Help, agressive teen!!

[Feather]

need some advice please. Son is nearly 18 ASD, and he has tried 2 college courses up to now, that have not worked out. He can't cope, and can't cope with the other students. He was diagnosed late, at 15, and we have not had much help and support as a family. He is becoming more violent and agressive towards us all as a family. I get most of it, as I am at home all day with him. He is 6ft, and much taller than me. I never used to be scared of him, but I am now. He hasn't actually touched us, he has spat on the carpet and throws things around, and punches the doors. I feel pathetic having to ask for advice, but what am I supposed to do with him? I have contacted social services several times, but they are not interested until he is 18, which he is in a few months. We are so desperate, that we have even talked about him having to go and live in residential care somewhere when he is 18, so we can have some respite. He doesn't sleep much, and goes off out of the house late at night, and leaves it unlocked all night, even though he is back and in bed. We have hidden the keys, and he climbed out of a window instead and broke it. Please if anyone has been through this, how did you cope, and does it get better?

[LancsLad]

Feather first point I have come to this late at night and what I say might not make too much sense as I have had a few social alcoholic drinks with my partner but will come back again tomorow just felt I wanted to get a reply started as its been 5 hours since the initial post and it is emotionaly very open and raw.

 

Firstly I think your comments about college are a bit of a secondary issue here and possibly a soft lead in. What draws my attention is comments such as "I never used to be scared of him, but I am now." I come to this post from two perspectives, firstly as someone with a diagnosis of ASD and as such I might be able to relate to what your son is going through, and secondly as a foster carer previouslyt working with young adults transitioning into adult life at this age.

 

If I put my carers hat on first the response from social services is within context, you describe him as nearly 18, social services see him as an adult, and would have done for some time now. A question here is does he see himself in this adult position or is he in a false reality? When he is 18 he will be on their radar in respct to housing lists etc... A potential conflict here is how do you view ASD, is it a dehabilitating condition which renders an individual useless, or is it a side condition which is an inconvenience. Feather this is a loaded question and in a way I do appologise for it on my part, nethertheless I tend as someone with a diagnosis for AS to side with the later position which might be a surprise to you. I say this because he is 18 and not useless, he should have a level of maturinty and as such take more responsibility for his own actions. In fact I think he is by leaving doors unlocked for example.

 

As a foster carer I have seen a lot of behaviour, and to me the examples you give are not very severe but to be honest that is irrelevant as I am not in your context, and what are concepts of normal for me is not such for you. What I do recognise is the sense that they are escallating in your mind, which might be a truth. I can also see a lot of AS typical behaviour, AS is anything but typical, but with experience I can and others can see patterns which might be described as typical. The elements which fall under this umbrella would be escapism, insomnia, contol, manipulation etc... I appreciate you are two and a bit years into his diagnosis but it took me 44 years to get a diagnosis so I would not call it late, rather I would say we are both coming to terms with it and I might be further ahead in this respect?

 

I think you need to take a step backwards and try to understand your sons behaviour as a cry for guidance, not help but guidance as I suspect he understands his own maturity levels. I have been a carer to children who hadn't the slightest inclination of returning home when they ran away, and this was as young as 8. They had made the choice to abscond and they were prepared to stick to it and it took the combined effort of me and my partner, social services and in one instance the whole of the available Lancashire constabluary in our area amounting to 30 or 40 officers to search for the individual concerned as they were at high risk due to their complex psychological profile. A side of me based on my own background would be directed at him if you are serious make a reasonable effort and really run away, but he will not!

 

From an ASD perspective I think your son is simply exploring his own space and redefining boundaries. I do not think this is a dangerous proposition rather it is part of a healthy process which is a rights of passage between parents and their offspring, I would question are you giving him free space and with it guidance to do this or is he having to extract it in artifical terms which make no sense to you? Comments such as "go to live in residential care" are just as emotive as him spending a few hours away from his home as an 18 year old if not more so!

 

What I would do in your position is to express your fears that you are scared of him to the extent you have shared this thought on an open forum so it must be a truth in your life. I guess his response may be shock, and I hope this brings you together as two adults. If it initially does not it will leave your son having to answer the question do I want my mum feeling this way? His current behaviour would indicate he does not. If he is seeking a division between you and your partner, and I did at his age, then work with him to explore an exit strategy, it would be the right thing to do. This does not mean loosing your son rather having confidence that you have taken him to a point where he is capable of thinking through an exit strategy to your current relationship and devloping a life at the next level, hopefully with you as an iunclusive element.

