I'm dreading my son coming home tonight.

[BeautifulLiar]

Please be gentle - I do feel very guilty!

Backstory: he's almost 9, has ASD, and is moody, miserable, negative, argumentative, aggressive to his sisters and finds fault in everything. He can moan about anything. He barely eats anything. I obviously try to impose time limits etc with his gaming time but he is foul if he's not in front of a screen.

He's been at his grandparents' for a week. I thought I'd miss him but I don't at all :( the girls have played beautifully together, aren't bothered about screens and are generally very happy and positive people. They haven't been shouted at or pushed or pinched. I haven't had to referee 1000 arguments a day. I haven't found my son awake watching TV at 4am meaning he is shattered and in a horrible mood the next day.

I'm a single mum and their father isn't bothered. He hasn't seen the DC for two months, doesn't pay for them. So I don't really get a break.

How can I prepare for him coming back and make things run more smoothly?

Don't feel guilty - it sounds hard work. Can you sign him up for some sort of activity during the hols? If you are single parent to 3DC you may get funding for this sort of thing? Or alternatively could the girls go and do some sort of activities?
Maybe try and have a sort of routine for the hols - I know that is the best thing about being off school is not having to to same things same days etc.. but he may be struggling with lack of routine?
Sounds a bit rubbish his Dad is not interested. That might be part of the issue rather than it all being down to being ASD.
Have some

Four DC 😲

I usually do sign them up for various activities but there isn't much round here, he's negative about 99% of things anyway and I'm trying to save EVERY penny to be able to move out of here.

I also thrive on routine so that's probably not helping! We've spent most days going to the post office as I've been selling things on eBay to raise funds. He'd rather just stay in all day and watch TV!

Thank you. Yes, he's been through a lot :( he was very angry when exH left last year. He has calmed down a lot and was having counselling at school but it must still affect him. He constantly says how he hates having all sisters and wants a brother :( like there's anything I can do about that!

Possibly completely irrelevant as I do not have a child with ASD, so I just wrote down some ideas that could help/have helped our family.
I found that excessive screen time - either TV or devices equalled really ratty children who were narky and unpleasant. So perhaps that is a bigger problem than you might think.

I understand the challenges of setting time limits, but did you persist for a solid period of time? Or did his attitude just wear you down? It took us about a month to see the change in our kids and for them to accept the rules, but it was well worth it. And it has become automatic for them now 3 years into it.

Could you link good behaviour with TV time? Especially stopping it when he hurts his sisters - because that needs to stop, disorder or not. The bigger he gets, the more harm he can do to them as I'm sure you are aware.

You could take the power cable of the TV or the remote to bed with you , or even flip the fuse if your wiring system works that way. That would stop the late night unsupervised TV viewing. And take all the devices to bed with you as well.

Do you have any adult male friends or family members who could spend some one on one time with him regularly?

That's all I have. And try not to feel guilty, I think you have enough to cope without adding guilt to it all.