DS3 is 6, he's always been a challenging child but the last couple of months he's become unbearable at stages. He regularly screams at the top of his lungs for 20 minutes at a time (pause, then restarts), kicks, punches, bites me or his siblings. He's currently trying to break his door down.
Today I picked him & his siblings up from school (he's a twin so there's DD 6, DS1 11 and DS2 8) to take them all to soft play 5 mins away in the car as a treat. On the way out of school, DS2 was telling me about his star of the day award and DS1 was humming a tune he'd made up that day. That was it. He started screaming 'stop it' at the top of his lungs and as we continued towards the car I ignored him so he started kicking me and hitting me. I tried to hold his arm so he couldn't so he tried to bite me instead. All the while yelling full tilt at all of us. By the end of the street, he'd started calling us idiots and he hates us, then 'I'll kill you, I'll kill you all'. It took 20 minutes to get him into the car with his belt done up, he hit ds1 over the head with a full water bottle with no provocation and ds1 went for him so I had to break that up. He hasn't stopped screaming, shouting, threatening or attempting violence since then. I had to abandon the trip obviously and ds1 was very upset as we'd arranged to meet his best friend there.
This kind of behaviour has been going on since November, although in the years before that he was just as likely to tantrum a lot & at times has made family life a misery. His older brother ds1 was diagnosed with Aspergers about 6 months ago, and they're certainly quite similar in some ways. DS1 at about 7 become quite aggressive too. I have spoken to school about him a few times, in Reception the teacher agreed with me that he had some ASD traits but in Year 1 he doesn't seem to be exhibiting the same issues. Over the summer he showed no signs of this behaviour and was a pleasure to be with, so I assume that school is stressful for him in some ways although he's very bright and top of the class along with his sister. He has never shown this behaviour in school although ds1 didn't either until he was about 9.
Although I know a bit about ASD obviously with one child already diagnosed, I can't really tell if this is what is likely to be ds3's problem. He doesn't seem at present to have any social or communication issues (ds1's primary problem), obviously he's very rigid and my guess is there are some sensory issues, particularly auditory. He's quite young for us to be looking for a diagnosis and we've only just finished the 18 month process with ds1. We just don't know what to do. When he's not behaving like this, he can be the sweetest, most helpful, lovely little chap & I try to make sure I tell him I love him when things are calm. A month ago, I really lost it and smacked him several times, it was awful and I felt I'd lost his trust for ever. He's obviously angry with me although I have been super calm with him ever since it wasn't the first time I had smacked him so I feel I'm to blame in some way with my actions. It isn't the right way to manage him, but after several years of this I don't know how to deal with him. I am reading the explosive child, I try to be flexible with him as I know that helps but he still kicked off today (and before & after school every day last week....). Help?!!