 

Feather I suspect you believe he is not capable of living at this next level, and you may be right, if so more reason not to threaten him with the prospect. If this is the case he needs to come to terms with that reality. As a foster carter i have been faced with children in our care having to come back to us, often in police cars with flashing lights, and neighbours out on the streets. This is not an easy proposition for all concerned, but as adults we should not be sorry for ourselves. In those instances it is important that i am not judgemental but recognise emotions are running high on all sides. I needed to understand that whatever I had been through the experiences of of the child running in fear were far more intense otherwise thier actions were unfounded. They were not deserving of sympathy or respect as their actions had been too destructive for that, but they did deserve a level of empathy. Empathy dictates we ask the question why? You need to ask yourself why is your son behaving like this, is it a rights of passage thing and relativly unimportant or is he really lacking the skills to move into his adult life? If anything the end of your post does not express this level of empathy rather it displays a call for symapathy on your part from other like minded individuals.

 

I am not trying to be judgemental here though having re read my post it comes across as such but I believe it is honest comment from my own position which does hold some relevance. You may want to extend you coversation through a personal e-mail via my profile page, you may not that is your perogative. But before you make that judgement i was the first to pass comment on what I believe was an honesat cry for help. And as with all crys for help we can not predetermine the recipients.

[LancsLad]

Feather apologies in some ways for my post last night, I had been talking through some emotive issues with my partner over a couple of drinks and knew I was not going to get to sleep easily and decided to have a look at the forum, the rest is history as they say, in hindsight I might have left a reply to this morning.

 

I feel a big issue around your situation here is the transitions between phases of our lives and what is the context surrounding us in that time period. As I said previously I have been a foster carer working with poeople over a specific and quite limited period of a year or so in helping individuals come to terms with and manage this situation. In my experience the only context we could work in was one based on reality. In that reality concepts such as you will need to find somewhere to live or you will be homeless, or you will be entitled to this amount of benefits this will need to cover food, transport, heating, clothing etc... if you feel that is not enough then you will need to find a job, are valid. In our situation it would have been grossly unfair to suggest anything else. Sure we have had the tearful question, "please can't I stay here" the emphaic answer had to be no. What we found is that it was amazing how having one individual going through this process in the household seemed to focus the minds of younger individuals in our care.

 

I think as parents we can get into difficulties when we start to create false realities for our children. When we do this it places them in a difficult position of having to move between contexts. The bigest issue we have here is can we manage the scenario we create for ourselves, if not the truth is people we invite into that scenario will not adapt into our reality rather they will apply the rules which exist within mainstream society. In this way if my brother, a police officer, witnessed your sons behaviour, he could not serve him with a public order offence, would ask you as the homeowner if you felt he had done enough to press for charges related to criminal damage, in fact he might be more concerned with you trying to lock an adult up in a house more so than with his attempts to escape.

 

In a similar way if social services are operating in a similar way in your area by your sons age their concept of him will be one of an independant adult, one who if he meets criteria will be entiled to job seekers allowance, put his name down on a housing list etc... What they are not in a position to do is create 'special' provision for every 17 year old who is finding life a bit hard at the moment. My experience is that individuals who have had it very, very hard will need to be out of the system by 18, and that it was our role as carers to get them to this point and equip them with the skills to cope with a very harsh reality.

 

Unfortunatly the reality of life at the moment is not too bright for many people your sons age. There are not loads of job opportunities, affordable housing is a national problem, our education system is too focused on the university sector at this next stage in his life and not enough focus is placed on adult education in more general terms. As a family you need to decide if this is the reality you want to face up to, or do you feel it is a worthwhile exercise to construct an alternative and this would mean creating up a set of rules and sticking to them?

 

The truth is you can't expect an 18 year old to stick to a set of rules which might have worked when he was younger, these rules have to evolve to the point that they merge into the rules of wider society. The question here is at what point in his life should this happen, and more generally because he has ASD does this mean you should give him more time to make these adjustments. That is a difficult concept when he is old enough to legally have sex with another consenting adult, drink, smoke and drive a car, none of which are restricted because of ASD.

