When someone tries to discipline your child without your permission

[MonaRosa]

Hi All

My six year old has several challenges and is currently on the pathway for an autism assessment and also awaiting the results of some genetic testing. It has been more than 2 years since I first visited the GP with concerns. So this has been a tough couple of years for us, to say the least.

I dont know if he has autism or not, but he is on school’s SEN list and we are hoping his ASD assessment will happen before the end of the year.

Here is what upset me today. We were invited to a family barbecue, which I went with my son. I do love my family, but at times these events make me feel like an inadequate parent.

My cousins has kids (a bit younger than mine) and they are very much by the book in the way they raise their kids. Strict routines, sweets only allowed on very rare occasions etc. With the challenges with my son, all of that is out of the window!! That makes me very self conscious as a parent.

The last couple of times we have been with the family, my son started by playing nicely with my cousins’ kids, but ended up getting overwhelmed after couple of hours in full tantrum mode.

On both occasions, I feel like one of my cousin’s husband treated my son badly.

Today, his little cousin was provoking him quite a bit, and my son ended up hitting him with a ball. I know that’s really bad, but I think what my cousin’s husband then did it soooo unacceptable. Despite me being there, and trying to get my son to say sorry (which he refused in full tantrum and trying to hit me), the husband intervened and tightly held my son (very very tightly!!! ), without my permission or even bothering checking if I wanted him to.

I am so upset that he thinks this is OK, and upset with myself that I didn’t confront him.

I said, please let me deal with him, he is very overwhelmed. And his answer was “if you say so” with a hint of sarcasm.

I felt judged for failing to discipline my child. But I am now more upset that I didn’t say to him that he shouldn’t do that to my child.

What would you have done? This now makes me not to want to go these family gatherings as all the other children seem son”normal” and my son so “misbehaved”.

I am sure you can tell how upset I am, and questioning myself as a mother too.

sorry for the rant, and thank you

What do you do when your child hits you?

@MonaRosa I am sorry things feel so hard and yes it is exceptionally difficult to parent an ND child at times.

One of the things you will get to recognise is how much your son can cope with before he is overwhelmed, overstimulated and likely to struggle.

Have a reset if that's possible and come back or just go home and explain ahead of time that's the plan.

He won't like being removed from situations when he seems calm and happy but this is what you will need to do. Obviously that's trial and error and kids aren't predictable at all.

The other thing is he was already struggling and then there was the attempt to get him to apologise to his cousin. I get why, and partly I imagine it's because you were probably feeling very judged at that moment but what you needed to do was remove your son immediately from the situation.

What helps when this kind of thing happens? Quiet time, a walk, something sensory?

It sounds like your cousin didn't help but maybe he was trying to.

He wasn't hurting his child at the point the father intervened. He had no business doing this, and technically what he did was an assault.

@Uncooperativefingers

In order to be eligible for assessment a child will see numerous professionals often over several years before they reach assessment day. They will not be eligible for assessment unless there is already significant evidence. It may not be asd, it could be adhd, social/emotional delays etc.

The advice given from professionals is to parent an nd child , it can take years for diagnosis so it's important to get strategies in place as early as possible.

But it's bloody hard, unless you grow up with or work with nd kids your learning on your feet. Whilst being exhausted, overwhelmed and fucking scared. And on top of that you have other adults who have no experience themselves deciding they need to tell you your doing it wrong (often with no useful advice)

There's often limited to no support from school/services .

Sometimes you get it wrong , you miss judge the situation and all you can do is fire fight and learn for next time.

This parent needs advice from parents who know where she is right now not judgement from those who have no clue.

And any person who thinks is acceptable for an adult male to restrain a young child unless they are in significant danger of themselves or others needs to give their head a wobble.

Btw the child is 6.

Not acceptable from the brother in law imo. If he'd seriously thought that his child was still at risk, he could have removed his child from the situation while you dealt with yours. My child has never really been a hitter, but has been hit a number of times. It's not nice, especially when they're upset, but it happens. I just always keep my child close to me while the parent of the "hitter" sorts it out.

And yes, you were clearly having a "parenting fail", but we all have them. You were apologetic and trying to get things under control.

