Very violent 5yr old boy

[Violentson]

My son has pretty severe asd and is very speech delayed. His violence has now come to the point i can no longer cope and i fear for his future. He pushed my 18m so hard onto the floor his nose started to bleed today. He bites kicks slaps. His new favourite is biting my hair and putting his hands around my neck. We all have brusies cuts etc from him. This stuff happens 10+ times a day. He didn't start school this year as hes not ready but will in August. So hes in a nursery 2x a week. Hes just as bad there. I cant take him out as he hurts anyone he sees or animal's.
Hes a psychopath as all he does is laugh he hes made someone cry or bleed even.
We have alot of professionals trying to help but even they are struggling to find a solution.
Im lost and scared
I don't know what to do anyone

Have you heard of Phoebe Caldwell? She is an amazing woman who does work with children with Autism, and trains people working with them. She has an amazing ability to break through and communicate with children nobody has been able to do anything with. . will get you started and it's worth watching how she interacts with some of the children/young people. Something she says or does may help you.

Don't call the police ona 5 year old it's a waste of their time. Be strict with him and stick to it. Don't tolerate his behaviour or he thinks it's fine to do. My son has ASD and was so destructive I felt like I was telling him off constantly for years. Hes 13 now and is a really good teen. He knows what's acceptable and what's not. They are all so different though and I hope you find a way to help him.

OMG the first page of replies are incredibly harsh. Ring the police and residential care for a 5 year old.
Can you ask for any therapy / support. Can you get your younger child in a buggy and get out for a long tiring walk / run to reduce the energy of your 5 yr old. Can you do massage together. My DD school do 5 mins of this every day after dinner and it encourages nice/ gentle physical touch. Do you have robust consequences for naughty behaviour. Time outs? Sounds really difficult. Have you got anyone to look after your kids so you can have some time to yourself.

His social worker has offered him 10 hrs a wk respite but still waiting for that to be set up.

Good keep pushing.
Diet... my asd ds had severe constipation and daily probiotics made a huge difference.
Biocare does a kid powder
Also restricting wheat as gave him wind and gas so switching to gf pasta

Try speaking to aba scotland
www.autism.org.uk/directory/a/abascotland

AbA school was hugely beneficial for my ds

I've been badly beaten up (trip to hospital to have my ribs x-rayed) by a large, strong 5-year-old with ASD and a raft of other difficulties. If your son is anything like the child who attacked me then I would be very worried about protecting my 18-month-old. I'm a fairly big, fairly strong adult and I couldn't prevent him from knocking me down and kneeing and punching me. As adults we can empathise with the child driven to violence by rage at not being about to communicate, but a toddler can't understand and just experiences it as irrational violence. They may survive the blows, but the psychological damage could be devastating.

My friend's son is getting better now he's older, but for years his parents have been black and blue and on antidepressants. I'm so sorry for anyone going through this.

Why did you hold him back from school? Presumably he will go to a SS where they will be able to support you in dealing with his behaviour. I am struggling to understand why you would think he ‘wasn’t ready’ for school when he clearly can’t cope at home

I am presuming without a clear plan of knowing what to do they are letting the status quo stand for another year.

What happens if nothing has changed or things have got worse in 8 months time

Utterly astounded by how many people her are saying he needs residential care! including bloody teachers!. People need to wake the fuck up and understand that for many SEND families this is how their lives are! for a SEND parent/sibling to be attacked by their child isnt anything out of the ordinary, for many many families!

OP what services do you feel have let you down? i dont know how the scottish system works, but you need to shout louder and use every once of local support you can get your hands on to help you through this. Look into local support groups, reach out to other local parents who are further along the line than you are. They will support and help you ensure you are doing all you can to make professionals do all they can.

Remember there is ALWAYS a reason for the type of behaviours your son is displaying, but right now you need professional help to support you in how best you can support your son. Look at alternative means of helping your son communicate his needs. Look at what routine and structure you have at home and in your day to day lives.

Be kind to yourself OP things can and will get better, keep posting, look at the MN special needs board, there is a vast wealth of experience there, please reach out and let people who really understand what youre living through.

