To voluntarily put my child into care

[Crumplesock]

We are at the point now where we think we may need to either put our eldest into the care system or seperate and live in 2 seperate homes to keep our children apart for fear that the eldest will seriously harm the younger two children. However, I'm not sure how we will actually finance two seperate homes (even 2 x 1bedroom flats).

Our son is autistic with a PDA profile. We are low demand parenting, and he does not attend school after being excluded and we are following his lead in Home Education. We followed the At Peace Parenting Course (which is amazing and so insightful, if not a little crazy on price!) but she told us we need to radically accept that this is our son's disability, this is part of it and we need to accommodate it. She shared how her family had to live sperately for a while. We are being advised by all the professionals that we are doing all we can for our son's needs and are accommodating and parenting him in line with his disabilities. But I just feel so broken at it.

As our son is getting bigger, his level of aggression is increasing and becoming harder to manage. We attempt to keep the children separated at all times but this is hard when there is only 1 parent at home and all 3 do need to be watched constantly.

Our other two children, and us parents too, are receiving multiple injuries daily.

Our son has taken to doing home workouts, which is absolutely brilliant and I want to encourage a healthy lifestyle but his strength is crazy. I've witnessed him do 20+ pull ups, he can now lift 1.5× his bodyweight in a Deadlift. I spoke to him about this passion of his and he said its so he can always make sure he is the strongest and to make people scared of him.

I know deep down there's a scared boy in there, whose doing this as a reaction to school trauma and being pushed around by school bullies (he had it quite bad). But it also terrifies me at how he is stronger than me and it won't be long before he levels with my husband.

I have spoke to Social Sevices today who has said they'll get a support package and stated that this is Child-on-parent (and sibling) abuse and that they do need to safe guard our other children

I was going to mention this, a friends DS attended a boarding school in the week and it was life changing for the family.

I am so sorry you're faced with this situation and I hope SW really hears you.
I can only add my experience
My DS took out his anger on DS2 and DS3.
SS recognised he was a safeguarding risk( assessed but no SN surprisingly)
He was removed the day he attacked DS2 with a screwdriver at 15.
Younger ones were 12,8 and their feelings were taken into account stayed with me and healed with their input.
Please don't feel guilty about taking all advice on board.
Your children's safety is paramount.
DS1 also refused school for a year

Those children need to be living separately urgently. The damage to the younger ones will be life long. I have first hand experience of this.

Has he had any sort of therapy to help him process his trauma? I don't know if that's possible for someone with autism and PDA.

Is he on anything for anxiety?
we had similar here fluoxetine reduced the aggression and violence by 99%.
if it hadn’t I would have gone the residential school route as I wasn’t prepared to sacrifice my other DCs childhood.

YANBU. He is potentially causing the same trauma he has, if not worse, to his younger siblings.

Have they said what care options might be available?

I grew up in a home completely dominated by my elder sibling, who was violent, spiteful and manipulative.
I was thumped most days, even knocked out by them. My friends were frightened too.
My parents mostly denied after each attack that anything was happening, even when their bones were broken.
My sister and I were not protected from them. We’ve never really recovered.

If they had been removed somehow from the household, I think it would have felt like heaven.

I'm so sorry you are facing such a potential decision.
I'vw worked with children who have severe autism (some of whom have have a PDA profile) for many years, and I know that unless you have experienced the level of violence that a small child can inflict, you wouldn't understand. We've had staff hospitalised. I've sustained injuries that were photographed precisely because they demonstrated why a particular child needed 52 week residential support. The parents couldn't have been better, more proactive, more supportive... but their child was dangerous.
Often in residential the child thrives, the routine, the set up is designed to meet their needs. It's hard to get but not impossible.

You do need to protect thr younger ones and if care elsewhere is the way forward..for now, not necessarily forever, it's ok.

Also, what will happen when nursery workers and teachers at school start noticing the bruises and bumps and reports it? Does it count as domestic abuse when it’s caused by an older sibling or will social services not force action in those cases?

Would it help to look at it from another angle? What would be the long-term effects on him if he seriously injured (let's talk worse case here) one of his siblings or you or his dad? I'd imagine it would destroy him. So, you're not simply looking at options to keep the younger two safe, you're looking at ways to keep him safe (from himself and his actions).

I must admit though, I thought you were talking about a teenager with the weightlifting etc, I'd be trying to discourage that at such a young age.

Can you access a direct payments budget to enable you to have some support at home? I don't know if this is possible but it's worth asking.

The siblings need protection. I’ve been the younger sibling. Where is your concern for them here?

OP, my heart goes out to you.

This is really not the point of the thread but please remove all weight training equipment and the pull up bar.

Aside from the fact you are allowing a violent child to.get stronger, it's not good for him. His body is still developing and he could do it enormous harm by using this equipment

I’m sorry this was your childhood. It’s similar to mine.

I have more experience with this that you know.

My child was like the OP's child.

I also had a younger child.

He may need to be removed if strategies are put into to place to meet his needs and it continues. Alternatively he may be able to be supported within the home which is what happened with my son. We were able to keep our youngest safe whilst our eldest was healing.

They now have a good relationship. She is 15, he is 18 and thriving at university. There is now not a violent bone in his body it was 100% a trauma response.

I had advise like the one you are giving on here when he was 10. I'm glad I stuck to my gut instincts to protect both of my children.

I'm so sorry you are going through this. Yes I think you have to prioritise the safety (and also happiness and development) of your younger children. If he is getting so big and strong he can hurt you and his father then yes he can't be in the house anymore. This is sad for him as he has additional needs but his needs can't mean you all get hurt. It is great you have spoken to social services and they know the younger children need safeguarding. Being in separate houses would be a little better than the current situation but it would deny your younger children a live-in parent and leave that parent very vulnerable to attack being alone in the house with him.

My middle son was very difficult and violent and we also went the route of separate households at the time. He stayed with his father who could better protect himself. Now my son is a lovely gentle giant and grew out of it but for a long time he was bloody awful. My son has ASD but can cope better now he’s an adult and can be more independent.

It’s good that you were able to make it work for you but presumably the violence stopped? In this case it’s gone too far already- no four year old should be living in fear in his own home. It would need to stop immediately for it to be okay for him to stay.
It’s good that your daughter now gets on well with her brother and was kept safe.
However, there are multiple people one here who have told of their deep trauma from being forced to live with violent siblings.

I have absolutely zero experience here but my first instinct is that your other children deserve a home that is safe. Even running two households is not ideal for them.

Your son is only 8 and that just sounds terrible to have to deal with as a mother. But I just don’t see how keeping him at home can be at the expense of your other two kids wellbeing. It’s just not fair to them.

You need to find a way to run two separate homes. You cannot just 'put him into care'. It's not the state's responsibility to parent your child.

Sorry, meant to say. Social services told me to get on with it. I got no help from anyone. Had to call the police numerous times and they were condescending and awful as well. WE just got passed around and referred here and there until we sorted it ourselves by running two households at great expense.

Sending hugs.

Anyone who says try to live with it, isn’t living your life.
I know someone who applied for their child to go into secure accomodation living, as they could no longer cope, and I don’t think that their child was violent.

Do what is best for you.

My friends sister was brought up separately away from her siblings due to severe mental illness, as an adult, she lives in a type of sheltered accomodation

In this situation it should be