Despite me being there, and trying to get my son to say sorry (which he refused in full tantrum and trying to hit me

I'm guessing the cousins husband restrained your son as he was trying to hit you after he has hurt his son

It is hard but as other said you have to watch for triggers and a few hours sounds too much in this situation as has happened previously several times the same thing

Don't ratio taking your son to family stuff but watch him and after maybe an hour have some time out /away from other kids to relax and reset

Then join then again

Nothing wrong with routines and not having sweets all the time - I wouldn't call that strict

It is very hard dealing with a ND child.
Only as an adult was dd diagnosed with ADHD.
She was always very hard work but because she was well behaved at school and very clever, she was never diagnosed at school.
It took an unprecedented amount of effort from both me and her dad.
You absolutely need to put a tremendous amount of effort in to teach your child how to behave.
When dd was born, times were different. Only ‘naughty low achieving boys’ were ever regarded as having ADHD or autism.
This image stuck.
Bottom line op: you need to work much harder in disciplining your child. You need to teach your child right from wrong. You need to be at your child’s side, never allowing them the opportunity for this situation to arise again whilst your child is at this level. You have to instill coping mechanisms. It will be hard work I can tell you from experience but you cannot bat this off.
You have to intervene before your child gets violent.
You have to educate your child.
You cannot allow your child into the world without educating them.
If you don’t, your child will one day meet someone who doesn’t react calmly and nicely to them. They will face violence with violence.
I can’t comment about your cousin’s husband.
Was it the only time you’d child has threatened to hit you infront of him?
Was it the only time your child has hit his child?
I wouldn’t like what he had done either, but the difference is, I would have intervened or shown my child coping strategies long before it got to this meltdown.
I don’t want to come across as mean but what are you hoping a diagnosis will do?
Seriously in the big wide world most people don’t care about your child. What they see is a badly behaved child who’s parents Allie them to be feral.
A diagnosis is not a magic cure.
It explained many things for me but you have to deal with the hand you are dealt.
I second not going to family events until you have worked on strategies and reinforced over and over expected behaviour.
Children are not born with an inate knowledge of how to behave.
For future I would take toys/books items of interest with you. Maybe your own drink ( dd was only allowed water.) Keep an eye on what food is on offer. Dd ate home made meals such as fresh chicken and vegetables, all manor of crap food ( for want of a better word) was restricted. Even if this means eating before you go.
For the time being I would avoid contact with the family.
Just make up an excuse.
I would also restrict screen time.
Implement several calming activities such as colouring. Educational activities such as jigsaws and reading. Ensure plenty of exercise, walking whenever you can,
Good luck op. It’s a hard journey but I can tell you dd is a young adult and very successful she is a manager and takes no crap from anyone. She is very direct and doesn’t do social niceties as such which had helped her no end in her career.

You said your child was in the midst of hitting you. I’m wondering if the cousin intervened because of the hitting. I have a friend who is bruised and battered by her autistic son, it’s not pleasant to see.

I would try your best to get on top of him lashing out. It doesn’t just stop, they get bigger and it hurts.

So a family get together was ruined because your child can’t behave and it’s the other adult’s fault?

Restraining a child sounds like a pretty extreme reaction and not something an adult routinely does nowadays. Either the adult overstepped the boundaries, or your child was so violent that the adult felt he had to intervene.

Op what I wanted to get across is that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
You do have to work very hard at getting through the tunnel though.
I wish dd had been diagnosed before adulthood. She sort diagnosis herself as she always felt there was something not right/different.
Keep working in the strategies and although hard, try not to hold a grudge against your cousin’s husband.

But he does get aggressive though. He hit a younger child and then hit you. At the point whereby he hit the younger child, he should have been taken away immediately with no conversation until he was at a point whereby he could speak about his behaviour relatively calmly. He was likely already dis regulated when hitting the child so trying to force him to apologise at that point was only going to make things worse.
The other parent was protecting his child and preventing your child from continuing to hit you. Perhaps your child might remember next time he tries to hit you that Uncle John might hold him to stop him from doing it. Please don’t expect someone to stand by and watch another person being hit by an out of control child. You’re doing your child a disservice.

Your kid hurt their child, so their priority was to make sure that did not happen again and to make sure his child was safe.

It also sounds you were struggling to try to deal with the tantrum and the escalating behaviour and you relative probably wanted to help you and stop your child hitting you as well.

I would make sure that you talk to your family members and explain more about your child's condition and how you would like them to support you in dealing with it, which includes not trying to restrain your child themselves.

Not everyone is well informed on how to deal with ND kids.

@MonaRosa

Lots of people here offering advice without having autistic children - you can ignore most of what they say because without the lovyed experience of autism and an autistic child meltdown and how to handle it, they have very little insight

There are so many times as a parent of a autistic child that we look back and think 'oh god, I wish I handled that differently because I could have done better by my child" - all you can do is reflect and then plan for how to intervene and support your child going forward. So practice saying what you would like to have said, or what you feel would have prevented your BIL from stepping in, and also reflect on whether these events are the right places for your son at this point.

