Anyone else struggling with aggressive toddler and sibling safety?

[Springett4]

I wondered if anyone else has had the same experience with their toddler. My son is nearly three and has been challenging since around 15 months. I have almost completely given up on trying to control him, as a verbal instruction almost guarantees that he will do the complete opposite of what I’ve asked, especially when it comes to safety e.g. don’t climb out of your car seat while driving. He does things that he knows aren’t allowed and looks at me as if daring me to challenge him.

I have tried gentle approaches and reasoning with him, as well as being firmer. He doesn’t care about anything, so threatening to confiscate things/ leave the place we’re visiting doesn’t work.

He is aggressive, hateful and violent, he hurts other children and his baby brother seemingly for no reason. When sitting next to each other in the pram/back of the car he will randomly attack the baby and has, on several occasions, taken chunks of skin and flesh with his fingernails. He hasn’t shown any sign of being upset to that point so I feel I can’t predict what he’ll do and have become scared to take them anywhere for the baby’s safety.

Things are getting worse as he gets older. The GP recommended sending him to nursery at around 18 months, but after a year we ended up leaving as they kept reducing the hours he was allowed to attend until he was doing just 2 hours a week. He does weekly private speech therapy (and has since 18 months) and he has attended several SEN sessions run by the health visitor, but nothing has improved yet.

We are awaiting a paediatrician assessment for autism but from experience of other children with diagnoses, their behaviour seems to be much better than my son’s. I fear for our safety as he gets bigger and stronger, hearing stories of neurodivergent children stabbing their parents and siblings etc, but it feels like we’re now stuck on a path we can’t get off. I am sorry for him that his life will be harder than everyone else around him, but more so I feel for his brother, who is already suffering as a result. Has anyone else had a child like this who could advise on how to manage and how to protect other siblings? Or even just assure me that we’re not alone?

I’m sorry you’re struggling. How is his speech?

He doesn’t really have much speech, if any. I understand a lot comes from frustration that we can’t understand him but it is the mindless violence that worries me.

No advice but he sounds very similar to my 3 year old who was recently diagnosed with autism. Life is very challenging with him. Mindless violence and peak destruction everyday. I try to take it day at a time and not think too far into the future. Sympathy 💐

Hi OP sorry you are struggling, this sounds challenging.

One thing which jumps out to me is that you mentioned verbal instructions are especially counterproductive as they tend to get you the opposite of what you ask. Personally I find that up to about 4, verbal instructions are almost useless and trying to rely on them is a bit of a recipe for disaster. What usually helps instead is to think in terms of controlling the environment so essentially, keep him contained except for situations where it is safe and appropriate for him to explore. Keep talking to him of course, as this will help develop his language skills, even if he is not responding much yet. But don't expect the talking to be much help in terms of communicating information. It is more effective to show him and gear everything up in terms of what you want him to do rather than asking him to avoid things you don't want him doing.

If you can disable your car's airbag you could put the baby in the front seat, which would reduce access for him. Or there might be something you can strap in to the middle seat to act as a kind of barrier between them, like an inflatable pool toy for example.

Have you heard of schema play at all? This is very useful for these ages and some autistic children continue with schema play much much longer. It's thought to be how young children explore and experiment with the world to understand it, so for example a child in the trajectory schema is exploring the concept of gravity, even though they wouldn't have the language to explain it, but you know how it is just intuitive to us as adults how gravity works. We might not be able to explain the scientific concept, but we know instinctively that things fall downwards, whether something will remain stable when we place it on a surface etc. In fact this is probably not an instinct, but a result of us having gone through the trajectory schema when we were toddlers and then our life experiences to date.

Schema play because it is very experimental in nature can seem destructive or random and nonsensical but it does actually make a lot of sense. If you can work out which schema your LO is currently in (googling will bring up lists) you will be able to offer activities relating to that schema, which might help redirect them away from more destructive experiments - like providing beanbags or lots of outside play if they are in the trajectory schema for example rather than them wanting to throw items inside where they may break things or hurt people.

Can you private message me? Im unsure, ive never did a private message but I am at the end of my tether with my 3 year old and alot of this describes him to a t!