 

Feather you can come to the conclusion with your son that you can't cope, you are no longer in a position to be able to manage his behaviour and watch your home be damaged therefore he is now free to fend for himself and as such he has to make alternative arangements, I would think it fair to give him a months notice if this is the conclusion. A lot of parents would feel this approach to be very hardlined. Another conclusion is that you leave everything as it is and hope he grows out of it, he may over time or he might be doing the same thing when he is 38 and you are feeling the same way about the situation. I personaly believe that you all need to explore the realities of him leaving home and then say in your opinion you do not feel he is at a stage in his life where you feel he can cope nor would you want him to have that type of life, he may differ and there is nothing you can do about it he is an adult at least you have offered direction in him taking this step. If he is in agreement that this is too big a step to take at this time then you need to redefine the rules in your home so they are appropriate to an 18 year old co habiting with other adults. What is unreasonable is feeling you can shock him back into a position where he has to accept a structure designed for a young teenager. He will be reasonably aware of what rules do exist in the world around violence and damage to property for example, so why shouldn't these rules apply at home.

 

As someone who has ASD and having been your sons age without a diagnosis, I found things difficult at times and had similar run ins with my parents. What I did not have was an excusse to fall back on, rather my world was likewise pretty tough, employment was higher than it is now, education opportunities just a limited if not more so, affordable housing in the rented sector I suspect was better. I had to work out my own path in life, I had to grow up and so does your son. I suspect your son might want to grow up and if you are to support him you need to move with him on this, and trying to make allowances in my experience which are out of context with the outside world in my opinion simply adds to the confusion.

 

Some parents and this might include yourself might not share my sentiments at all, that is yours and their choice I respect that choice. The argument might be you do not know my child, and this is correct. What I do know is that this very tough love strategy has worked for me in previous situations. We had no choice but to get young adults to a stage of full independance, the time frames were fixed due to funding streams evaporating, and as a result there would in short time be no halfway house scenario to fall back on. Failure was not an option and having to get to an end point certainly focused the mind and meant we had to sit down with the person concerned and get to work in constructing an adult future for them. This can be done, and a lot of it is about empowering them so they can make decisions for themselves. There has to be an end game and everyone needs to be aware of this. In your case this might be a few years down the line, for us it was fixed on a calander as soon as we engaged as carers in the process. That end game for us was an exciting time. The individual concerned would get a bit of a golden handshake from social services of a few hundred quid which did not go far. We would spend the week before looking at second hand washing machines and microwaves for example would buy beding and pots and pans the list was endless the finances limited. We would take out the equivalent of their first weeks benefits and go and spend the shopping budget and watch over them as they proceded to turn it into something which might resemble a meal. We would monitor electricity use in our house and take back from a pile of 50p pieces on the table. What we were doing was modeling behaviour. As parents we should want to get to this point, it is not easy but it should be our focus.

 

On the day when they moved out like all the kids who went through our care it was a very emotional time for me and my partner. I always felt when we went into foster care that this is what it was all about, I feel the same about parenting my own son. If I had to draw an analogy it was like nurturing an abandonded wild animal found at a yound age stranded. At times our instinct were to pick them up and cudle them too much but we knew this was wrong as our aim was to develop their natural instincts. On the days they left us it was like releasing such an animal back into the wild, we knew they could not be with us forever, and we worried what might happen to them in those first hours and days. What we have found is that they come back from time to time and toch base and they are doing well, this leaves us reflecting that we might have done the right things at the time they were in our care. Your son sounds like a young animal that is tying to make his way in the world, its not fair to try and cage him and keep him in captivity, what you need to do is go out with him and help him explore his natural environment and teach him the skills he will need to survive, and when he is ready let him go. In my experience if you do a good job at this he will come back to you at an emotional level throughout his life, if you do not I worry for your future relationship.

 

Hope this might help a little.

[dm2010]

I take perhaps an unfashionably tough line with this sort of thing.

 

Everyone is responsible for their own actions, aspies included. There is no excuse for aggression and anti-social behaviour. The problem I think here is nothing to do with AS - he has turned into a bully used to getting his own way.

