To introduce a tablet to Autistic 5 YO?

[13MAPARTHELL]

It sort of pains me that I am considering this, but my child has PDA & ASD, simply put, we cannot do activities in the house, due to low frustration tolerance & violence.

He enjoys puzzles, but we cannot do these anymore, they get snapped, and thrown and all sorts.

hes very behind at school, and due to his extreme need for autonomy, essentially wont listen or retain if told directly.

i have a samsung tablet (for uni) he has used it maybe twice? He is not bothered and does not ask for it etc, but i am often alone, with 2 kids the same age, and it’s extremely hard my other child safe.

this could help his PDA, as although i am ultimately in control on what goes on there (no youtube) he gets to select (autonomy)

it may help him to regulate? Tv helps him massively to calm down, distraction and regulation / im in the midst of excessive research and psychological input about how to deal and reframe my parenting, and I need him regulated to even start to bloody consider tactics due to safety

I'd use it. It's not the best thing for him. But your other child and you deserve the break. You cannot pour from an empty cup as the experts say - though mostly without suggestions on how to refill the cup. As pp say my kids have access all the time. I'd have lost my marbles completely without it.

It really is predominantly to keep him distracted from my other child, who is terrified of him.

I completely understand, during meltdowns I do have to hold him down now and restrain him as he does become extremely violent in these episodes. I will try this thank you!

Honestly, you’ll always get judgmental comments, but loads of parents let their kids use a tablet. My four‑year‑old has one. We think she might have ADHD, but either way, it gives us a bit of breathing space and it gives her some calm time. She’s still a happy, active, chatty little girl just with parents who have a bit more emotional energy left in the tank!

Explosive chidl! I have read this its a great read!

oh 100% they can flip at any given moment I also really struggle to see a pattern or trigger alot of the time as these can be internal, and due to their sensitivity it could be literally anything! I.e i want someone to walk to the right and they walked to the left - literally 😭

like today, he woke up on a war path, threw cereal on the floor, kicking shit around, sometimes he is in a mood where he sets out to purposefully break every social expectation of things that you should not do!

probably because he dosnt want to go to school i can imagine

its not even safe for my younger child to walk past him unattended as he will take the opportunity if presented with it

@stealthninjamum The Explosive Child. Good shout.

The idea of doing a course is a good one, it's better for your mental health I think to go somewhere else and get some solidarity than trying to concentrate on books after a solid 14 hours of full-on parenting all by yourself. If you work, it's the sort of thing employers can be happy to accommodate you juggling hours round etc. It's an easier sell than getting time off for therapy.

I'm sure this sounds so trite but for us things have got less explosive, more predictable over the years. Our son is 17 and is still telling us things that he experienced when he was little but didn't have the words to say then. We have been through some very tough times and 14/15 brought its own substantial challenges, but there has been a real shift away from the unpredictability over the years.

My PDA daughter does have access to a tablet or games on my phone. I held off for a long period but honestly whilst it has pitfalls it has been a bit of a game changer as I can use "temptation bundling" to get her to do tasks that she absolutely couldn't do, that would involve hours of screaming and mental breakdown, such as teeth brushing. From being completely unable to do a lot of these regular demands, she is now sometimes even able to do them without the pull of a phone or a tablet which is basically life changing. I think essentially this restrained her to be able to tolerate some things.

She also gets some general access to it, though not unlimited. Surprisingly, she doesn't always gravitate towards mindless crap - yesterday she was watching instructional videos on how to draw various things and has drawn a series of really quite good sketches. Not only that but she has even managed to get herself beyond her own meltdowns when the sketches have gone wrong, with minimal snapped pencils and ripped paper and again I see this app as actively contributing to the frustration tolerance she naturally has been seriously lacking in.

There are certain things on the tablet that are dysregulating that I wouldn't allow. YouTube kids for example. Anything with a scrolling element. But audio books, curated TV shows, games and educational apps seem to be working out.

Also one of the most massively regulating activities for her is playing Animal Crossing on a Nintendo Switch. You get to design your own home, build up little educational collections and then slowly build up various types of points to expand your home and possessions. It's giving her massive injections of autonomy and teaching her about things like working and saving. It carries positively into real life.

I don't disagree with others that things like outside time are hugely regulating, but we need many tools in the arsenal for dealing with a condition as challenging as PDA!

This.

I don't think YABU to consider giving it to him - it sounds extremely difficult. But the truth is that it is a tool to help you, more than it is to help him. That is valid. You need to survive as well. But it needs to be treated that way and absolutely minimised to when it's essential.

Other than having a more regulated and relaxed mum (maybe - depending on whether it cause meltdowns when it has to end!) - I don't think there is really much good that can come for the child from giving him a tablet.

I also think this will make things worse longer term, and probably cost you in broken tablets.

My ASD DD is fortunate to be quite articulate, she describes the kind of calm from a tablet as a feeling of being dead inside, not a nice kind of calm like things are actually better.

She can luckily now regulate herself to be pretty unaffected by her ASD, something I never imagined when she was at nursery. It's all proprioceptive input - cold showers, hard running up hills, cold water swimming, punch bag etc. It gets her out of her head and into her body.

I'd try everything else first, even if something like spending an hour on the roundabout in the rain feels harder at the time. Also, don't ask what they like, if they feel better, just make mental notes about how they seem - the asking is too much responsibility at this age.

Good luck, it's impossibly hard and nobody is judging you to want an easier solution, you sound like an excellent mum.

Would you have room for a small indoor one? His school has one of these for this reason - if a child needs to regulate they go and bounce for a bit!

The other thing OP that is essential to your survival is getting proper school accommodations in place. There is no silver bullet with PDA but at my DDs school all the staff are very on board with her needs now and she gets a lot of flexibility around clothes, timings, activities and so forth. It has meant that at least there isn't an immediate screaming meltdown every day right after school, and that most days she can attend. With all the interventions in that world at home, you still can't compensate for the distress happening at school.