Desperate - looking for parents who had violent children

I'm so sorry. My son is now an adult and he was violent and I know exactly how awful it feels. It was incredibly hard and I was very depressed and physically ill. The violence was mainly due to frustration at being non verbal so finding ways to express himself such as through pecs helped a little but the tendency was always there. Just wanted to say you're not alone.

Hi op, this is a hard situation but not uncommon with SEND.
Whats his communication like? Can he talk, is he frustrated? If so, support him build a toolkit to do so, think visuals. Your local council may have a local offer page, which signposts services and websites with helpful info on this.

Id be wondering if hes dysregulated, even through excitement, hitting can be a common response. Therefore, id be exploring regulation techniques and movement breaks.

With regards to a successful school transition, have the nursery supported with this? You could bring your health visitor on board, although he may fall under the school nurse team due to age.
Holidays always hit harder, when ironically we're excited about ditching the school routine, having too much freedom makes my son even more dsyregulated.

Ex teacher
communication delay could be relevant here.

how good is he at communicating with others, either verbally or using signs? I’d work on that.

With my son it wasn’t so much verbalising how he felt but more about using words to communicate with other children. If my son could use words and achieve his objective he would wasn’t as frustrated and hit less

He hasn't completely stopped but incidents of violent behaviour are now much more occasional. In his case, finding the right environment for him as well as helping him express himself were paramount because when he was overwhelmed and/or overstimulated the violence increased. It is also essential that he feels safe with the people he is with. He still lashes out at times when he gets frustrated and he will always have that tendency unfortunately, but he is so much better now.

It does sound like the habit may be ingrained in your son and he needs help to unlearn it, but others might have more ideas on that. Sorry you're going through this.

What kind of school will he be starting in September? Does he have an EHCP ? The school should put a positive behaviour support plan in place as it sounds likely he will need a lot of support - did he attend nursery? There won’t be a quick fix but it’s vital the school uses a PBS approach and that you work closely with them to make sure strategies are agreed to help him in both environments.

https://capafirstresponse.org/

This Is a useful service which I have used.

my dd was physical, mostly with me and her sister. I had to be pretty strict, incredibly clear and used bribery as required! My dd is autistic, diagnosed at 2, fully verbal, very clever but unfortunately I can’t tell you it stopped at 5 or whatever. Violent episodes decreased and typically were following times she was masking eg school (good as gold at school, I don’t think they believed me!) do see how things change with school but also don’t hesitate to seek professional help if things escalate or don’t improve over the next few months.

I have an ASD step son who did hit at around age 2-4, but we just held firm on not tolerating it (put on naughty step) and it steadily decreased to nothing. Over the last few years there have been almost no violent outbursts (bar one directed at me and his siblings, plus one incident of him shoving his younger brother off a climbing frame - his father read him the riot act about these and sanctioned him with removal of treats so he knew how much trouble he was in). Recently he’s started scratching his brother when annoyed by him not doing what he demands, so I’m definitely not saying I believe he will never be violent again but he does know that violence isn’t tolerated in our house. I don’t believe it’s that simple with all SEND children but my personal belief is that if violence is treated purely as dysregulation and clear and appropriate sanctions/consequences not applied then a child will not actually learn it isn’t acceptable.

That’s good, that the EHCP process is all but done. Hopefully the school SENCo will be able to put the right levels of support in place from the start, it’s so much better than starting the process once he’s there. I’d arrange a meeting asap with the relevant staff at school and hopefully they’ll have enough experience and knowledge to support him with any challenging behaviour. They should follow the “all behaviour is communication” PBS approach and also make sure speech and language therapy support is in place to be able to help with strategies to support his communication, hopefully reducing the hitting as he becomes better able to communicate and cope. Good luck, my advice is to take all the support you’re offered and build and keep the lines of communication open and honest with school staff.

The vague EHCP is because it means the LA isn’t tied to providing certain provision. It can’t be enforced if it isn’t in F.

How are DS’s eating and sleeping? DS1 is more dysregulated when he is more tired.

How are DS’s wider anxiety levels? As above, DS1 is more dysregulated when his wider anxiety levels are worse.

What other support is in the EHCP? Is SALT in there? What about OT, including sensory OT?

Keeping a detailed diary to spot triggers and what works in terms of deescalating before DS reaches the point of no return will help.

Some people find the book the Out of Sync Child book useful. Some find The Explosive Child book helpful. Parts could be helpful now and some may be more helpful as DS gets a little older.