Hi OP

We're going to move your thread over to the right topic for you, as we want you to get the right advice and support.

Hiya. I couldn't read and run. My son was exactly the same at 5. I deeply feel for you. I want to offer you hope that this will improve. You don't say what help you are currently recieving. However, when my son was 5 I felt like I should be coping but this is outside of 'normal' parenting. What support have CAMHS offered as you have a diagnosis. What can you get from the local offer? Take all the help you can get. @Clackyheels calling the police is not ridiculous. This is a perfect way to get the support you need from local services and it was advised my my son's school recently when he was having a violent meltdown. There was a two year waiting list for this specific help I wanted and now I am starting it in Feb. My son has his moments now but nothing like when he was your son's age. He goes to a special school which is perfect for him. Please don't send your son to a mainstream. Mine now has suffered diagnosed trauma from the experience. This situation will improve, I am not going to lie it takes a lot of energy, perseverance and a sprinkling of really shitty days. Take all the help you can get and make sure you look after yourself x

I don't think the OP is calling the police on a 5 year old, I think she is asking them to help her physically manage a single incident, for a defined period of time. She has nobody else to help her, perhaps, not family members to respond to her call, or a neighbour who wants to be involved. Perhaps she wants to examine her toddler's head, after he's been pushed over, but cannot because her five-year-old is now climbing over the bannister. As one adult, without help, she possibly cannot control two children.

Nothing is happening with the support the SW is promising. It isn't forthcoming. It might not be for weeks. A lot can happen during that time. Probably, support workers won't be available due to Covid restrictions. Any methodology gleaned from a book or YouTube will take weeks or months to take effect. OP just needs another human being to be there with her.

Do you have any support from social services? In England your son would be classified as a child in need which would mean social services would have had to draw up a care plan and put support in place.

Also you really need to consult someone with expertise in SEN, as I strongly suspect much more should be being done. The Education Law Unit at Govan Law Centre would be a good starting point - govanlawcentre.org/education-law-unit/

In the short term, OP, whats his profile like? Does he like loud/quiet, touch/no touching, light/dark, etc? I'm sure those of us with experience of ASD could suggest some things that might help calm him. One of my DC likes deep pressure and weight so if he's headed for a blow up then wrapping him in a weighted blanket can soothe him until it passes. My other autistic DC avoids touch, hates wearing clothes even, but loves water so often of he's on the path to melting down then a bath helps soothe him.

Keep a diary of incidents - specifically note down what happened, what was happening immediately before, how he was acting/how he reacted, and what happened after the incident. It will help you to look for patterns and triggers which can help with pre-empting the outbursts in future. Younger DC becomes "stalky" when he is reaching breaking point, pacing around like a lion in a cage, so I know if he starts the stiff, pacing movements then he needs intervention. Older DC becomes almost maniacal in being silly then will suddenly turn violent so I know when his silliness starts escalating that he needs intervention.

I really recommend PECS cards and to also look at makaton to aid his communication. There are other communication aids too. A company called Chewigem sells a wristband with a red side and a green side that the child can flip over to show if they need some help/support or if they're okay. They also have visual scheduling tools where you put little pictures on a chart to show what is happening now, what is happening next, and what it happening later to help with transitions and expectations.

There's a book called The Explosive Child that explores the behaviour of children prone to violent and aggressive outbursts, I found it really helpful and it was very useful for aiding me in reframing my approach to such behaviour.

If you're not claiming it already then make a claim for DLA, the money can be used towards any aids and adaptations he needs, private respite, to boost family funds if his care is affectig your earnings, etc, whatever is needed in order to best support and care for him.

I appreciate what sen parents are saying about lack of help but surely residential care has to happen if parents aren't willing to keep a child at home?

I appreciate what sen parents are saying about lack of help but surely residential care has to happen if parents aren't willing to keep a child at home?

most parents cannot get even a couple of hours respite without battling for years (DD is a teenager and we never had anything depute her being severely disabled). a residential setting is very £££ and would take years of legal battle against the authority who will do anything to not fund it. and you cannot just 'hand over' your child.

sorry, but I think you are in a parallel universe where you think parents like us get help. it. does. not. work. that. way.

