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

I think you need to get clearer and quicker with what you want to happen. So as soon as the meltdown begins or at the first sign of trouble you say

X has asd please leave us alone for a bit while he calms down. I prefer to deal with this myself in the way the professionals have advised.

You have then told them what is expected. I would also maybe attend for shorter periods of time.

I've been on MN for a long time and these threads come up regularly.

Your child is only six; plus his family should understand that he has challenges. As a parent of NT children it can be hard to understand how different some children can be, and that what works for your child won't work for them all.

Hopefully they want to support you. In your shoes I'd try to explain calmly but strongly to the rest of your family about the challenges that your son has, what sort of behaviours can trigger a meltdown and what will actually make things worse. That is the way he is and at the moment he cannot keep control - he is a small child himself. You will always do your best to watch to intervene when something may trigger him, and you'd be grateful if they could watch too and let you know if they observe anything themselves. Prevention is best. But also please let you deal with any meltdowns, you know best and 'typical' parenting responses may just make things worse.

OR get them to sign up to Mumsnet. I have learned so much over the years. Previously if a saw a 'big' child tantrumming I would have been judgemental - my DC didn't do that, nor any of their friends- I get it.

This.

You could always try and adequately parent your child, then other people wouldn’t step in. Don’t start making his pending autism an excuse for bad behaviour.

Of course it is not OK for him to hit others (whether one has ASD/NT or not) and I would never say that.

I am working hard (may be not always succeeding) to find ways to manage his behaviour and teach him to manage his emotions and be kind.

It is not as straightforward with him though as it was with my NT older child

If the younger child had hit yours what would you have done? Stepped in to protect your child, separated them?is that not what your cousin did?

I would have told the younger child that we don’t hurt others and take my child away from him. I wouldn’t have restrained him.

But that wasn't why your child was restrained. The other adult held him tight because he was having a meltdown and trying to hurt you.

You really have to start seeing this incident from his point of view.

I taught autistic children in special schools for several decades. I used to advise parents in this kind of situation with families, to share the behaviour plan with them, or simply to say "the professional advice we've been given is to manage a meltdown by ..... It might seem unusual to you, but so far it's working, and we trust the (teacher/psychologist/expert) to know what they're doing"

If he really wanted to protect his child then he would have removed his own child from the scenario, not grabbed hold of yours. Your son was having a tantrum and hitting you, not trying to hurt anyone else, so his child was in no danger that simply picking him up and carrying him away wouldn’t have solved.

So he either restrained your son because he was trying to help, or out of anger. You’re best placed to judge that as we weren’t there. Obviously an adult man leaving finger marks on a child out of anger is completely unacceptable- how did he react afterwards?

... And again, don't force an apology mid meltdown. Apologise to the child or parent (I'm really sorry I wasn't able to stop that happening) and let them know that your child will be sorry too, when be calms down.

In general conversation, again you can pre-warn the family that you've been told not to press an apology when your son is diaregulated, as it will only make the meltdown even longer, and the family will have to endure it for even longer. But you will ensure that amends are made when things are calm.

Thank you. I appreciate that. The difficulty is that we don’t have any steer on how to manage his behaviour. I have of course tried to do some reading etc. but the reason I am waiting for his assessment is that if he gets diagnosed, I will be offered a place on a training course for parents. And I do really hope that may help me

Yes, that's hard. But please don't wait for a diagnosis. There are informal parent groups (often run by autism charities) that anyone can join. So do look out for those in your area. There are often professionals on those groups who can advise on strategies while you wait.

If you go to the special needs branch of Mumsnet and say where you live, you might be able to connect with one.

Also please see my post just above your last one, about apologies. You can put that in place straight away.

I will do that, thank you

Strict routines, sweets only allowed on very rare occasions etc. With the challenges with my son, all of that is out of the window!!
A routine is possible, you sound very lax and using his possible SEN as an accuse to not parent.

To be fair to OP, at this stage of the journey with a child who appears to have autism, it's extremely difficult to know how to parent them, because the usual methods often inflame the behaviour, rather than calming it.

I agree that routines can be helpful for many such children. But with the caveat that for some, it's the opposite.

