I almost daren't tell you, you'll report me to ss.
Well, the problem I have always found is that children actually punish themselves. They do this by being bothered by whatever punishment you dole out. It upsets them. It is this upset feeling and not the punishment itself that modifies the behaviour, if that makes sense.
So how do you discipline a child who doesn't care if you are cross, or upset, or disappopinted? Who doesn't care if they get their toys confiscated, or have to sit in their room? Who doesn't give a crap if you are really proud of them and praise them and give them a round of applause?
It's hard and you have to get creative. So we took what we knew he hated and used that. For example, ds1 hated the hoover. So when in the house, we put it on the instant he did something unacceptable. He came to associate doing certain things with the sound that he hated. Over time (a LOT of time!) he learned to avoid doing certain things in order to avoid the sound.
We also restrained him. My legs round his legs, my arms round his body, trapping his arms at his sides, my head tucked into his back so he couldn't headbutt me!
We used and continue to use social stories. They have become more effective as his understanding of language has developed.
We do lots of floor work, we get into his world and copy him when he's flapping for example, scream when he screamed it makes a connection with him. (breaking into "The Sun Has Got His Hat On" in the middle of his meltdown in tesco certainly got his attention! )
God, there is loads, I would break MN if I carried on! And that's just ds1! ds2 is totally different and needs different handling - like ANY child, nt or sn, you have to look at them as individuals, understand them and use that to your advantage.
Psycho and flame met my boys last week, and I think they will tell you what great lads they are! [proud] but if you only knew how far they'd come! ds1 has gone from a headbutting-glassthrowing-biting-kicking-screamer into a gentle lad who played so nicely with their kids, I nearly exploded with pride! ds2 has gone from not giving a crap about anything ever to a lively, stubborn little thing
It's always difficult to 'train' a child - any child. Parenting is hard. It's just that with sn kids you have to think 'outside the box' as it were.