 

The most obvious solution is to have someone in the house who is bigger than he is (!) But probably not practical I guess. But you have to challenge such behaviour, does he want to go into residential care at age 18 or stay at home, you have to make that choice clear.

[LancsLad]

DM2010 I agree very much with your point there should never be an excusse for bad behaviour though it is in out interests to try and understand where it generates from so we can learn to eradicate it if possible.

 

Second point not too sure where residential care comes into things post 18, in my experiences there is no such thing. There are obligations for local authorities to provide housing for the homeless. In my experiences with young adults this is often simply a case of large converted houses normally in very bad disrepair with multiple bedrooms on a miniscule scale shared bathrooms and kitchen facilities with at best a duty officer in a room next to the front door. I have also been inside prisons on tours and would have to say I am not surprised when people have told me life on the inside in a prison environment is so much better than on the outside, this would be the conclusion I would draw myself.

 

Having seen these homes as they are called and the fact they are full of individuals druged up to get through their days and as such highly volatile places I would not want to be in them. I can remeber one experience of taking an individual who was in our care and having to transition to a new flat which was not quite ready for a week or so into such a place. I left him physically shaking in fear and took back with me all his valuables such as a portable TV and playstation as he would have had no chance of holding on to them in that place. If I was in his shoes I am convinced the better and safer option would have been sleeping on the streets for a week. Leaving him was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, but I met up with him each day. Iknew if he came back home with me that day we would have had real difficulty in getting him to accept it was time to move on in his life. Taking a tough line as you say is not easy and does not mean it can not be taken without a lot of compassion.

 

I think it would be a great benefit for all people in society to have an experience of one day in such a home and one day in prison at an early an influential age possibly 16. I think the effect of such a move would have very large impacts throughout society.

[JeanneA]

My son Glen who is nearly 18 is in a fantastic residential home, this home is a large converted house which accommodates 5 youngsters with special needs. So not all places are bad Lancslad. There are good and bad homes. Glen is progressing really well, the staff are brilliant with him. It was a very tough decision for me as a Mum do decide to put Glen in a home but due to his very aggressive behaviour towards myself and himself particularly over the last couple of years since he's become older and much stronger, I really felt I had no choice and thankfully it was the best decision I could have made for him. Glen is enjoying a wide range of activities at the home and he goes out and about doing a variety of things. There is a sensory room there which Glen uses all the time and he also has his own large bedroom with an en suite bathroom. So all in all I think it was definitely the right choice.

[LancsLad]

Jeanne I think we are talking about two very differnet levels of needs here, and I guess this is the nature of the autistic spectrum. The point I was trying to adress is that I think there is a lot of misunderstanding in respect to residential care post 18. Without doubt there are individuals who through very specific needs identified very early in their lives will go into first special schools from a home base and that this might develop into residential schooling at some point. These needs the have to be adressed at an adult stage in life and that might lead to a home with a full time care professional on duty.

 

What my concern is that parents at the other end of the spectrum hear about the notion of residential care and develop in their own minds that this is a potential option for a large group of individuals whos needs will be no where near your sons. Personally reading between the lines of the origonal post I would say that this is the case. I would also say the response from social services in this instance would support this notion if they were working withing regulations which I can only believe they are.

 

In my experience as offering a transitional foster care place in my home, there are simply not the places available post 18 to accomodate even a small percentage of young people already in residential care, hence the role I played. I do feel I am right to point out the reality is that if you have a child on the higher functioning end of the spectrum and they have been opperating in mainstream scenarios, such as the local college from a home base, then I believe the prospect of residential placement post 18 is negliagable.

 

I think it is therefore important I give a reality check on the provision and the set up which I have found to be in place when 18 year olds who do have a number of issues, their previous background involvment with social services would indicate this, become in effect homeless. In this sector I wish I could say things were good but my experience is that there is very little in the way of differentiation between individuals, rather they fall under a common banner of homelessness. As a result individuals from previous residential and care backgrounds are in a group together with people who have drug and alcohol issues, have been relaeased from young offenders units etc... my experience of such provision is that through economic pressures it has to be at a very basic level, and this equates to old delapidated housing, small rooms which are not very secure, easy to punch a hole through thin plasterboard partitioning walls, shared bathroom facilities, and low paid minimum hours care supervision. For someone with AS for example this is a nightmare scenario and is often the only available option. I have spoken with social workers who have worked in a number of authorities and they say this is a pretty universal picture.

