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.

My DS is nearly 8 and somewhere on the ND spectrum. 4 is where things really kicked off for us. He is still an awful sleeper and will only co sleep with me. He can also be violent and unpredictable. It. Is. Hard. The last thing I want to do is cuddle up to sleep with someone who has been punching me.
At around 4 I would leave a pre packed brioche and a carton of juice or chocolate milk for him in the living room. He would get up and watch Tv and have a snack until I could cope with the world. Yes, it isn’t the way I thought I would parent but as a single parent with 2 kids I needed to survive.
I agree with other advice of lowering demands and parenting the child in front of you. At 4 my DS did a lot of activities but we have reduced them massively and the scale of the meltdowns have decreased roughly in proportion. Swimming as a family instead of lessons for example. It has been a learning curve getting to know him and I am still learning - so is he. I try to see behaviour is connection seeking and he does need me to regulate. When he is hitting and lashing out he is actually overwhelmed and scared literally senseless. Although the behaviours seems unpredictable there are actually a build up of events and overstimulation. DS is a massive sensory seeker, although crashing and bashing into things but finds social activities very overwhelming. He wants to be with his friends and do things all the time but he just can’t handle it, I need to step
in and say he can’t. Slowly he is learning that he is happier with less things. He also takes a surprisingly long time to recover from things. After a meltdown he can seem fine within mins but now I realise it can actually take days to recover and for him to be fully balanced again.
There is no magic right or wrong or rule book for any child but I think with some children we need to chuck the rule book out of the window and try unusual solutions. Above all though ND issues are not caused by anything you have done or they way you have parented. Please try and remember that .

Hugs OP. I have a very highly strung, self centred, autistic 5 year old with PDA traits. It’s very hard. He also never stops moving and talking, often to complain or kick off about something seemingly from nowhere. Won’t take any ownership - the slightest inconvenience to him becomes our problem. Also won’t play independently at all. Also starts the day very early. We get up with him every single time. I know if I started letting him get up and put the TV on he’d start waking earlier and earlier demanding the TV so it’s not worth it, even once. I could absolutely see my son tipping a drink over something theoretically completely uninteresting to him because he’s so desperate not to be left out.

Part of the PDA autism thing is a true lack of understanding of hierarchy, alongside an extremely volatile threat response. It’s why standard parent-child parenting strategies often don’t work. Most PDA-ers also at least have traits of ADHD (a lot have full ADHD). My son has shocking executive functioning despite a superior IQ. I genuinely think it’s why he can’t play independently or problem solve minor issues - putting all the steps together required to do these things is out of his skill set currently.

Basically, all of the behaviours can be explained by the neurotype. As hard as it is I have to keep telling myself that. He’s not being difficult to piss you off.

Bitty weekends (lots of small activities eg swimming then party then shops then visiting relatives etc) are the absolute worse for us. Too many transitions, too much change, too much loss of autonomy. My son needs a lot of mental and physical stimulation but we are better loading into the car first thing and heading off to somewhere outdoors with lots of toys and a picnic. Stay there a good few hours then home for focused play and TV.

We don’t label our parenting ‘low demand’. We still have high expectations of behaviour as long as he’s regulated. So that means providing the optimal environment for him to be regulated so we can place demands on him. It’s so hard though and our lives entirely focus around parenting him effectively. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t met a child like this would have a clue.

Much love to you x

So? Let them watch it and give yourself a break. When my daughter was a bit younger the TV was always on…all day. She still did other stuff in between too.

This ALL sounds like normal child behaviour.

Yeah I've professionals that say otherwise, and my lives experience knows it isn't.

We have autism in our family and it’s especially tricky because both the parent and the child can both be quite rigid and set each other off. “The declarative language handbook” has some great strategies. It definitely gets easier with PDA strategies and as they get older. Can you carve out time for yourself to recharge each day? Either with the help of TV or your husband taking charge.

Thanks, I definitely think I have traits, the noise overwhelms me especially when they are both talking at me and neither seems aware the other is, they are both very very loud in natural speaking volume and I do sometimes feel like in drowning in it

I agree.

It is about managing expectations of yourself and them.

For instance, I wouldn't have started a big job of clearing a loft, with two young children around, unless they are given/able to carry out the simplest of jobs.
They were given squash, during this, that they couldn't manage without spilling either.

Their toys are upstairs…why? If they won’t play with them without you. Can you bring a couple down? Can you bring a toy from home?

It is a clash of expectation, what you feel you need to do and how they are able/not able to manage.

DH was with them while I got two boxes from the loft, it wasn't a big job.

Their toys are upstairs because it's the house of an 86 year old man. They were very welcome to bring them down, they didn't want to and when they do they throw them around which dad unsurprisingly doesn't appreciate and he then shouts at them so I was trying to avoid that.

I don't know why I'm bothering to explain myself now, I know this isn't normal behaviour, the professionals no it isn't, but randoms on the internet know more.

Hugs op. I sympathise. It sounds hard.

