A Question about discipline.

[Suze]

Hi just wanted to ask you all your thoughts and opinions about discipline, and how you handle it.Monday mornings are always bad in our house, this one being no exception.After half an hour of badgering, my ASD son came BANGING, and STAMPING down the stairs, a look of pure rage and fury on his face.What had caused this????..................his dad had put the wrong school trousers out on the bed for him. So he begins to eat his breakfast.... eventually.Meanwhile I,m helping youngest ds (who is 3), on the toilet, he does a pooh .............which in our house warrants a fan fare of applause (he had been a toilet refuser).Well I begin to applaud youngests achievement as did dd (who is 7)...and the dog who woofs.I go into the kitchen hoping to raise a smile from ds (who is still looking miserable)....usually a bit of toilet humour breaks a small smile from him.Not this morning though, he lets rip at me with a load off f****, f****, ****, f*** off, and bangs his way upstairs leaving his breakfast.Now I completely ignored him and carried on getting the other 2 ready, I did,nt shout at him, discipline him, I just left him.But I wonder should he get away with using the worse language ever to me , I did,nt tell him off because I knew it would get worse and worse and worse, ending in a huge melt down.What do you folks do ?, did I do the right thing in ignoring him?..........his dad eventually got him downstairs again and he went to school.Is he getting away with it?...help havig serious crisis of self .

[UltraMum]

Difficult - will he remember when he gets home? Can you discuss things after the event along the lines of "It really upset me when you said ..... this morning"

 

I agree that tackling this during the actual incident can lead to meltdown...

 

Sorry not to be more help

[Paula]

My son swears at me sometimes also.I dont say anything because it makes a bad situation even worse if i pull him up on it.

 

What i tend to do is waite till later and then braoch the subject.When hes in a better mood he doesnt like th thought that hes uset his mummy or made her cry and i use this tactic by saying mummy was sad ect ect or i say ill have to tell and name his teacher at school if he does it againe because its naughty.This normally has the desired effect.

 

 

Thing is our son gets away with murder because im scared that if i push things hell go into meltdown and the meltdown is far worse than say the swearing or the banging around and causeing a bit of agro.

[lindy-lou]

i havent got a clue how i should discipline india,at the moment we have very little because nothing we do works anyway,not letting her on the computer if she doesnt co-operate seems to be the only thing she listens too,any suggestions on good discipline for a 3 year old aspie would be much appreciated,we cant smack her,shouting has no effect whatsoever,no way is she going to do the naughty step or time out corner,so removing her pleasure time seems to be the only threat/punishment that has any effect at all,but thats not going to work if were not in the house ,its a tough balance and being my 3rd child im set in my parenting ways and its difficult to try and adapt them

[mossgrove]

In the middle of a rage it is pointless trying to reason with him as he will not be able to take in what you are saying. He may not understand the concept of 'getting away with it' in the same way that you do. Rest assured that he is having just as bad a time as you are!

 

Please try and think a little wider than 'How do I discipline him for this bad behaviour. One phrase that someone said to me is there is always a reason, even if you do not know what it is yet. If Monday mornings are bad in your house the most likely cause is your son's return to school. If he is finding school hard and does't really understand why he has to go, it isn't all that surprising/irrational if his behaviour is bad on Monday mornings. Punuishing for finding Monday's really hard may not be the best answer.You may wish to explore this further with him when he is calmer, or you could talk to the school.

 

This is far easier said than done, but as far as is possible you should try to ignore the bad and praise the good. This is where things like star charts come in.

 

Massive praise and a reward for coming downstairs without fuss is likely to deliver more than punishment for coming down in a bad mood.Are there any changes to the routine you could introduce to make things easier for him?

 

Simon

[justamom]

It really depends on the situation but I do the same, ignore the bad behaviour and praise the really good behaviour. Discipline is the hardest thing to do because my youngest nt daugther also thinks that our AS son gets away with murder. If she spoke to me in that manner behaved to me in that way, than I would not accept it and he does it and things get ingnored.. Its trying to keep a balance and keep things fair.

 

justamom

[DaisyProudfoot]

<'> <'> <'> <'>

 

With you all the way on this one.

 

I know my NT kids will scream when I say this but on the whole I just ignore the screams, tantrums and meltdowns - I just walk away. I can't get through the rage anyway so what's the point and reacting to it won't help him deal with it.

 

Once he's calm again I just move along the self management plan and don't even bring up the subject again.

 

I don't smack my kids (I have arthritis, it hurts me too much )

 

If you don't have a self management plan for getting out to school in the morning it's worth designing one, either words or pictures, but remember to put everything down or they just don't do it. I had to put "get dressed, including socks" because Martin doesn't regard socks as part of getting dressed

 

I know the language is the hardest bit and the hitting - Martin got furious with me in church on Sunday and pummelled me in the back before walking out - what do people think eh? Particularly as I didn't even react.

