it. The child will react to what you are doing because he can?t understand your behaviour..

Time out

Using time out should only be used if the child understands why you are using it.

 

Because ?

 

1. It may be rewarding to an autistic child and so the problem behaviour is more likely to re occur

 

2. He may find it difficult to understand why he is receiving time out and so will not make the link between the behaviour and the consequences. So this will make time out less effective.

 

Using time out

Choose the room or place you are going to use. The idea is to keep him away from other people or away from whatever he was doing that sparked the behaviour.

 

Use it immediately after the behaviour occurrence.

 

You should start time out by using only a few minutes at a time, and then removing the child from the room. If the behaviour is still happening keep taking him back so he understands why he is in the room on his own

 

You must use it consistently.

 

Always reward for the first appropriate behaviour they do after time out.

 

Do not hold it against the child after you have completed the time out and he has calmed down because he will not understand your reaction. You need to get back to normal as soon as possible.

 

So as you can see you need to reward and reinforce desirable behaviour as much as possible, so as you can decrease undesirable behaviour. All the methods as described are only ideas, they may not work for your child but you may be able to use one or two of them.

[taggingalong]

]thanks for taking the time to write all this out for me. some great advice there and i plan to put it into action. i was just told last night that he was also threating to stick the sharp knife into himself. he also called the babysitter a big fat ugly b...../ when i ask him why would he want to do that he said he is very angry and cant control his emotions. it makes me really sad that i cant do anything. I was back home an hour or so after the incident so it wasnt easy to act on. he was hiding in the cupboard when i got back. i am going to follow up on some of your points and see how it goes.

thanks again for all your useful information.

[spectrummum]

hi honey

it is copyed from my group so no problem at all

you need to show him what emotions are and an expalnation of what we do

or i can make you a social story

when i am angry

hugs hun shell

[spectrummum]

about the baby sitter

listen to your son when he is playing he will in some way let you know exactly what happened before the row

if she has gotton him to the point of no return then he is not to blame

perhaps she did not understand what he needed or was a little cruel

something certainly happened here

keep an eye on his behaviors and him talking to himself

you could also make a game

i like mum because

i like gran because

and mention the baby sitter see what his reaction is.

love shell

[taggingalong]

thanks that would be great.. sometimes i feel like such a pain everybody has their own problems to deal with and mine are probably minor compared to others. i have another 3 children younger than him he is eight so its sometimes hard to give him the extra attention that he needs. thanks for listening again.

[spectrummum]

the pictures would not show when i copy and paste them grrrrrrr

this is the link for my group i will open it while you nip in and copy

[spectrummum]

its open now hun

[taggingalong]

hi got it there. i will get some time to get a good look at it later. have to get something done here. house is a mess lol. thanks again for all your help. dont know what i would do without these forums lol. im a bit of an addict now. speak soon and thanks again.

[spectrummum]

thanks hun im closing the group back up now hugs shell