Parenting a challenging child (DS8) - strategies to help me to stay calm

[Alwaysbattling]

I am at my absolute wits end with the behaviour of my 8 year old DS.

He was already challenging prior to the holidays (to be honest, he’s not ever really not been hot-headed), but I really thought the holidays would help.

He won’t do anything that is asked of him, even really simple things like brushing his teeth or going to the shop to get lunch (a minutes walk away), picking up his rubbish and flies of the handle when asked. I’ve always been clear with the expectations for the day and he starts off in total agreement that he’ll do that and we’ll do other nice things, but it always decends into refusal when he needs to do something (we had a big treat planned Friday, he wouldn’t brush his teeth so didn’t get to go).

If there’s a disagreement (usually me saying “no” to something) he flies off the handle and screams/hits/bites/throws things. We haven’t given into this EVER so I don’t know why he still thinks it might work.

I am so worn down with this behaviour, and over the last week or so I’ve found myself shouting A LOT and I hate myself for it. I know everything says the most important thing is staying calm, but I’ve just got to a point of frustration where I’m so infuriated with DS’s behaviour I’m struggling to hold it in and I’m getting cross and shouting or even crying in front of him.

I just wanted a nice summer so much, but it’s feeling like a full battleground and I’m so tense absolutely all the time.

Does anyone have any advice or books recommendations? I’ve read a few in the past and acted on parts that felt relevant but really feel I could do with more fresh material now (I’d love therapy for us both, but funds don’t allow for this. Ideally we’ll be able to put our son in some shortly but it’s so expensive that I’ll need to make do with books).

Full disclosure:

1. I’m autistic so “broken promises” from my son (like if he says he will brush his teeth at the end of an episode/chapter of book and then refuses) probably tip me over the edge more than they should which makes it hard to stay calm and this is something I’ve worked really hard on but now my previous coping methods just aren’t cutting it.

1. My DH works from home which makes screaming (even one sided from our DS) problematic as he’s on calls. If DH steps in during the day, DS takes this as a win.

1. DH has more patience than me generally, but also isn’t around DS as much (he works long hours, I work much shorter hours) and has much better de-escalation skills than me.

For electronics what works best in our house is:

Keeping overall amount of screen time low - too much and I find it has a negative effect on behaviour in general plus they get really entitled and obsessive about it.

Setting time limits and using parental controls as a sort of reminder, rather than the control enforcing the limit.

We also get them to do the limit themselves e.g. we have a timer which has a rainbow that counts down (like a circle which gets smaller) - and being a little bit flexible e.g. allowing an extra 5 mins to let them finish what they are doing is often better than having a hard line but it can't be too long or it defeats the point.

Agree that some way of making the time limit visible helps. Just saying it's time in an hour doesn't help if they don't know what an hour "feels" like (and even a NT child probably doesn't know what an hour feels like, esp when you're engrossed in a very fun activity).

Appointments and boring errands like shopping - these tend to induce anxiety/reactance (which is like a PDA type response) at the last minute IME. Now TBF I can 100% relate because even I have those exact feelings as an adult when I have to leave the house to do something I really don't want to do. Or even when I mostly do want to do it but I'm just tired or whatever. And yes sometimes I question whether I might be more of an AuDHD flavour of ADHD.

Allowing more time is a very good strategy. I would probably bring something like a portable screen, a puzzle book to do together etc OR plan in a short extra thing to do very near to the appointment (e.g. we often visit a bakery to pick up a snack) - so that if we get there early, waiting isn't a huge boring thing that just adds to the dysregulation.

Where possible, I don't take him to appointments which are not for him. When I have to take him to an appointment for himself, I try to schedule them in the morning, because he has much more capacity for hard things in the morning. We also don't do a lot of shopping with the DC - DH or I will go alone, we shop online, or I order for pick up and DH gets it. There are still some shopping trips which happen which aren't his favourite thing. If I know he will be anxious or struggle with the appointment, we tend to try to role-play it in advance. Most things we've had to do have been fairly child friendly, though he needs some dental work and didn't really cope with the little bit we did do so we have ended up scheduling the rest under full anaesthetic - there are usually other options if the first one is not working.

Re broken promises, I introduced the concept of "trust" so if he promises something and doesn't stick to it I say my trust has gone down. And if he doesn't do things often I say sorry I don't trust you enough because you said that so many times and didn't stick to it. It doesn't "work" but it makes me feel better, less annoyed. Plus it gives him something constructive to focus on if he wants to build it up again.

The spanner in the works is he's obsessed with numbers so he wants to know what percentage my trust is on exactly and exactly what percentage it needs to be on to get whatever it is.

Regarding the saying no is a trigger, just stop saying no, create yourself a library of constructive alternatives such as "what do you think" or"have we got time" or what day do you think we should do it on, or let's write that down on the to do list, or etc etc etc. You get the idea. Basically accept their proposal in principle and send it back for further development on their side.
The how to talk so kids will listen books are good for ideas to use to make things sound more friendly to kids.

Thank you, those are really useful suggestions (I particularly like the electronics charging one, it gives him a lot of control and may work well over summer).

We already make sure that the car (and any waiting time) is as fun as possible, but maybe a special car audiobook would be something different to try too.