Op I say this kindly my son is autistic but I would never use his behaviour or tantrums as an excuse to hurt another child.
You simply need to remove him from the situation before it escalates you as his mother will know the tell tale signs that he's getting agitated and step in before it happens or if it does remove him immediately apologise let him calm down away from the crowd and then get him to apologise.
You are trying to fight fire with fire once that seals been broken your best bet is to always remove from the surrounds.

Your cousin shouldn't have touched your son but I can honestly say that sometimes as parents if we see our own children hurt all rationality flies out of the window in the heat of the moment.

@AllThatEverWas a lot of sense there.

Mine are older now. There's lots of situations I look back on and think "yikes, could have handled that better".

Ultimately, it is our job as parents to know our kids, manage situations and try to predict and plan for the triggers. And it does mean sometimes that there are places we can't go, or can only stay a short time.

People used to say to me "aww why are you leaving now, let them stay, they're fine" and I would absolutely know that while they were fine at that time, in 30 mins they might not be. Better to go when they are still fine! (Learnt this the hard way!)

OP seems to think her cousin's style of having routines and restricting sweets is overly strict parenting - our autie and AuDHD kids absolutely needed routine to feel safe and contained, and we didn't allow them unrestricted sugar either (and wouldn't have done so with NT kids). I guess we would have met the definition of strict parents too!

Despite me being there, and trying to get my son to say sorry (which he refused in full tantrum and trying to hit me), the husband intervened and tightly held my son (very very tightly!!! ),

It sounds as though he was trying to protect you from being hit. It's a natural and instinctive response on the part of another adult.

Unless you've provided family members with a full instruction leaflet on how to manage your child, you have to expect that they will respond protectively.

And yes, absolutely pointless, and actually inflammatory, to try to get your child to apologise. That comes later when he's calm.

I’m tempted to agree with this. I think it’s ok for children to learn that different adults react differently and discipline doesn’t just come from you. In some ways, it’s actually a support to you. Your son won’t have been harmed and will have learned something about the world today . Generally I’m not a fan of people touching other people’s children though

The child was trying to hit OP. The other father held him back from doing so. I imagine that the child struggled against being held, which probably caused the finger marks. It was not assault.

If I saw a known child trying to hit their parent, I'd step in too. Wouldn't you?

This post is so unfair. OP, pay no attention to these judgements on your parenting.

Parenting ND children is a whole other ball game (sorry!) from parenting NT children. People will judge and you will feel very lonely at times. In my experience, the rewards of parenting such children come later. Find strategies that help and look after yourself in the meantime.

It should go without saying that a grown man should not leave fingerprint marks on a child.

Years and years ago I was camping with a friend and her toddler was having a tantrum. I was too young to realise it then, but it was actually an autistic meltdown. To give my friend space, I offered to take him for a walk to see if I could distract him. A total stranger saw me with him 5 minutes later and clearly knew exactly what she was seeing. She stepped in and held him in a firm compressing hug. He gradually calmed down. I was so grateful to her and was able to tell my friend about it. I know it isn't the same situation at all, but I do often think about it now, in the context of 'it takes a village...'.
Since then, I have had my own kids, both ND. I totally feel you on the judgement, it's incredibly wounding and uncomfortable and one of the worst things about having kids who are different.

I think the op's son could do with parenting by the book!

Parenting a ND child is tough. Many of the parenting strategies that other parents use and even the strategies you use on your own NT children don't work.

The cousin probably thought he was being helpful. A tight grip hug is probably a tactic he's used on his own child if they're out of control.

I wouldn't be cross with your cousin, I'd just keep working on strategies to help your ND to cope with family gatherings. Don't stop going to them, just try different ways to help your DS to cope. For example only stay for an hour, keep checking in with him that he's ok, or taking him to a quieter corner for some time out if he needs it.

Treat your DS 'as if', the formal diagnosis is likely only going to confirm what you already know. All parents do things differently. It's all trial and error. You'll figure out the best strategies to support your DS, it just takes time.

It sounds like your BIL was trying to help you with your son who was trying to hit you and had just hit his son. He may have been going about it in the wrong way (e.g. perhaps you know other techniques which work better or fit better with your philosophy) but in essence he was trying to help. I'd approach it from that stand point. Hey BIL, thanks for trying to help earlier, I'm finding things hard with DS and we're having him assessed for ASD. Things I've found work are ...

FWIW I was trained in how to safely restrain a child when I was a primary school teacher and had to do so only once when a child was trying to run into traffic (I suspected he was ASD, but his mother refused assessments). It is sometimes a necessary thing to do if a child is putting themselves or others in danger.

I