Asd/adhd discipline

[Nimblepimble]

Hi all, I have an undiagnosed clearly autistic & adhd child (my best friend has confirmed both & is head of sen at a different school) he’s on waiting list for private assessment after years of waiting on nhs. He is 12.

Today is his birthday, he woke up at 4am (classically over excited) and tiredness is a major trigger for meltdowns so I knew it was coming. We got him a new bmx, some pens, a book some sweets and a ps5 game.

he immediately got annoyed about younger siblings asking for a sweet - screamed at them both called them
idiots etc.

he then said he was going out on his bike - I said it was tooo early, too wet & the tires needed pumping. He called me an idiot etc and went out on his bike regardless. Immediately fell over scraped his knuckles, comes back in screaming saying I’ve ruined his birthday and he hates me. He looked his dad square in The eye and said “ I wish you’d just die”

continued to a scream and cry for 35 minutes calling me an idiot and how I don’t care about him.

I don’t know how to handle this as I am not sure what’s autism related and what’s pure bad behaviour.

If you are a parent of asd/adhd child how would you have handled it? What discipline would you have put in place?

It's draining.
Birthdays and Christmas are usually a bit head melty
Non stimulant medication helped with anger of my asd and adhd teen.
He calls me idiot quite a bit when dysregulated.
We have work quite a bit on him understanding his own emotions and triggers and learning how to recognise them and things that help him self soothe and calm.
Set rules work well for us which we have made as a family. So no getting your butt out of bed until 7am - you can read, listen to audiobook, play with lego etc but you have to be quiet.

I try to remember they are emotionally about 5 years younger but we all have our limits and lose the plot at them

With my asd son this would just escalate the situation and cause WW3.

In the moment we would need to step back and disengage. Give him space to calm down and regulate. Then at a later date we would talk through ways that he could have expressed his anger or disappointment.

We very rarely punish anymore, we find it completely counterproductive with our asd child.

@PostItInABook Fab post!!

My DD is autistic and I recognise so much in the OP

Birthdays/Christmas - always been an issue for her. Hates the attention on her, things are out of routine, is awkward around gifts - how to react to gifts, how she should behave towards a gift giver and their expectations of her.

She will usually spend half the night awake, anxious and worrying about it and have worked herself up into a state before the day has even begun.

Her bucket would be full and she’d be mentally and physically exhausted at this point and meltdown would be imminent

She’d be a bit iffy about being expected to share sweets that had been given to her as a birthday gift.

She’s older now, and much better at understanding how she’s feeling, what her feelings mean and taking herself off to calm down, but we talked a lot about appropriate behaviour, swearing wasn’t acceptable and finding strategies to help when she’s starting to feel dysregulated before it all goes bang.

My son us now an adult in his twenties. He’s severely autistic, non verbal with very little understanding. Any discipline is done within the scope of what he understands. He understands that hitting, head butting etc is wrong but he wouldn’t understand consequences and where his understanding is so limited it would no point giving a consequence. He does pick up on emotion though so we would say No and tell him he’s made us sad.

in your situation you should discipline him because he clearly understands he’s done./doing wrong. Only you know your child.

I wouldn't punish. He's got overwhelmed and essentially ruined his own day. Once he is calm I would talk to him about the name calling and how he felt before he got to that point as what he needs to learn is to catch himself before that point and go and get some space and calm down.

I also think this could have been handled better from your point. I think giving him the bike not ready to ride in the morning was a meltdown waiting to happen. That is bound to be overwhelming for an exciting child especially in context to an already changed routine, a very early start so tiredness etc. I also don't think he should have to share his birthday treats.

Please don't punish him by returning his bike for having a meltdown.

This is what I would do with my AuDHD children in this situation.

