Cannot cope with our children anymore

[RainbowAndArrow]

6 and 4
6 year old has ASD. We suspect 4 year old does too.
They are like hurricanes. They don't stop talking. Everything needs explaining to the nth degree
But the bigger issues is the volatility of behaviour. Fine one minute then utterly unreasonable and not listening at all the next. 6 year old then has massive guilt, tears etc only to repeat it all at the next opportunity.
4 year old wouldn't stay in bed til 6 today (that's our rule). Screamed at me, hit me when I tried to put her back in her room.

I'm getting hit before 6am on a Saturday. I'm utterly exhausted.

what time did 4 year old go to sleep?
i feel you, i have one ASD, LD, ADHD and another with ASD & type one diabetes its haaaaard. We dont have anyone who offers to have them for us neither.
go hide in the bathroom with a coffee & some chocolate and take 5 minutes ro yourself x

She went at 7.30, and had a busy day at nursery and then swimming

I just feel so empty.

I would maybe push her bedtime back a bit see if she gets up later, both mine would be up at the crack of dawn if they went to bed at that time as its a ten hour stretch.
can your husband not look after the kids and give you a break this morning?

Just looking at the morning wake issue for now - does she have things she can do in her room when she wakes up? DS has always been an awful sleeper even with medication. For mornings I have always made sure he has quiet things he can do in his room when he wakes and a drink available. He is 15 now so tends to read for a bit but previously he had things like Lego/duplo or toy cars.

Chances are she won’t go back to sleep and if she gets wound up so certainly won’t so look at what can be done in that time so you can still doze.

Many dc don’t sleep for big long stretches. If mine had ever gone to bed at 7.30 they’d have seen it as a nap never mind making it through to past 5am. Try a later bedtime as hard as that can be as at that time you just want some peace

How long are her nursery days and the s it full time? My dd is very similar to yours. Her behavior gets a lot worse when she’s tired or had a very busy day which might be too stimulating. Also pick your battles, a lot of 4 year olds will wake up earlier than 6am and they’re still quite young to stay in their room, if mine wakes early I just take her downstairs and start breakfast.

She has lots of toys in her room.

We've tried later bedtimes and it just doesn't work, they wake at the same time.

It's the hitting and screaming at me that's my bugger issue

Maybe she was hungry? I’m not condoning hitting or screaming, but there’s a reason for behaviour. If she’d been asleep since 7.30 she probably didn’t understand why she couldn’t get up, start her day, have breakfast etc.

Firstly many dc are like this, explaining everything is a sign of being bright, a good thing. Behaviour changing rapidly again isn’t exclusive to asd, it’s common as little ones (one of mine has asd, but other was no different). As for bedtime, too early, mine needed about 9.5 hours by that age, of course they won’t stay in bed. Mine went to bed at 8.40, lights off at never up before 7/7.30

You’ve just unlocked a memory for me actually; mine used to have a little box of raisins or a cereal bar ready for if they woke up too early, to eat while playing in their room. You might not want food in bedrooms, that’s fair enough, but it worked to get us a more sensible time to get up.

That sounds really tough. Do you have a partner for support?

But the question is why is she hitting? That is a sign that she is trying to communicate something.

She does understand. They both have clocks in their room and they know they can't get up before then

She just flips with her behaviour. She said she was thirsty so I got her some water and she refused to drink it so I said that was all she could have at that point.

As I say later bedtimes don't make any difference, we've tried many permutations! It's the volatility that is frightening

Understanding and being able to actually do it are two different things though. At age 4 not all children will be able to do that. My dd is 4 and wouldn’t be able to stay in her room when she wakes up. What’s the problem with her getting up and you taking her downstairs for some breakfast?

She is usually happy to stay in her room if she wakes early

I honestly don't know anyone that would let their kids get up before 6am.

We are just really worried about her. She's so anxious, and the smallest of things can set her off. I've done the right to choose path for her but it's all hard ATM.

It sounds really tough. No advice but our older child has ASD and was very volatile and physically aggressive towards us from about age 4 to 6. He calmed down a lot as he got older and is 9 now - I genuinely can’t remember the last time he hit. I think at that age they often don’t have the language skills to express their feelings and it comes out through hitting.

