How common are 5YO boys rages?!

[sparkout]

DS will be 6 next month, gets stressed quite easily and if I can remove him/the stress he is ok but once a week or so he can totally loose it, kicking, throwing stuff, trying to head butt or bite me or his Dad. We end up carrying him upstairs and putting him in his room as 2 yo DD gets scared. We are wondering if he has aspergers but if he does it is very mild, we have a referal to camhs but the rages have only started in the last 6 months which has co-incided with family stress. He is usually such a kind and gentle boy, would never hurt or harm anyone although he would verbally have a go if he was cross but never anything pysical but when he gets to a point he just flips.

Is this something that could be considered normal behaviour or is it extreme...in other words does anyone elses usually gentle DS do this??!!

My 9 year old son (ASD/ADHD) can be like this in response to stress. He is very verbal and usually very loving, kind and gentle.

If he gets distressed the usual form at age 9 is to stomp upstairs, slam his door and kick or headbutt things. It does not last long thankfully.

So your DS may or may not have Aspergers but at age 5 he lacks the ability to communicate his stress to you in a more appropriate way. I think you do the right thing in removing him from the situation until he calms down.

Do you discuss it with him after? It might help to ask him where he felt his anger (my son talks about "fizzy fingers") and if I draw a body outline will often colour in the hands and the chest with a deep red colour. I have got better over the years at picking up the cues which helps.

I think you are doing all the right things.

What do his school say?

My son 6 does this too, it is improving. School sat he's no trouble at all there.

I home ed him at the moment so no school input. We are doing lots of work on anger and how it actually "feels" as he literally seems to be able to express "happy" and "sad" which seems to basically be anything that isn't happy. He can't tell the difference really between sad and cross

Okay sparkout, so he is struggling with recognising emotions. This could be indicative of autism or Aspergers although not definitely because he could just be immature as boys sometimes are.
Did you say he was due to be seen by a community paediatrician?

Even if he does not have Aspergers, the behavioural management stuff used with Aspergers/Autism can be used very successfully with children who are not on the spectrum.

My son sounds very similar to yours and for a long time I didn't think of autism/ Aspergers as he was verbal, loving, affectionate etc. only the rages, the fears and the sensory stuff told me he was developmentally different.

I want to say again that you sound as though you are doing all the right things to help him.

It's worth looking up Tony Attwood who has done a lot of work on Aspergers, even if your DS does not have Aspergers there will be stuff there which will help you find ways if helping your DS recognise emotions etc.

My son was like this, actually still is, but I'm noticing him trying hard to keep his temper more recently. He is 6y2m.

I've sometimes wondered about AS with him, as he gets far more upset about things not being 'just so' than his sister (3y3m) does.

Like your son, when not raging, he is very sweet, quite studious, and really gentle with animals.

Good luck with your boy, I'm sure he's gorgeous and will learn to express himself in time.