I think its fair to say that a lot of children with asd/adhd really struggle with birthdays. The way a lot of parents would handle it would be to prepare for the event differently in advance. If that makes sense. So for instance if my son was getting a bike, he would know in advance that was his gift. We would have rehearsed when it would be opened. When it would be used first and have a timetable ready for the day, like get up, watch tv, eat breakfast, open bike, first ride.

in your situation you should discipline him because he clearly understands he’s done./doing wrong. Only you know your child.

My daughter would clearly understand after the meltdown that her behaviour during it was wrong, however, she wouldn’t necessarily recognise it as wrong while in the throes of one.

I found the key was helping her understand her feelings and what they meant before she went bang, helping her put strategies in place, helping her recognise the feelings that she had overdone it and was becoming overwhelmed so she could take herself off before it all went tits up.

Punishments and telling her off was just counterproductive as she’d then be anxious on top of everything else, and then we’d get caught in a vicious circle.

Agree yes. It’s so hard to give advice because every child is so different aren’t though. Even though my son is 24 I still don’t entirely know how much he understands. When he’s been aggressive or hurt me he sometimes get upset and cries so I know he understands on some level. If he throws something out if a window or over a fence, he’ll run away laughing so again I know he understands that he shouldn’t be doing it. It’s all so hard and utterly heartbreaking.

www.pdasociety.org.uk/resources/pda-and-christmas/ Hi OP, this advice sheet is about Xmas rather than birthdays, but the advice may be helpful.

Our 10 year old ASD/ADHD-er needs to be handled very carefully around birthdays (her own and other people's). We do as pp suggested - talk about gifts & plans a lot in advance. Minimise surprises etc.

With ADHD/Autism it's having the very clear boundaries in place in the first place which need to be discussed at a time when they are calm.

Expected behaviour needs to be made VERY clear. We have a list on our fridge of basic rules.

1. No hitting
2. No unkind language
3. Following instructions when asked to do something

etc...

There are then clear (and proportionate) consequences in place for breaking rules.

So if my DS had called his siblings idiots for asking for sweets, then that would be classified as unkind language, so there would be a consequence (sweets taken away for a few days).

My kids know that rule breaking will result in screen time being removed for 24 hours (or more).

There is no point trying to address these things until the child is calm as they cannot think straight or reason.

My son is nearly 8 and has never in his life said sorry. He finds it very hard to discuss what he has done wrong, but does at least accept the consequence. We are also on the long waiting list for assessment but school have him listed as SEN due to his additional needs.

I’d love to know the answer to this question and struggle daily to know what’s down to anxiety, autism, or personality.

I don’t get the specific insults that OP describes but get lots of rage directed at me and then when I say afterwards when both me and DC are calm, something like ‘that hurt my feelings’ I get back ‘I don’t care, I don’t want to talk about it.’

I understand the concept of a preteen with ASD feeling overwhelmed but struggle with the complete lack of emotional insight or willingness to explore any personal emotional experience on the part of my D because it makes me feel hopeless that there could be a change.

I also struggle with the absolute lack of empathy afterwards. It takes me hours to physically calm down and be less jumpy after I’ve been screamed at and in term time it’s daily morning and evening. Obviously my sleep is a disaster zone which doesn’t help.

I do know because I have complained about it to my DC that the incredibly critical tone and questions ‘Oh my God! what have you done that for?’ or ‘Why would you do that?!’ as though doing that thing was the most stupid and ridiculous idea ever…. are actually not meant to be rude. Just saying that here in case it helps any other parent of a child with ASD.

My DD is just asking (and she is feeling anxious and therefore it comes over as hostile). So there are definitely cases where the stress has meant ditching the normal tone and phrasing. We all do this so I get it. I’ve picked up on it afterwards (or at the time) and my DD assures me she isn’t being rude.

So then I say OK, just to let you know that for me, and maybe for some other people too, if you say things in that tone it comes across very hostile and hurtful, so if you could try not to do it or if you could say sorry afterwards, it would feel less hurtful to my feelings.

