Can I just check re self harming?

[elliejjtiny]

I know deep down that I am right and MIL is wrong. But sometimes she makes me question my parenting when she is so adamant that she is right.

So ds is 9 years old, autistic and self harms by biting himself to the point where he leaves bruises that are a very weird shape if you don't know what they are. I try and avoid triggers, and gently stop him and distract him if I see him doing it. Anyway BIL asked him where he got his bruise from and I explained. Cue MIL telling ds that only babies bite themselves and he is being really silly. I then told MIL to stop saying that and we don't say things like that to ds. She then tells me (not for the first time) that I'm not strict enough with him.

You are right and she is wrong.

Thank you so much, really appreciate it.

Agree, you are absolutely right and she is entirely wrong and would be told to keep her outdated opinions to herself.

You're right, she's 30+ years out of date.

You're within your rights to tell her she either treats him with respect or she sees him less often.

You are right but you do need to find a way to get him to avoid doing it, DD had chewlry which helped a bit, she had a necklace one she wore under her top when she was at Primary after she bit herself so hard she left teeth marks in her arm for a week.

She's in her teens now and still gets the urge to bite herself when overwhelmed but also finds squeezing ice cubes in her fists helpful.

Thank you. We have tried chewelery (can't spell it, sorry) and those towelling sports wristbands. Not tried ice though, will give that a go.

I think the ice works because the action of biting is a contraction of muscles and so is squeezing ice, plus the coldness gives some temporary and harmless pain if that is what they are seeking as perhaps too sensory under loaded!? The downside is that you won't have ice around all the time to head off an incident so carrying some stress all types things might good too.

stress ball type things, DD had a weird stretchy banana from the works that was squishy that she loved.

Another she doesn’t understand autism , it will be he should eat what is in front of him , stop stimming.

you were right

Autism has only really come into the mainstream in the last 3-4 years with a wider awareness outside of the education and medical fields so it's not surprising that Mil doesn't know much about it.

When my DD got her diagnosis recently my parents watched the Chris Packham Autism programme on BBC and the Christine McGiness one. Would Mil be willing to do that? I think that helped a lot my mum had previously worked with children with more high needs ASD than my DD but my dad had no real experience (other than he and my brother show lots of signs of it and I've always thought they had it). Interestingly my dad identified a lot with what was on the programmes (unsurprisingly to me) and has a meeting booked with the GP, he always just thought he was a bit weird.