'I love my child, but I'm afraid he's going to kill me'

Yes @Grammarnut children that age simply can't understand reasoning.

A smack communicates something that they DO understand and can work with. It's not ideal but sometimes necessary.

Most people know where the line is.

I smacked (slap on calf) my DD on one occasion - aged 3 - when she ran between two cars and was nearly run over. She was just out of using reins and walking along a quiet street holding my hand. She never ran out in this way again and she is not in any way violent (though very assertive, but I brought her up to be so).
The occasional smack is not the same as beating. And you'd know the difference had you ever come across the latter.

https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2009/12/kent_state_professor_trudy_ste.html

This is a heartbreaking report of a woman who was murdered by her son, who has an ASD diagnosis. She was a uni lecturer and he was violent towards her from mid teens, with it escalating after a parental separation.

She described the violence in the uni’s student newspaper but still insisted she was fine, and took her son of the residential care unit his dad organised for him. She wrote a letter and put it in her safe, saying that if people were reading it her son had likely killed her, and she didn’t want him blamed because she had failed him.

Another adopter here,and violence against parents, particularly mothers, is more common than it should be.

The reasons seem complex and I dont understand them. I think it is incredibly hard, and hopefully the below contains no critism of those living with violenve.

To me, things that makes these behaviours worse are:

1. Training given to adopters. When i went through adoption training, adopters were almost told to martyr themselves and sacrifice everything for their child, to build attachment above everything else. We were told not to shame our children under any circumstances. Maybe this has changed now, or other parents hqve better experiences.

This mind fuckery makes it hard to respond to violence. It gives parents a massive guilt complex and doesnt provide the skills needed to manage these extreme behavious.

2. There are now no early intervention services,either universal or directed at SEN or adopted families. These used to exist.

3. You cant access any sort of support unless you are at crisis and even then it is a long wait.

Also topically, we have had an issue in my sons school which has come to my attention today that we have a 5yo who has been consistently violent (to the extreme) in my sons class and has therefore had to be temporarily excluded to keep the other kids safe whilst they try to come up with a solution. We have another child (suspected SEN) who has also been hitting other children in class - and now requires a 1 to 1.

Equally I know of a family that had to withdraw their 5yo child from (different) school because they were being physically attacked in the playground by their peers (multiple children) with threats made to kill etc which was extremely worrying. The school said it was "normal behaviour" and tried to minimise it, telling the parent their child was overly sensitive as he was an only child. I have seen first hand there are children of this age who are aggressive and violent in playgrounds, soft play and in alot of cases the parent is usually on their phone on the other side, not watching them and not intervening when they need to. So yes I do think permissive parenting plays a part in some instances.

I think there will be multiple factors for the rise in violence amongst boys. There's not one specific cause. In my case as mentioned previously, my sons violence towards me is linked to his diagnosis of ASD/ADHD. He has always been this way. Not all kids with ASD have the same profile so not all will have violent outbursts like my son. I do think there is far more to be done that just accepting a diagnosis of ASD without looking into other factors- genetics, diet, environment, PANDAs which has recently been recognised by the NHS. Hence why im seeking out testing for my son to determine if there are physiological factors impacting his behaviour. I strongly suspect due to his restricted diet that he will be deficient in certain vitamins/minerals/iron etc. I know he was not getting enough sleep but since he's been prescribed melatonin that has massively helped. Alot of these things are circular. We are exploring PANDAs also as he recently developed a tic after a period of illness. I know there has been a dramatic increase in children diagnosed with ASD/ADHD and that is partly because of the widening diagnostic criteria, more awareness etc but I can't help but feel the environment has alot to do with it - pollution, diet, chemicals we are unknowingly exposed to, allergies - thats been the biggest change of all over time. After my son was diagnosed it opened up the usual support for kids with his profile but there was no supporting entity to delve in to diet - the link between brain and gut health, etc, the rise in PANDAs - how many kids are out there exhibiting similar symptoms of ASD that are infact PANDAs. I dont think any of it is to be overlooked. To add, I dont doubt my sons diagnosis but I do think there are other factors feeding into his behaviours.

@IwantToRetire
Just sharing really. I have a son who was verbally and physically violent towards me.. he was under 18 it was going on from about age 15 to 17 got worse as time went on. Many people do not recognise it and the mother does often get the blame. There are definitely many people on MN who do not understand it i have experienced that side of it for sure.

Many people think just take their gadgets away ground them. Thats impossible to do with a violent child. Once we finally got sone support ds was under camhs and I done a course for parents of children with dysregulation. And its the opposite to take their gadgets ground them etc. Which I never did because I knew it could make me unsafe. But yes basically your taught not to take things away punish etc . Because doing that escalates rather than desolate that can then lead to the violence being worse.

Some of the responses I had were absolutely awful from here . Not all of them but it's the hurtful ones that stick . Going through a form of domestic violence from your own child and in top of that awful replies on here . It certainly explains why woman feel ashamed and like theres no one to turn to.

Ds is much better now he doesn't live at home. He visits he still has his bedroom. Video calls me almost every day Sometimes for a good few hours and hes much happier in himself now.