Then DD says ‘but I don’t care’ and I have checked back with her ‘OK so you don’t care how it makes me feel?’ And she says no and gets immediately stressed and says I am not allowed to talk about it, and if I make any sound she says I can’t talk at all. And then that makes me feel obviously much worse. So I don’t if that’s her form of remorse but it’s awful. And she’s never apologised for anything either, it’s always my fault or someone’s fault. It’s exhausting and depressing.

You've had some really good answers here.

One thing I'd add is along with "space to regulate" it helps when the child develops an understanding of meltdown/overwhelm, stress buckets, and is bought in to the idea of regulating to avoid them. They also need exec function skills to actually do it in practice, whether that is complying with your suggestion that they do, or (easier or harder depending on the child) instigating it themselves. When the whole family, including the child, is bought into the idea of space to regulate it is way more effective.

Going on a bike ride is one of my son's top strategies for regulating so stopping that would have been a really tricky flashpoint.

I'm not sure it matters what is the autism and what is "teenage" behaviour. Even if it's the latter, he's still (probably) an AuDHD person so discipline needs to speak his language. It doesn't mean just putting up with it, but focussing more on what happened before the incident, and having more of a conversation long after, once he is regulated again. And get him on side with the idea of regulating to avoid these crises.

My son had diagnosed ADHD years ago and he still had to behave in a reasonable way or face consequences. No screaming I hate you or he was sent to his room to reflect. If he hit or hurt someone he lost access to something he enjoyed. He grew up to be a man who can function in the world, hold down a job, has a lovely gf and is buying his own house. When he was a child I honestly could not see him ever achieving any of these things. He still speaks without reflection and has sound/smell/taste sensitivity issues but if we hadn't have been very firm with him I don't think he would be where he is today. The construction was very explicit we should not let him get away with bad behaviour as it would be harder for him later in his life.

I read Dr Ross Green s books The Explosive child and Raising Humans. Game changer for me.

I am lucky enough to have a local support group of neurodivergent adults with ND kids who get it and they help a lot. I wouldnt search for advice off mumsnet tbh .

As others have said, how you respond to the situation depends on your child and a lot of it is trial and error, although I think you do also need to be aware of what your child is actually capable of and having reasonable expectations.

I have one child with ASD and one with ADHD.

With the ASD child, once he is dysregulated any form of punishment will just escalate the situation and and lead to WW3. As soon as we see the first trigger for a potential meltdown, we need to get him somewhere quiet, he has some fidget toys he can use at home, or I give him a tight hug if we're out. If we continue to see signs that he's dysregulated then we plan our day for an expected meltdown. DP looks after our other kids and my attention is 100% on ds. The signs that my ds is building up to a meltdown look a lot like naughty behaviour, so someone who didn't know him well (supply teacher) would probably start punishing him. Since switching from punishing him to helping him regulate, we have noticed a huge reduction in meltdowns and violent behaviour. When I do have to punish him for bad behaviour, we agree on the punishment together. This works very well with him because he's so heavily focused on fairness that he will usually come up with something reasonable.

My adhd child on the other hand is beautifully behaved and the only 'naughty' behaviour he shows is obviously adhd related stuff, e.g. not being able to sit still, not doing what he's told (because his processing speed is so slow he can't remember instructions). I almost never punish him because I don't have to. The 2 children need completely different approaches.

@SuspiciousRinds When I’m frustrated / overwhelmed all tone, pitch, etc goes out the window. My normal speech is quite flat with limited tone/pitch but all my life people have told me I’m rude/sarcastic/cold in the way I talk so I’ve actually ended up having to study this stuff. My study was watching a ridiculous amount of television of supposed ‘normal’ interactions and basically copying and applying into situation I found myself in. Obviously that doesn’t work all the time though.

Saying things in the ‘correct, socially acceptable way’ is actually a really huge, mentally draining effort and it’s part of masking. But also, autistic children have to learn what those correct ways are. It’s not just being able to say the ‘correct’ words, it’s HOW to say them ‘correctly’.