 

Professionals who work in this area I would say are highly embarassed about this situation, and like many housing sectors they are tied to going with the cheapest option due to competitive tendering processes. As a result the area is open to abuse from landlords who do not have the best interests of those housed with them rather it is an option for housing stock they might have which is in such a poor state it would be unsuitable for the private sector. Whilst these homes are inspected they tend to fall under the criteria of short term temporary housing and that is why I think they can get away with a lot, the reality is that individuals can be here for many months at a time as long as they go homeless for a night or two which then requalifies them for the same place again.

 

I do not take pleasures in highlighting my experiences and one option is to keep quiet and let statements such as 'have talked to him about having to go into residential care' pass over me. The truth is in my experience local authorities do not show you round such places rather it is very much a case of saying they can provide a place which due to their nature may be open for only a day do you want to take it. Its when you turn up the first time that your jaw drops. With experience you learn to ask which home are you talking about before advising individuals you are working with what might be in their best interests if they have an option at all.

 

If someone comes on and gives an example of what happened to them when they tried to move from out of a parents home into residential care, where they were simply recognised as an adult by social services and it differs from my experiences I will be more than happy to recognise another picture in another area, as yet that has not happened. Jeanne what I think this hightlights and your own experiences about Glen really help in this is that diagnosis for ASD are very broad and the responses from outside agencies will be very varied in respect to levels of diagnosis. My concern is that parents shoulod not in their own minds given an ASD diagnosis for their own child believe that everything under the ASD banner will apply to their own son or daughter. In my short time on the forum I have become very aware that there are a lot of posts which you have to read between the lines. Comments from yourself such as 'sensory room' are a big clue in this respect. In the origonal post things like 'diagnosed late at 15' might also give a clue as to the fact that I believe your son and Feather's might well be viewed very differently by outside agencies in respect to their entitlement for residential provision post 18.

 

Just a few thoughts.

[chris54]

I presently work as a night support worker in a residential home, caring for 7 residents, 5 of whom have autism. These are all people who could not, would not survivor for 5 minuets living independently. There have no prospect of ever working. This does not stop the Local Authority continually looking to move them on into less intensely staffed, cheaper, types of residency. Not surprising when the coast per resident is in the region of £2000 a week.

I have also worked as a night support worker in the type of setting, LancsLad spoke of earlier, 24 residents, Drugs and drink were not allowed, but I wasn't going to be the one to take it of them, I valued my own health to much for that. My theory was, don't step to far out of line on my watch, and well get by, only had to call the police out about once a month, who always turned up mob handed.

This was a halfway house, there the resident were learning how to survive independently. A lot were young people how had moved out from their parents home. It was surprised how many, after a few months of living there went back to their parents, tail between legs.

The girls would often get pregnant and move on to a mother and baby unit, This surprisingly, was deemed as a success, a positive move on. A few ended up on the local park bench. Some did succeed get jobs and go on to better things.

Edited March 9, 2012 by chris54

[LancsLad]

Chris you said it 'went back to their parents, tail between legs'. I think if more people understood what this type of environment is really like they would have a very different view. We were fortunate in that it acted as a very big wake up call, almost anything was better and this made individuals in our care who had to leave us very accepting of the inevitable step forwards they would have to make into independent life.

 

I believe one of the big issue is we struggle as a society to create an identity and with it expectations for this age group. Going on to university is almost now the default position when I worked with sixth former they had no other notion of anything but this. In my day apprenticeships were a real route through to a solid job, often what now marquerades as appretice positions bear little resemblence to what I grew up with. I think the inevitable consequence is we now have lots of children who are 18 years of age. We have sat back and let them develop their own sub cultures which bear little resemblence to adult lifestyles at this age from a few decades ago, and as a result many are very poorly equiped to move on in their lives.