Two thoughts, how is their diet? Are they eating enough protein to keep their blood sugar levels stable? One of mine gets hangry and this works so well to stave it off.

also are they very over stimulated? Do they get any downtime?

im not asking to criticise you. Only to help 💐

DH will laugh at your comment cos he thinks I'm protein obsessed. I think so, DS is easy but DD is harder cos she's so fussy but scrambled eggs feature a lot because I know she'll eat her protein that way.

We have quite a bit of downtime I just worry that means screens and DS is more and more pushing for YouTube shite

@VivaVivaaI have a child with similar traits and your comment explains it so well. Thank you. It’s been really useful to see it laid out like that with the commitment to high expectations.

OP. Regardless of the cause of behaviour, you have my sympathy because sometimes it’s just haaaard.

DH and I are reading the low demand stuff, thank you so much for all of that @VivaVivaa you've explained it really well, thank you ,

What stimulates/ overstimulates her?

Sometimes empty rooms, blank walls, no clutter, no toys in bedroom can help. If I have a clean boring space my kids tend to slow right down.

And what is the preceding thing every time biting/ hitting happens, is there a pattern you can work out?

What are your calm down strategies, what do they use at school for both kids? What are their repetitive/ obsessive things that keep them occupied?

Have you tried the Loop or something similar ear plugs.... they can reduce the noise around you taking the edge off without blocking it if you get the right ones. Dd uses them alot in school so she can handle noisy spaces.

Definitely recommend getting some loops for yourself. Also you and dh both need to make sure you get time to yourself - work out a strict routine if you have to and both of you make sure it gets stuck to.

And don't worry about what Internet randoms say. You know when your life isn't normal. Don't let them gaslight you into telling you that children fighting and punching you constantly is normal because it's not. You can't hope to begin to deal with what's going on unless you can name it. It might be pda, it might not - but low demand parenting in my house is creating children who are emotionally aware, responsible and capable of thinking for themselves so id recommend it anyway!

I think that's a good idea

Bedtime is a shit show again. They were running round the garden refusing to come in, then bath time they filled up a litre jug of water and threw it over the floor. They don't react to me getting cross or angry they just laugh more. DS wouldn't come to get his teeth cleaned so I pulled his towel which he reacted stupidly to and ended up throwing himself against a wall while DD screamed 'youre not kind' in my ear.

I think you need to break this down. When we work to change children’s behaviour we do it a step at a time.

Start with one thing that you want to change. From above…coming in from playing outside.

Set out, including the DC’s, how you are going to change this. Focus on the positives, with lots of praise when they achieve this.

Unless unsafe, ignore other behaviours.

You need to adopt strategies to help this happen. Apply strategies consistently.

Strategies to support them to come in.

Visual timetable of the day showing key event. At each point of change, look at the timetable together. Talk about, next we are playing outside, then it is bathtime.

Use language such as ‘first you play outside, then it is bathtime’.

Give a countdown, shine visually. Timer and ‘in 5 minutes it is time to come in, in one minute, it is time to come in’.

And when they do, massive praise.

In going to sound like a defensive twat but I do all of that.
When they are reasonable and 'normal' they get all of it. We have lovely chats about behaviour etc.
And then tis like they get possessed and it all goes out the window

no real advice but you sound like your doing a great job hang on in there. I would hate being hit too

Timers actually make one of my DC worse, they work well for another. It's really difficult to deal with clashing needs and when they feed off each other's heightened state and get more dysregulated and giddy.

Laughing is a common reaction, I read somewhere it can be be the child's body is trying to counter-balance adrenaline. Maybe not adrenaline, my memory is awful 🙈 but I just mean it can be involuntary and your DC aren't necessarily finding you being upset/angry actually funny.

Hindsight is always 20:20. You can reduce some stuff like no access to the jug in the bath, brushing teeth before bath etc
But I think sometimes you just have to write it off as a shocker of a day, and not overthink it.

What else has happened today? Let's see if we can work out what might have over or under stimulated or accumulated to cause this.

One of mine laughs when I'm angry and it's like a red flag to a bull - it drives me mad.

Ah god you're so nice

DD had a punnet of strawberries for breakfast and threw up as we were getting to nursery so she had a day with me. Pretty chilled, the only thing we did was take the dog to get DS
DS had school then an after school activity. He got an award so he was happy but he was being silly on his scooter on the way back
They watched TV, we had dinner, we played in the playroom for a bit and then it was bedtime.

Were they both equally playing off each other in the garden/bath or was one driving the behaviour more than the other? Was dh around at the time and could you/did you split up the children or were you trying to deal with both on your own?

My first thought is ds being happy about the prize - might have felt like pressure/demand if he had to go up and collect it, so maybe the scooter behavior on the way home was his way of trying to equalize against being good at the activity and collecting a prize.

Interesting, maybe. He was so buzzing about it.

I think they were both feeding off each other.

DH was out tonight but 2bh two adults often makes it all the more chaotic.

At bedtime DS said he felt sorry for me and DH because it must be horrible for us.