I am still fairly rubbish at recognising what different tones, pitches, facial expressions actually mean. I am still fairly rubbish at recognising emotions in others, but have learnt some things. If you don’t understand what ‘that tone’ is or can’t recognise it, being told not to use it makes no sense.

Perhaps your DD also struggles with this and needs more input on recognising this stuff before she can actually learn to empathise. Saying ‘I don’t care, I don’t want to talk about it’ may be an avoidance tactic because she doesn’t really have a clue what you’re banging on about. Not understanding is a frustration and being expected to understand when you don’t because it’s natural for normal people is even more frustrating.

The sorry thing is also something that needs to be learned. I’ve learnt that even if I’m not really sorry and have no idea why on earth someone has decided I need to be sorry, I should just say it anyway to move things along, and stop them going on at me. Being made to say sorry for a person’s reaction to something perfectly reasonable (in my brain) I’ve said or done makes no sense. The classic is, “you made me feel….”. Well, no, I didn’t make you feel anything…..that’s how you responded so you made yourself feel like that. Or asking me a question, not liking my answer, then expecting a sorry. YOU asked ME. If you don’t want the answer then don’t ask me.

OK, just to let you know that for me, and maybe for some other people too, if you say things in that tone it comes across very hostile and hurtful, so if you could try not to do it or if you could say sorry afterwards, it would feel less hurtful to my feelings.

This is how my young teenage autistic brain would probably have interpreted this……
just to let you know = the following is for information only, can be discarded almost immediately as it probably serves no purpose.

For me and maybe for some other people = for me refers to you, not me so is about you. You’re telling me information about you that serves no real purpose. Who are these other people? And why should I care about them if I don’t even know who they are?

if you say things in that tone it comes across very hostile and hurtful = I have no idea what ‘that tone’ is. I didn’t use a tone. I used my normal voice. What’s wrong with my normal voice? I’ve already told you it wasn’t meant to be rude, but you don’t believe me. Why am I responsible for what you hear?

if you could try not to do it = stop being your normal self and pretend to be normal / mask for my and others benefit.

if you could say sorry afterwards = you should say sorry for being your normal self because other people will think you’re horrible because the way you say things is weird.

it would feel less hurtful to my feelings. = I already said it wasn’t meant to be hurtful or rude but you keep going about it and blaming me when you could just have responded differently without being all emotional about it.

Note the defensiveness about not being considered normal, getting things wrong in my mums eyes, being told I’m hurtful when it’s OBVIOUS I’m not being hurtful, not understanding what the hell you’re talking about and the catastrophising about how awful this means my own mum thinks I am and other people I don’t know. Etc etc.

It took me a LONG time to learn some of these things and I still get it wrong. I say sorry ALL the time now, for absolutely everything. I still don’t really understand the point of saying it if you don’t believe it’s warranted or you don’t mean it, but I do it just in case someone thinks me walking in the room when they’re in there is somehow a personal insult or me giving the factual opinion I was asked for is some terrible slight on them personally or if I’m slightly in the way even though they’re the one that stood there after I was there.

I am actually a really nice person and go out of my way to do things to help others. I’m just crap at communicating and sometimes get it spectacularly wrong. But all this ‘You make me feel’ stuff makes NO sense. Obviously it makes sense if I definitely said something nasty like ‘You are so stupid’ or ‘You are an idiot’ but if I just said ‘omg what did you do it like that for?’ Well, that’s just asking a question isn’t it? I haven’t specifically insulted you.

When calm get all the kids to draw up a list of rules and what the consequences should be if break them. When inevitably he does, de-escalate the situation by giving him space then follow through on the consequence.
Repeat repeat repeat!

Sorry, that was a bit jumbled. Hopefully some of it makes sense. Oh and obviously can interpret that a bit better now that I’m older and have learnt more about what people want from me.

