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

He has been out of school since February and beleives that we will never put him back in school

Oh you poor soul, I cannot imagine being in your predicament.
I'm sorry you don't really have many options. You have to consider his siblings in this.
Sending you massive 🫂 💐 x

I have only had tiny glimpses of this from the outside and the glimpses that I have had conform what you say.

Not helpful🙄

An option that you could consider is a weekly specialist boarding school. That way you all get some respite and he still gets the security of home life.

I feel for all of you, it's just a horrific position to be in. Personally, thinking rationally, I would likely go down the care route simply because what you are doing is not sustainable in the long term and could seriously damage you, your marriage abd/,or your other children.
I wish you good luck, whatever you choose.

I know this is not at all what you want to hear and completely against all the PDA/low demand principles but we were close to this and we have turned a corner.
We do NOT practice low demand parenting (we never really did but we tried Ross Greene's Plan C for a lot of things) because
a) it is never ever possible to remove all triggers - I remember at a point when we were trying to plan C things, DS asked what was for tea, there was no expectation to eat it or like it - and he didn't like the answer so he threw a china cup at me.
b) research shows that accommodating anxiety/difficulties makes it worse.

I am not going to go on about what we did except it involved both medication (ADHD meds) and us changing how we did things and life is radically different.

If you want to know more, feel free to ask (or search my name).

Please look at the residential SEN schools that offer a 24 hour rolling circulum. This is aimed at not only educating a child with ASD but to also give them life and social skills to improve their chances of a happy adult life. NO it is not easy thing to even be considering but my eldest DS when we FINALLY won funding from CAHMS and the education authority fought staff then positively thrived in a very specialist school setting. He had the choice to stay over or come home at weekends. Sometimes he did other times he did not because he wanted to take part in the fun thing his school had on. National Autistic Society should be able to signpost to current specialist schooling. My son did not see it as being dumped but finally being in a school setting that got him, made steps to help with his poor communication and had the correct risk assessments in place to safely manage his then explosive and dangerous behaviours.

I opted for that route as it was clear my DS then was a serious risk to his younger siblings and it was that or consider placing my younger kids elsewhere as his psychiatrists warned they would be far easier to place than son. (Secure respite placements refused to have him)

TBH a you may have to ask for him to be taken into care to stand any chance of accessing real support.

Absolutely!
The youngest living in fear of violence is appallingly sad.

As PP said- so many families sacrifice themselves at the altar of the violent child, and the others suffer the fallout.

Younger children brought into the violence, who didn't choose to be born into it.

An 8 year old deadlifting weights is insane.

Residential care saved the life of a mother - her son was being so abusive to her that her life was in serious danger.

Her son {older teen} lives in a residential unit and is very happy there. {His mum can go and see him, but it means she's not in physical danger of being killed bu her own son. It was that severe.
It does make one wonder if these males go on to be a danger to women in future- Or if they have to live their lives in some form of residential care where there are staff shifts 24/7.

This. He is far too young to be doing weight training!

That's exactly what I was trying to say. In the right setting a child can really get the help needed. With a strong team and family and friends all involved it can be very positive.
A good home will fully involve the family , which they sould do anyway as you have (PR).
You don't want there to be a major incident when one of your other children get hurt and he's carted off by the police. Or S.S make the decision to have him removed as the other children can't be kept safe.

OP, why is he lifting weights? He is only 8!

It sounds like an impossible situation to be in, but I think you need to protect your 2 younger DC. They should absolutely not be abused by their sibling. What your 4yo told you is absolutely heart breaking.

He has play equipment at home that he access to, he can do pull ups on that (imagine monkey bars). He doesn't weight train, but we have calculated what he can lift. He enjoys doing push ups and running exercises etc. A lot of it appears to be a way he self regulates

Can I ask what consequences you put in place when DS is violent or aggressive?

Have you seen an OT, this is sensory seeking.

I have seen that some OT's recommend this kind of activity for sensory seekers.

Www.specialneedsuk.org/findaschool.asp

This is a good starting point for seeing what is out there in terms of specialist boarding. Flexi or weekly boarding might be an option and would be less drastic than full boarding, and having time apart might make things easier for you all. It sounds a really hard situation.

I have a friend who is blind in one eye. She worked in a unit like this, until a six year old stabbed her with a pencil. Small does not mean incapable of great harm.

Really!!!. I'm more than happy for my taxes to contribute to his care.

YANBU. As cruel as it sounds, your son sounds like he may be a sociopath in the making. Not just autistic, or PDA or whatever. That's irrelevant. You describe him trying to poison classmates, getting immense enjoyment out of harming animals and bullying his younger siblings.

You've tried your best to love and care for your son, to show him patience and to treat him well. But its clear his presence is a danger to you all.

He may try to manipulate you to say hes sorry, hes traumatised, he will change etc etc. He won't change. Because this is not naughtiness or autistic behaviour. I've seen and heard it all, and I know that this behaviour is indicative of a lifelong disturbance that can only lead to a very dangerous adult.

Unfortunately, you need to put yourself and your other children first and keep them safe. The most loving thing you can do is to send him to care and say goodbye to him. You are not a fialure of a parent for doing so. Its not cruel. In fact, its the best thing for everybody's safety.

Sending my love to you all .

Gosh that’s awful.

That is not how PDA works.

PDA children can still be disciplined and taught right from wrong.

Oh my god 😱

Sorry you are going through this. I have a teen who is violent towards me and their (disabled) sibling. There is no care route we have been told. SS put the onus on us to keep the sibling safe. We are just instructed to call the police whenever my teen is violent (to 'scare' them). We are at the point of looking into splitting the family up. I'd be very surprised if SS stamp up the money for care. I think you need to consider other options as the care is not realistic in my experience. If it costs money, they will fight it.

If he's only 8 and is physically harming a one year old and a four year old every day he needs to be removed from your home not as a punishment but to ensure the safety of those two children and so that he can be safely confined and looked after every minute and every second by carers and professionally trained people.

As he gets older and bigger the violence will escalate especially when teenage hormones kick in.

You simply cannot protect your children from him anymore and it's time to accept that him living at home just isn't going to work.