We tried everything (we didn’t know he was autistic at this point). Discipline, walking away, time out (a joke), time in (not much better), the works. None of it worked for us - we either had to head off the outburst before he got physical or weather the storm. I did take some consolation from Yvonne Newbold’s resources at the time, which made me feel less alone and like I wasn’t doing such a terrible job.

We have found reducing demand and going with the flow can help. Saying yes where we can. Could you go downstairs with her at 0530 and doze on the sofa while she plays quietly?

Well... realistically you have to cope. So having a strategy that saves your sanity is what you need to figure out.
She is awake and ready for the day at 6am. That's pretty normal for a lot of 4 year olds.. you can't force them to NOT be ready to get up if they have been in bed since 7.30 pm.
You try to enforce her staying in her room... she gets angry and hits you. Basically you have promoted and provoked her behaviour. Sure she should understand and obey and not hit either..but she is 4. They aren't capable of thinking much more then what THEY want, even if they seem able to to understand.
Why not go downstairs... she gets to play or watch tv and you/dh lie on the sofa under a throw. Give her a snack or early breakfast , grab yourself a coffee and just go with it. A 'in your bedroom til 6am' rule is pointless if all it does is create a behaviour that makes you and her stressed!

At some point she will probably sleep later... or maybe she won't. I have 4 kids... two with autism, (one of the endless talking variety, one more classically autistic) and we simply had to throw away all our ideas on how we wanted to parent, and work out what kept us all sane. DS1 (NOT autistic but ADHD) got up at 4.30 am for years. We couldn't leave him to just be up, he'd probably have burned the house down, so we took it in turns to wearily drag ourselves out of bed and get on with it. He's an adult now and works in a job where he has to get up at 4am...it suits him because he is still an early riser!

Do you have a visual timetable? Easy to make and we found it useful for all of the kids... sometimes anxiety can be helped by giving the kids a visual for how the day is going to be, and helps ward off spikes in stress that cause melt downs.

Little kids are tricky. Kids with ASD (can be) more so, But adapting to them, within reason, is also just something you have to do. Mine are now grown up, (oldest is independent , youngest will never be) and we have just learned to adjust our ways and expectations.
And a lot of 4 yr olds act out. I now care for my 4 yr old grandson .. who also gets up before dawn has cracked, and somedays is wonderful, but others, can't control his emotions and behaviour.. that's just children.

Can she get in with you at 6 for a cuddle?

Sometimes it’s just what you have to do though. Not all kids are the same and it isn’t unusual for some kids to want to be up from 5am.

As someone who has a child who can explode seemingly over nothing we've figured out over the years that it's almost always hunger. When they woke at 5 starving hungry we just had to get up and feed them. They would then be quite calm and happy for a few hours.

You might just need to get up earlier for a while. It won't be forever.

I use a PACE method especially when they are challenging or pushing boundaries and it really helps. Playful, acceptance, curiousity and empathy.

I would pick my battles - and getting up early isn't a battle I would choose to fight.

As they get older, you will understand how they work better, as will they, and it will get easier. In the meantime, read up about sensory sensitivity, there is a good video on the Sheffield children's hospital website which explains the basics. For people with adhd, it is usually around providing extra sensory input stuff to help them regulate themselves, e.g eighteen blankets, indoor climbing frame, stretchy bag, wobble board etc.

Then like others have said, make sure you cover the basics as people with adhd often have difficulty working out what is wrong I
Ie can't tell if they are hot, cold, hungry, cross, safmd, happy, tired etc. So you need to help them learn to work through a list of options if they can't tell which one it is.

Anxiety is really hard. Not sure how to help with this other than reassuring them that it is normal to worry about things and that it will be OK.

Also I found that dropping all the rules that arent really important for your family might reduce the stress. E. G. People should wear shoes in the garden but is it really worth the trade off of constant nagging vs cleaning the floor slightly more often? Or maybe swapping siting at the table door meals with standing at the table if its easier for the kids.

https://www.sheffieldchildrens.nhs.uk/services/child-development-and-neurodisability/sensory-processing-difficulties/

Thanks. This is so true, I feel like I just don't know how to do it!
They have spinning chairs which they like, climbing frame is outside but they barely use it, the 6 year old particularly does nothing without me being involved and they end up having a shouting match.

Getting up isn't usually a problem. 6 year old has been awful this week and it's just shitty to start the weekend being hit.

Yep, but she didn't want to, she literally just screamed at me.

I need to find something to help with the anxiety, I think that's making everything much worse.