I have a young adult son ASD/ADHD.
I find meeting their level of anger/frustration/anxiety, never helps the situation.
We also have younger ones too. Half the problems would come from them 'winding him up' So the asking for sweets thing would have totally happened in our house. And his reaction would come from being anxious that his siblings would eat all his sweets.
I think a lot of what has happened with your sons birthday has come from tiredness and anxiety. So I'd take some of the blame myself (I'm not saying this in a judgey way, I have taken the blame myself many times) It's a failure to prepare. The younger ones should be spoken to about not winding their brother up. So not to ask for sweets. Will your DS usually share? If not, talk to him about how its nice to offer. If he does, then reiterate to the younger ones to wait to be asked. How would any of us like to get a nice box of chocolates and then have other people asking for one straight away? It's not good manners.

He's a kid. Of course he wanted to go straight out on his bike. You should have planned for that.

I wouldn't punish your DS on his birthday. I would however have a talk to him about it. I'd tell him that you've let it go because it's his birthday and you know he was over excited. But that you are really hurt and disappointed. Talk to him. My DS is a lovely young man now. Yes, he has his moments, but he's really kind and considerate. I've never really 'punished' him for his emotions getting the better of him. I've only ever talked it through with him. I have always rewarded/praised positive behaviour and he thrives from that.

I'm honestly not meaning to criticise you. We've had plenty of situations like yours and it's helpful to work out what went wrong, so you can get to know your sons triggers and plan better for it in the future.

Unless a parent is talking to you on here who has a child with autism AND ADHD, ignore them if they say this just a discipline issue. It isn't.

Your son has fixated on what he wanted to do, while overstimulated, and no appeal to reason would likely have talked him down by the direct method of no, it's too dark, too early, too wet etc. Try not to take personally the comments either.

It's called distressed behaviour.

It isn't naughty behaviour.

It is the manifestation of the disability.

When he calmed down, was he apologetic and back to his usual self?

If so you've just gone thru an autistic meltdown.

If you accept that is what happened, then the thing to do is to read on distressed behaviour, meltdowns, and how to manage them.

I'm sorry it was a bad start to the birthday. Hope you can still enjoy some of it

@SalmonWellington we use CPS to a small extent but to be perfectly frank my DS doesn't have the insight into what was difficult for him and also does not care in the slightest that he injured someone or hurt their feelings because it's always someone else's fault (you hurt my hand by having a leg - when he slapped me on the leg; but you ARE an idiot; I don't care and I don't want to live with you any more; she HAS to play with me, she promised, she didn't say no so she wants to, when DD doesn't want to play because he's being rude but she is afraid to say no).
Consequences later also rarely work due to lack of future thinking - we tend to ignore rudeness (because responding reinforces it) and ideally take ourselves away from aggression, or if necessary give an immediate consequence.

@Fahbeep I'm not autistic and I don't have ADHD but my DS is NEVER apologetic unless he thinks it will get him something to apologise. He doesn't think he's done a thing wrong. He can be sweet and kind but it is never in any way apologetic or restorative.

His behaviour is definitely due to his condition but it isn't distressed - for example this morning at breakfast he poked me with scissors while we were both sitting eating quite happily but I had turned the radio back to my station after he asked Google to "play annoying music" as soon as he walked in the room. He knows he's not allowed to do that and the purpose of doing that was to get a reaction, as was the purpose of poking me with scissors.

I should add that immediate consequences or immediate rewards do work relatively well for DS - he's just come in from having his hair cut - which he usually copes with moderately well but it's not something he is ever going to have much intrinsic motivation for, and getting a doughnut afterwards was a great motivation.
We asked him to put coats/shoes back on their rack (he did mess some of them up earlier and we are also trying to get him to help in bits and pieces round the house more than he has been) and told him after he'd done it he could watch TV, he has done that after a bit of moaning and is now happily watching TV.

And he CAN be lovely and empathetic - just not apologetic. If you are ill, he brings you a drink of water, tucks you in under a blanket on the sofa etc. But if he hurts you it's your fault.