Im not putting my son into care. Honestly what a ridiculous thing to say. I would love if he went to school this year but sadly it wasn't the case. Funny enough due to the new lockdown he has been offered a place due to being a vulnerable child and its 5 days a wk full time until things go back to normal. I dont work but my dh does. We have thought about him giving up work until things improve/ ds goes to school as we get dla for him and could claim others but we already face so much judgement that we dont want more judgement. My ds 18m will no longer be near him. Even if hes having a good day. Its quite tricky as ds 18m loves his big brother and always wants ti be close to him. Ive got lots of tabs open with links and names pp have suggested and i will have a look throughout the day
Thanks

For 2 weeks please try a clean diet with no additives and no gluten. And also try as hard as you can to give lots of cuddles love and positive reinforcement. Try not to tell off - just completely ignore bad behaviour. I know this will be really hard but please try.

TheHoneyBadger, where do you get the idea that if you don't want to keep your child you can just hand it over? It's hard enough getting their special needs recognised, let alone any help. You'd have to do something pretty terrible to the child — abandon it or harm it — for the authorities to step in and people love their children, no matter how difficult they are. Specialist schools can cost £50,000+ a year, more if your child requires very high levels of supervision and care. Local Authorities will do almost anything to avoid taking that cost on.

For 2 weeks please try a clean diet with no additives and no gluten. And also try as hard as you can to give lots of cuddles love and positive reinforcement. Try not to tell off - just completely ignore bad behaviour. I know this will be really hard but please try.

Do not adjust his diet without getting professional input first.

I don't think you should care about judgement from others, as if things start to work better you will get less judgement. What sort of judgement have you had so far?

Is your dh good with your ds, and with you and your other dc, is that why you have thought about him giving up work for a short time? What job does your dh do/did you do before you became a sahm?

When was your ds diagnosed? What sort of guidance were you given at the time and was violence an issue at that time?

About his diet. This is something ive looked at but after speaking to a dietitian decided against it. My 18m has a milk allergy and i buy most things from the free from range that we all eat so his diet is already almost gluten free anyway.

To the poster above. I had to give up work for a short while just to negotiate the system, get help, fight for what we needed. Killed us financially, but best decision we made. Getting help is a full time job. Although things are generally better for us now, lockdown has been a killer, no school, no support, both of us working the old behaviours have crept in. Although we now know the violent behaviour is like the tip of the iceberg for his emotions and feelings. We are looking into NVR at the moment, as we need a bit of a reset as a family. It is never 'solved' as all is parents with SEND know. However they are loads better from when our son was OPs son's age.

All those with NT kids, bet they'd find it super easy to just put their kids in a residential home. Jesus, makes me so sad how little progress has been made sometimes. I also want to give a virtual hug to all the amazing mums that have posted on this thread and given the OP some great advice.

@nowitispollypocket

I don't think you should care about judgement from others, as if things start to work better you will get less judgement. What sort of judgement have you had so far?

Is your dh good with your ds, and with you and your other dc, is that why you have thought about him giving up work for a short time? What job does your dh do/did you do before you became a sahm?

When was your ds diagnosed? What sort of guidance were you given at the time and was violence an issue at that time?

Dh is fab with him and its always so much better when hes home as we tag team and one adult per child. Keeps everyone safe. He works in admin in a hospital. I worked in childcare. Ds was diagnosed aged 3 his violence was pretty low level back then mainly towards him self. Judgement from the fact i didn't have an abortion when got pregnant with ds18m to complete strangers telling me to control my son.

Please don’t adjust his diet without seeking expert help. A lot of children with ASD struggle with sensory issues while eating, and will have a fairly limited diet as it is. Depriving him of certain foods may be the difference between eating or not.
The behaviours are driven by SEN, not diet, not intention or anything else. Really saddened but not surprised at some of the poorly informed advice on this thread.
The OP and her children need professional, considered help. The sad truth is that it’s very hard to access, and you have to fight for anything.
Hang in there, OP, things can change. We’ve been there, but 5 years on, things are a lot calmer. Sadly, we’ve had to pay for a lot of help, and had to fight for the rest.