Feel so awful about what I said to ds 6 (ASD)

[feelingnasty]

Ds has struggled with his temper for years. He has ASD, a demand avoidant profile and possible ADHD (waiting for assessment)

Every day is a battle and I stay calm and it’s hard. Today I snapped. He had screamed all day. I’d tried everything to calm and distract him and it just didn’t work. I snapped and nastily said ‘stop NOW or I will pack my bag and leave and I won’t come back because you are making me very sad with this behaviour’

He immediately stopped and started crying and now is so clingy and I feel awful. I feel like he was secure knowing I’m always here and now I’ve made him aware that that’s not a given. I would never leave him but he doesn’t know that and I shouldn’t have said it .

Have I caused a lasting issue or will things be ok. I feel terrible.

Right... And what if his screaming is the result of a disability? A small neurodivergent child is not abusing their parent.

Actually you know what. I've seen some of your other posts on this subject and it's pretty obvious you don't have a clue about ND children and the immense strength it takes as a parent not to spit out every uncharitable thought you might have when your kid is dysregulated and melting down all day.

Saying "meh, it's fine, you don't owe your kid shit cos they were screaming all day" doesn't actually prevent it from happening again, and as op feels terrible about it, i assume she doesn't want it to happen again.

Parents taking accountability for things they said (as op has done) and finding other ways to manage their overwhelm and stress away from their child might prevent it from happening again because clearly it's not ok to threaten to walk out on your child. You can feel it, you can want to do it, you can get pretty damn close, but the child never needs to know that you felt that because if you do say it AND DON'T APOLOGISE (which is what half the people on the thread are telling her not to apologise) what the child hears is "im terrible, I'm a burden, my mum doesn't love me, she's going to leave me".

And that's really not ok, so the op is clearly very much a better parent than all of the people who told her not to apologise when she's said something potentially damaging to her child.

Well done. Sounds like he needed to hear that. Stop apologising and keep enforcing strong boundaries.

You seem to have read a fantasy post in an alternate universe where I said ‘yeah I would be saying that every time he screamed, well done’.

I clearly said it wasn’t a GOOD response but that, demand avoidance or not, it is healthy for children to know they’ve pushed somebody too far. Yes; even neurodivergent children. They’re still children and they still need boundaries and to understand other people are not emotionless service droids who must tolerate whatever they dish out to them.

I think the way in which we grey rock children from understanding our emotions is abuse in itself. Newborns can understand facial expressions long before they can understand speech, babies and toddlers actually communicate by reading your expressions and taking them into account to socialise themselves. Insisting on keeping a blank mask and never showing emotion, only for them to be attacked in the street or thrown in a prison cell at 18 when not everyone is going to show them that level of self control, is setting them up for failure.

I stand by this position

He's reached the boundary

Being a good parent isn’t about perfection. It’s not ideal to snap but showing a child we are fallible and human is important. In attachment it isn’t being perfect all the time it’s about when there is an issue being able to repair that and keep that secure connection. Explaining “I felt this and so behaved like this, it was t how I want to behave and I’m sorry” is sensible. Ignore posters saying don’t apologise. But also try not to dwell and move on.