Yes, I wondered about this.

Why wouldn't you only give him sweets on occasion?

It seems like excuses and blaming others for a sense of embarrassment over lax parenting.

Sorry you have had such a hard time OP. I really get it.

All those people judging you for not being perfect - ignore them. Your child hit another one with a ball. That doesn't sound so bad, unless the other child was actually injured, childrens do that stuff all the time and it does need to be managed but it was hardly the crime of the centurary. Meltdowns are so hard to see and to manage but your BILs actions were not appropriate and I wouldn't see him with my child again soon if I could avoid it. He left finger marks so he was holding him way too hard, which says to me that he was doing this in anger towards your son. So the ND child should restrain himself, the parent of the ND child should react 'perfectly' and magically prevent all situations occurring before they happen, but the BIL is allowed to roughly manhandle a child in anger? No bloody way is that appropriate.

Oh and I thought the OP mentioned the other parents routines and sweet rules to inform the reader that they were very rule based and possibly unlikely to understand a differing parenting style necessitated by special needs. I have been on the receiving end of judgy parents like that myself and indeed parented my older child like that - then my third came along and it wasn't an appropriate strategy.

Could we possibly stop with the judgy language?

OP is not 'lax' she is doing her best to parent a difficult child. You make it sound like she's sitting around sipping cocktails and ignoring her kid while he rampages.

Wow, just wow. I am choking on my cup of tea over these comments.

OP, I guarantee you with absolute confidence that it's mum's with ND kids who have come out the other side that know best. You yourself will very quickly know best once you start parenting your child as an ND child, which has to be different to NT parenting as pointed out by others.

You are not a lax parent at all. I just cannot believe this. Men get really triggered watching boys meltdown like this. For many, massive meltdowns trigger rage in adults who probably have their own issues. I learnt this about myself. I clearly had my own issues and a child meltdown would trigger me. I watched my brother manhandling my son like you described. It is 100% just a loss of control on their part. They'll never understand how to manage these situations until you do.

I read The Explosive Child by Ross Greene - it is helpful. It's a bit too much for my liking but the idea makes sense.

A key theme when parenting ND kids as pointed out in many books is giving choice and a sense of control/autonomy. So, do you want to brush teeth now or in 20 minutes. Apply that to every task imaginable. As you probably know, when you see your child is starting to struggle, pre meltdown, you get out of there immediately. Do you want to walk out or shall I carry you out. You can let cousin have the ball or we leave? Which do you want? This sense of control is integral to Autistic kids. It works so well that it has helped us no end.
And you never back down ever.

I guess that you will now be terrified of an embarrassing public meltdown again so that will impact your confidence and kid will pick up on it and possibly walk all over you. They can do this if incredibly intelligent!

This is why temporarily avoiding difficult embarrassing situations for now is an idea. Practice in safer settings one on one. Practice actually leaving and removing kid from places if they act out. Actually be prepared to do it. So even try ' I need you to find a way to calm yourself like we talked about or we will have to leave. Let's go to the bathroom quickly for a quick chillout'.

Before any event, discuss in detail what you expect and get child to tell you what they will do. E.g when I'm feeling angry I will do xxx.

When you're talking at home, ask them what makes them angry. Ask them why. Tell them you understand, these feelings are huge, but if we don't learn to manage them then we lose friends and opportunities to go to things. I know it feels mean but it's true. People don't like Autistic kids who meltdown and it's just not fair but it's how it is.

I've seen mum's terrified to set off a meltdown and pander so much and the kids have become vile. You don't want to be that mum. I know you won't be if you work on it now lovely.

Frankly, you didn’t know he was going to hit his cousin the first time, so I doubt you could predict with any accuracy whether he was
likely to do it again.
I honestly don’t know what you want from your family, you don’t sound as though you were on top of the situation yourself?
Blaming the younger child for “provoking” your son is not on, btw
That was the time to step in, and you didn’t.

@KerryBlues just stop. You have no clue what you're talking about

Today, his little cousin was provoking him quite a bit

Where were his saintly parents while he was doing this? Was anyone telling this child to stop, step away, stop provoking?

Who the hell are you to make such a pronouncement?