 

I am sure a lot would take the step forwards if they had to leave the comfort of their own home at 17 or 18, but the rite of passage through to independence away from university life which is highly structured and organised is fraught with difficulties and as such many parents accept that they will stay at home rather than take the risks in asking them to move on. I also think lifestyles for many have got to be really comfortable at home. I know at the first opportunity me and my partner saved up like mad every spare penny and managed to get together a deposit for a 2 up 2 down terrace property which served us well for 10 years. I know what I am about to say might not apply to big southern cities, but there are still plenty of houses of this type in my nearest city, and they are affordable as first time properties, some need a bit of work but so what, we looked to save money in this area and do stuff ourselves. But I have to say what is good enough for us is not near comfortable enough for the next generation. The kids we have had in care come from social housing which is far better than anything we lived in for years and they expect this type of provision to be there for them. Younger people I have worked with would rather stay at home than move even for a few years into these type of areas which they see as full of either British Asian or Eastern European imigrant communities. I feel a lot of this is of societies own making, we are as a result now facing a stay at home generation, and as a result a lot of family tension that goes with adults trying to define their own teritorial spaces.

[chris54]

A stay at home generation.

Depends who far you go back.

Non of my fathers siblings left home untill they got marred. His youngest sister live the first few years of marred life in the "family" front room. There were four adult brothers sharing one 14ft x 10ft bedroom, you walked through this room to get to the girls room 8ft x 10ft that his two sisters shared. I remember the house as my dads parents lived there untill they died both aged in their nineties.

 

Point I am making is the scenario of children moving out of the family home as soon as the are 18 is a very recent idea. Other than if work dictated.

 

But then at 14 my dad started work and was treated as an adult, As the oldest he was expected to put most of his earning into the family pot to help support his younger siblings. Had his first cigarette and first drink in the pub (Officially).

Even I at 16, was treated as an adult, Expected to pay my own way and make my own life decisions.

As an adult I had my own small business, owned a few houses that I rented out, but I still lived at home. Maybe this was because when I got home at night, there would always be dinner on the table, and someone to talk to. Maybe I just got on with my parent and there was no conflict. Seem to remember we lived as equals. I did end up moving round the country so spent little time at home, It was only when I got marred that I finally cut the cord. None of my siblings left home untill they Marred or cohabited.

But then maybe that's just my family.

Edited March 9, 2012 by chris54

[LancsLad]

From a personal position, my home life was uneasy and I wanted out in many ways. I recognised I had a chance to get to university and as such knew the logic was to remain with my parents to that point. Without such prospects I think I would have left home a bit sooner. When vacations came around I would go mountaineering in either this country or the Alps to avoid going back or work in my girlfriends home town to raise cash and live in her parents home where I was quite welcome.

 

A lot of my friends moved out and into shared rented accomodation when they got their first proper job. The other two alternatives being straight into the armed forces which involved a lot of mates or into trouble and prison for a small few. I think this might be cultural and a reflection of the times. There was a lot of cheap terraced housing in my home town and for people working for the main employers the coal and glass industry there was a reasonable amount of overtime and shift work to be had the same for areas such as the building trades, as a result it was relatively easy to graft your way onto the housing ladder in a year or so. I guess it is all about the circumstances of the time.

[chris54]

If I think back to when I was in my 20s, pay was at a level and property prices were such that it was relatively easy to get onto the property ladder.

Only today I was talking to a work college, a team leader, who wants to get out of rented and buy. Problem is that on their wages they can only get a mortgage of £70,000. when a small house round here cast £120,000. That leaves them a bit short. At the moment their rent is more than they can realy afford, which leaves very little room to save.

[Paula]

Feather

 

My son is also 18 and stands over 6 foot tall he too can become agressive and at times ive been a bit warey of him especialy if hes shouting and stomping round.We too got the or should that be tried to get help from the social services.......they came out and assessed us and him.......we got nowhere basically they said he was well looked after,fed watered clean ect,he wasnt at risk and there for they didnt need to do anything.........they didnt seem to give a hoot that i was tearing my haire out or that hed been lashing out at me.....as long as wed not hit him it didnt seem to matter...........our son went through a 3 month phase of legging it his rage was so bad hed just run away........i was powerless physically to stop him.........we had to get the police out looking and we searched too thankgod we found him safe on all occasions.

 

You ask if it gets easier...........it has for us.My sons worse agressive behaviour was at the time he was leaving his special school one hed attended since 5........i guess he was scared and worried about the future and what it held.........he didnt want to go to college but thought he had to.....we found out through carefull questioning that this was what was triggering most of his outburst at 16/17 once id said look its youre decision if you dont want to go then you dont go.he changed overnight.

