My daughter was autistic and very sensory awareness which caused extremely violent outbursts. Purely down to over stimulation or lack of understanding and confusion. Inappropiate behaviours and comments due to lack of social awareness.
The violence started at 3years old and it was off the scale.
Do you her lack of fully understanding what she was being punished for trying to teach right from wrong would lead to even bigger meltdowns and violence. I was unable to follow anything through as it became too difficult for me and her siblings. If I gave in once that then became the pattern of behaviour she expected next time and trying to punish them was even harder.
I started using a different approach with her and it saved my sanity and also the schools’ she attended.
I hope my advice/description of what we changed is not seen as patronising as it honestly saved my sanity.
I had always felt really bad at using the term ‘punishment’ for her. I felt like the worlds worst parent at punishing my child For something she was unable to change or understand or articulate at her young age. But I also didn’t want her Or anyone to use the fact she was on the spectrum as an excuse to accept poor behaviour. I was aware that if the violence continued into adult hood the punishments would have been worse.
So we turned punishments into ‘consequences’ and she had to chose three favourite things she liked. 1) being her most fav 2)next fav 3)next fav thing.
She chose her own ‘best’ things. At 3 years old it was watching sleeping beauty when she went to bed. She did this everynight for nearly 18mths. Then it was a book and a piece of lego!!
I took pictures and put on a chart. She already used the traffic light system for her negative behaviours red was violence and attacking others, then there was violence and then swearing and running away. If she did any of these she knew after we talked about what happened she had to choose a consequence to match what the behaviour.
She always matched to consequence to the right behaviour and initially the consequence was for 10 mins as it was a long time. Til it lead to a day
Every 6 months the consequences were changed and she chose others.
But her picking the punishments before made it much calmer and easier to manage. She was also made to apologise to anyone she hurt and say she was sorry, what had happened and why it hurt the other person and what she would do next time.
From age 3-8 this was in the form of simple language and pictures and hugs to her teachers
It might work for children who aren’t on the spectrum too