Is this bad re DS11 or am I overreacting?

[anappleadaykeeps]

How worried would you be about DS11 (ASD and Anxiety issues) grabbing and holding his cousin around the neck in a disagreement.

It's new behaviour - definitely haven't see this before.

I can't work it out.

I've posted in relationships, as worried it may be copied behaviour. His Dad (my Ex) used to hit and kick him regularly in past, although hasn't for 3 years now as far as I am aware.

I don't want to overreact.

If they were both arguing I wouldn't be too concerned but definitely have a sit down chat about why this reaction was not a good one.

Don't overreact yet. Explain it was wrong and some form of punishment. Start to worry if he does it again.

I would worry. Holding someone around the neck can kill them.

It took a very long time (first me, then Children's Services, then Family Court, then Children's Services again) to get my Ex to really understand that he couldn't hit or kick DS, even 'just sometimes'.

It was scary how he didn't get it.

Ex doesn't really agree with it, but now does know that he "isn't allowed" to hit or kick the children.

But no-one has yet raised 'strangling' or similar. Im not meaning deliberately trying to stop DS breathing, I'm just meaning Ex May have started using an arm around DS's neck to try to restrain or discipline him.

Anything neck/strangling like was also seen as a high risk behaviour on my Freedom Prog course.

I'll have a

Can you ask him if anyone's already done that to him? If so, who?

If he hasn't had it done to him, can you ask him if he's seen other people do it? If so, who?

That may be a way to find out why he thinks it's an acceptable thing to do. He may have seen it in the playground so thought it was okay.

That's all good advice - thank you.

I'll have a chat with him when he comes back home at the weekend. Both children are with their Dad until Sunday, for the last week of the holidays.

I'm presuming the Ex who does the hitting and kicking isn't the dad?

Do you have suspicions that your ex is putting an arm round ds neck to discipline or restrain?

I can't understand how your ex is allowed unsupervised contact with his dc when he used to kick and hit ds regularly.

The worst of the hitting and kicking was back in 2013. It then stopped completely until August 2015 when there were two further incidents.

He then had no contact at all for 3 months, and only supervised contact for the next 11 months.

There haven't been any 'reportable incidents' since, and it is all seen as too far in the past now to be relevant re contact now.