 

Hes been at home with me the past 2 years.........hes done one or two schemes run by the goverment for young disabled people and hes enjoyed it.......he attends a group once a week a social group for young folks againe there on the autistic spectrum.We look for work but dont have much success and i make sure i dont "bang" on about it i never compare and say look at youre sister working ,moveing out into her own house haveinbg a long term boyfreind........i dont want to "rub it in".I ask are you happy and he says yes............

 

We dont know what the future will hold for him its still realy early days.......we have good days and some days i just feel like screaming because we never seem to get any further forward.Then i look back and remember and realise weve climbed a mountaine these last 18 years but weve done it in tiny baby steps...........hes going to get there eventually its just going to take time.

Edited March 12, 2012 by Paula

[LancsLad]

Paula I think it is important to remeber a lot of ASD conditions are a development disorder, and whilst I have never been able to outgrow my condition through time as I have matured I have been able to draw different conclusions in respect to what happens around me. By having a different conclusion in my head behaviour can take massive steps forwards. I think for all of us our personalities play a big factor and some of us are for example more highly strung than others and have a tendancy for agressive behaviour but we can temper this.

 

You can look at a lot of this behaviour simply as being immature and it is what you would expect of a 12 or 13 year old, instead you have an 18 year old in front of you. That 18 year old will get to 18 year old thinking levels might just take a few years. Personally I feel the more time spent in the real world though this is difficult the better as it is a better learning environment. You would not expect a 13 year old to respond as an 18 year old if you dropped them in a workplace for example, but they could pick up those skills quicker over time because of environmental conditions. In many ways this is a big issue for many with ASD not getting access to good learning environments so it is unrealistic for them to make rapid progress let alone work out how to be an adult over night.

 

just a few thoughts.

[A-S warrior]

this sounds like me when i was younger, i was alot younger though 8 thru to 13. although i do have the odd out burst, hurting only myself lol. the key to it all is frustration, he has something on his mind troubling him but he cant explain what it is. i diddnt like the structure of school i couldnt get the most out of my learning and it frustred me. i wasnt coping because the teachers where rubbish, and diddnt know what to do with me. now the violent outbursts you mention are out of his control im affraid, the old saying of "theres no excuse" just isnt applicable here. its the only way he can get his point across. my violent rages stemed from a right sided abnormality in my brain (as well as the aspergers). it at first caused severe panic attacks and epileptic fits. then it caused a short temper, the anger is very much like a seizure. i dont know if any of these aplies to your son but this was my situation. he needs to come home to a stress free environment and be left to his own devises. when he,s ready he should approach you and tell you whats wrong, you have to be his rock, as hard as it is he needs you more than ever and he is crying out for help. im probably not doing this justice so what i,ll do is she if my mum can pass on her wisdom. i dont know what she did but if it wasnt for her i would not be where i am today. i can tell you now for a fact that going into a home is absolutley not the awnser. the last thing he needs is more change, more disturbance, and even more distress. what he needs is solid routine, comfort, praise when he,s done good, and extreme patience when hes doing bad. even take him out for the day or a short break, build up a solid relationship, so he can feel he can talk to you whenever theres a problem. the key word for both you and your son is patience.

sorry if im miles away from the ball park or none of that made sence to you, but i hope i helped in some way.

[JeanneA]

I just wanted to say what a fantastic posting that was. It's brought a tear to my eye :-)

[soraya]

It seems this is a very common problem, my son has had 2 failed college placements, a failed apprenticeship, and 3 jobs that have not continued after the months trial, this has left a very deppressed and angry young man who has given up on life, and frankly I don't blame him. He is now 18 and lives off his ESA. There have been many times when we have felt like telling him to pack his bags and go, but I know he just would not cope. The previous post also made me shed a tear as it could have been my son talking, he keeps saying "leave me alone and I will sort things out in my own time" maybe be the time has come to back off and stop nagging, although it will be very hard, he needs to find his own way in life, although I hope he realises I am always here for him, even though our relationship is awful at the moment, I am sure he just gets angry and aggressive with me because he knows my love is totally unconditional and I will be there for him whatever age.