Does anybody else need to restrain their 6yo?

[BertieBotts]

It's only day one of the holidays :(

Does anybody else's 6yo (7 in Oct) have tantrums like this? After being told he couldn't go on the tablet until after lunch (which he already knew) DS pulled food off shelves and onto the floor, stamped his foot, shouted and threw things at me. I think he was semi in control, because he held off picking up totally hard plastic/glass/metal objects and instead went for bits of cardboard which he'd emptied out of a recycling bag.

I told him to go to his bedroom and calm down, which just escalated things, so I took him there. Sometimes in this case he will then go and stay but this time he kept opening the door and laughing manically and refusing to stay in, so I sat down on the floor and held him in my lap. (I know from experience that if I just ignore his coming back out he will come back and start throwing and pushing things over again, and holding the door closed just turns into a game which he finds hilarious). But I'm not that strong and he was having a great time fighting against me and I know his stamina will outlast mine so I ended up pinning him to the floor and sitting on him

Unfortunately that just led to a state where he swung between enraged screaming/crying and reaching for anything to throw at me, almost reaching something triumphant laughter and trying to stove my head in with whatever he could reach and frightened crying where he was saying "I can't breathe... let me go" (he could breathe, he was panicking though). :( I desperately don't want to push him into a state of panic because I don't think it's the right thing to do but if I let him go then he was just attacking me and going back into that destructive mode and I can't let him do that. I don't know what else to do!

Kept talking calmly/reassuringly to him to try and get somewhere. I suggested other things he could do to calm down. Eventually he got to a point where he was accepting of other suggestions and he agreed to sit and drink a glass of milk, which he did. Then he sat down and cried and we talked about it. He said he had three feelings: Annoyed, worried and scared. I told him I was sorry for making him scared and I didn't want to make him scared but that I needed to take control when he cannot control himself and I need him to help me think of another way I can help him calm down when he is getting really mad and throwing things because it is not okay to do that. I told him that I will do whatever I need to do to make him safe, he said it made him feel the opposite of safe. He says the only thing that I can do to calm him down when he feels like that is to give him what he wants. I said that is not an option. There are other ways to get what he wants, but also that sometimes the answer is just no and he needs to be able to accept that. (And mentally, I'm going why don't you get this yet? I've never given in to screaming violent tantrums ever.) I reminded him he can go and punch a pillow, count to 10 and breathe, splash cold water on his face, draw a picture of how he feels, if he starts feeling too angry and wanting to throw or push things. We had a long cuddle and he moaned about being bored and then he went off to do something else.

I am drained and exhausted and I need to know what I am supposed to be doing in this situation? And whether it is normal, because it doesn't feel normal. Thanks in advance if you read this far!

Wow, thanks Kleinzeit for a really detailed post :)

It's interesting to me that you say about not finding the distinction between tantrum and meltdown very helpful. This had always been my feeling, too. But lately I'd been wondering if I was wrong about that and trying to understand the difference. Argh! Sometimes it is so HARD and I keep thinking I'm just making stuff worse by overthinking and now you're making me backtrack on that a bit and think that my "overthinking" bit was probably right to begin with.

I don't know what he would do if I let him throw the cardboard. The thing is he's throwing it at me or hitting me with it so I don't feel like I can just ignore it - it just feels horrible to be hit even if it isn't very hard.

You know, although I am always recommending Explosive Child and have read bits of the website etc, I haven't actually read the whole book. I'll see if I can get hold of it. It's a bit of a pain to get English books where we are.

It was much cooler today and we had a good day. We even got everything we planned done although it was a bit topsy turvy :)

WRT to timetables, I struggle to keep to timetables myself so they tend to cause more issues, I have a very rough one for term time which works okay. I will have to rewrite it in September because all of the times are going to change with school etc. At the moment we are having success with the tickets for screen time (and no extra limitations on that) and a list of jobs which need doing so he can choose which jobs he wants to do, I do the rest, DH does some, DS can do extra for some bonus points. The list is on the tablet so he likes that he can tick them off and make it into a smiley face too.

Right. Weekend tomorrow! And bed for me now :)

Is this the same book Bertie?

Managing tantrums/meltdowns is a bit of an art and there’s no one-size-fits-all. I found a mix of things that helped –“ Explosive Child”, plus knowing the Aspie/autistic “rage cycle”, plus some mainstream time-out-type stuff. But sometimes bloody nothing worked and I had to batten down the hatches and wait for it to stop.

The thing is he's throwing it at me or hitting me with it so I don't feel like I can just ignore it

Oh right – that's different from generally chucking things around. My DS didn’t usually attack me unless I was right in his face. Yes being attacked feels horrible, dunno how best to manage that though – I’d probably walk away but who knows. I do think that’s one for professional advice. It may also get better once you know which particular cognitive or communication difficulties he’s having. For example he might have a processing delay, it’s common in kids with ASCs and ADD, and if so then adapting the way you give instructions might (sometimes!) help keep him calm. And when his speciifc issues are being managed he'll generallyfeel less angry / anxious / frustrated.

I like your list of jobs on the tablet. We had sticky notes on the kichen table. And our timetables were just the main things we were going to do that day, in order, like park/lunch/shopping/snack/TV. No times or anything.

There’s a kindle version of Explosive Child if you can get US amazon and you don’t need a kindle, just a reader app for your PC/tablet and an Amazon account.

I hope your DS settles in to the holidays and you all have a good weekend.

I have a UK kindle account, it's just empty of credit at the moment and doesn't take my German card, but I'm coming to the UK next week so will get myself a gift card to top it up.