I must admit I do try to ask him not to use bad language but like all of us swearing is an easy way to express a frustration and I guess AS kids have a lot more of that than NT folk.

 

Daisy

[KarenT]

So glad this thread has started! We've got the CAHMS nurse Supernannying us at the moment - she's even introduced a Naughty Chair!! Seems she can't tell the difference (or thinks we can't) between naughty behaviour and autistic behaviour so we've been 'advised' to punish him for everything, the same way (five mins on the Naughty Chair) regardless of the extent of the crime. We're tearing our hair out, J's all confused because the discipline structure he was comfortable and familiar with has been taken away, and dh says we should tell Ms CAHMS to f*** off. I have to say I rather agree with him.

 

Karen

x

[loulou]

Hi,

 

I'm really glad this thread was started too, because it's something i battle with all the time. Trying to differenciate between "naughty" behaviour and autisitc behaviour is hard.

 

I ignore the swearing (not easy in the middle of a shop when he's shouting out "you stupid f*****") and i walk out of the room when he goes into meltdown mode. He'll come and find me for a hug when he's calmed down.

 

Time out doesn't really work, or shouting.

 

I'm afraid i have resorted to threatening him with the police when i just can't cope with it anymore.

 

Loulou x

[Suze]

Thanks for the replies guys <'> , I guess I was just looking for some reassurance.The reason he is so so so bad on monday mornings despite it being the first day back at school, is it is also swimming .We make allowances all the time with his moods, anger, demands, routine etc.Today I got to the point when I thought hey!...........is he getting away with murder...........are we now too soft with the discipline and too scared and aware of the meltdowns.We seem to tread a fine line all the time so as not to rock the boat,I have chatted to him about this morning and he said sorry, he just could,nt help it the anger had to come out . I think if I had challenged him this morning he would have gone beserk, full on rage,he was like a bomb waiting to go off, then I would have never got him to school on time and the other kids would then have suffered too, which is another thing to be worrying about .What happens when our kids get older though this worries me........................................teenagers ............got that to look forward too.

[microsoft_admin]

i hate disiplane

[jb1964]

I find this really hard too. I know my husband keeps saying she musn't get away with it - although I don't quite know what she's getting away with - because when she has a complete meltdown you can see the complete fear and distress in her face.

 

I could never reason with her when she's out of it - and even beforehand I'm so scared she'll go off one I try to leave her alone. It always seems to be on her terms which does get to me - when she's getting upset sometimes she wants to be on her own and will go to her room or sit in the corner behind the door although other times she'll follow me around repeating and repeating what she doesn't understand and try to keep standing right in front of me (the phrase 'in your face' is so apt!!!). I always try to talk to her after when she's calmed down although very often as soon as you mention it she starts getting upset again which can lead into another one. On the odd occasion that you do manage to reason with her she does say she's sorry but that she doesn't know why she was like it - she can't help it.

 

Sorry to hog this post with another question, but I actually wanted to ask whether anyone else has the same thing when they get upset - she seems to produce an enormous amount of saliva/phlegm (I don't know what it is really!) - it will practically run out of her mouth and from her nose like a tap. And her eyes dart all about the place - which is another thing - I know they say about eye contact - my daughter isn't brilliant at it although she'll really try hard to study your face - but her eyes always flick out and up til you see the whites of her eyes. I've never seen any other children with AS (and I've only last week came across this great site) - the only time I've seen anything is on 'Make me normal' show which the boy with Aspergers didn't do this with his eyes - yet the older boy who was autistic did.

 

Many thanks

[lynyona]

Sounds like me and paula go the same way here.If keiran gets in to swearing i ignore it as it makes the situation 10 times worse if i say anything,there s ben the odd time when i have been reduced to tears with himmore out of frustration than anything and if dh is in at the time kieran often comes up and gives me a hug and says sorry im sure its from dh s say so than his own doing.My eldest two ds say that it is my doing that he is like he is,as he gets away with to much(are they right here myself thinks) maybe if id had help when he was younger i nmight have done things different but as a lot of you know that sometimes lettting them get away with stuff is a lot easier in the long run to avoid major meltdown and whether it is the right way or not it works well for kieran,maybe not the others but they dont deal with the fall out.But i did find my younger ds tried it on as well,knowing that kieran could get away with stuff if he went on and on about it but he hasnt done it for a while,i think he s realised that ive cottoned on and dont give into it now lol.Bless him

 

lynn

[microsoft_admin]

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