Anyone who is struggling with this or has I really hope you get the support you deserve. Also for your child. But you need to be heard and understood. And please believe its not your thought. Sadly child to parent violence isn't spoken about enough so there's a lack of understanding and support.

Ah, thank you, so one to stay in the realm of fiction then.

It was debunked, I think, because rates of incarceration for XYY men weren’t higher than other men when taking into account the learning and developmental challenges that are part of the XYY syndrome.

XYY individuals have associated developmental language disorders, with reading difficulties, processing and executive functioning challenges and are more likely to be diagnosed with ASD/ADHD.

Which shows that they can control their behaviour when they want, even at home

One thing I do remember is watching an episode of Law and Order where the perpetrator found to have double Y - YY-chromosomes. In the story, this was the basis of a defence -he was extremely naturally aggressive with testosterone off the charts.

I think it's been debunked as a theory but I do still wonder.

Speaking from my own experience of my mildly autistic son, who is really not anywhere near the scale some people have sadly talked about here, - sometimes the violence is accidental - patting too hard, swinging arms randomly etc. Sometimes it's a response to negative interactions, frustration and anger - being told no. Sometimes he seems unaware of the effects or consequences - ie thinks poking people with pencils isn't a problem.

It's not one consistent problem which makes it harder to deal with. I've asked him about his empathy levels and he said he doesn't really have it but he does love his family (and hugs me).

I honestly don’t know where things are going with children like this, but society and the soft touch, it’s got to be someone else’s fault don’t help. There’s a thread where the dm is blaming the school for failing her child, “ he only swore and was aggressive to the teacher and walked out of the class
why are they being harsh to him??!
and another “why are parents complaining about another pupil punching or threatening their child?! That’s part of life”.. and the thread of how it’s so MUCH more important to check
on the wellbeing of the agressor rather than the child they’ve just assaulted..

In my case never ending chaos, no impulse control, huge debt, drugs and alcohol and removal of a child who now lives with me.

I have been subjected to coercive control and manipulation since my child was 14, now aged 36. It has just got worse as he got older as the issues became bigger. This is the first time in 22 years that I have seen anything written on the subject. I had no support and didn't know where to turn. I even rang the police for advice but they couldn't give me any. I didn't even know it was coercive control until relatively recently. It has affected my life to a degree I am unable to express or explain,as well as that of my other children who moved away from it as soon as they could. I suspect there is undiagnosed ADHD as there is a permanent trail of chaos that I always felt I needed to fix. I have stopped doing that now. When I explained to my doctor only today, he looked at me and said, is your heart broken?. I felt listened to by a professional for the first time in a long time.

I had this too, but from a Dd.

In my (working) experience, dysregulated boys who are aggressive direct that to their mothers and not their fathers. Having a dad in the family home often seems to be a deterrent.

I didn’t know this was so common. Absolutely heartbreaking 😞

Yet the poster you are referring to has said her own child is awful to her, so she does fit in with the theme of this thread.

Does anyone have knowledge about medication to calm people? It would not be suitable for many, but perhaps, for a few, it would be better than a life locked up with 3 to one attendants, or a life locked up in prison.

Apparently, prisoners are sometimes restrained, in order to try to force them to swallow doses of medication. The alternative available to prisons is to try to get the prison doctor to administer injections, which nobody likes.

It doesn't seem to be suggested that medicine could be taken in a third way, i.e. by implant, which would be more reliable, and would require a lower dose, and which has been tested for many years on women, for long lasting contraceptive implants.

What is this future for these children, once they become adults?

OP I can't possibly start a thread on EVERY single subject I find interesting. Not enough hours in the day.

These women are very brave for sharing, I agree.

One has to ask, what is YOUR agenda here? Clearly you're not open to free exchange of ideas.

You only have to read threads on here about mums in fear of their lives and for those of their other children to see the attitude 'You can't abandon him, parent him', 'get your husband to move out with the toddler and you stay with the child that's battering you' and the women saying that they've been told by social workers that if they try to place the violent child into care, they'll be prosecuted for abandonment.

In the past quite a few of these harder to help children/ adults would have been in full time facilities and not living with their parents. Care in the community though there had been a shift to it previously was not really in the forefront till 1983 culminating in the Community Care Act in 1990. it was a major policy shift.

There were also far more schools for children with additional needs. For that change look to Baroness Warnock 1978 report around inclusion and again major policy changes. It’s probably not appropriate to put some children in a mainstream school and they suffer, but there are hardly any places in schools for children with additional needs now. She actually had a major U turn and said it was a policy failure right back in 2005 and it was a mistake closing so many of these schools.

So whilst I’m not bringing attention to these policies to have a moral debate it does show a radical societal change at a policy level affecting every person who has a child with additional needs but especially those who have a child with very complex and challenging needs.

When it comes to violence from children and young people without additional needs there is the also the more common use of weed now and it’s not the same as stuff 40 years ago. This has led to an explosion of MH issues among young people. Many can use and be fine but for a few their brain chemistry and just the way it affects them is life changing and also for those around them.

I'm so sorry. This is where the situations in the OP stem from. We have such a screwed up system where early intervention that might prevent* *a child escalating to being an abusive, dangerous teenager, just isn't there. Even when the risk factors are evident.

Until society is able to offer preventive support at a younger age, this is going to continuree and escalate.