Aspergers meltdowns and anxiety

[Swiddle]

My 9 year old DS has frequent meltdowns at small obstacles, due to his Aspergers I'm sure, and harbours lots of anxiety about everyday matters.

Apart from it being horrible for him, it certainly doesn't win him any friends at his mainstream school

I bought a book specifically on Aspergers tantrums, but the best it could offer was scaling the degree of the upset by 0 to 5. I just know my boy would say "it's a 100!" and burst into tears!

Does anyone have any tips about how to teach Aspie kids to manage their extreme feelings, calm themselves and get through the day without tears?

First thing is first, does your ds know what he is feeling.. I.E the difference between frustrated, worried, scared, etc etc..
We had to teach ds how to recognise those feelings ( it wasn't that he didn't feel them, just didn't recognise that is what he was feeling and that it was okay).

When you crack that bit you can use a thermometer drawing to get him to recognise how much of those he is feeling. So Maybe a 3 on worried and a 6 on frustrated and a 9 on scared.

For ds we have a calm / nice / talk list for him then to use to balance those feelings out with something he likes.

A simple way of starting this is to use a chart of faces representing feelings, and next to it, what his body does, and a strategy for it.
Then we used an emotions traffic light system where he could plot where he was. ( and strategies next to each light).

It can take ages but it's well worth it :)

what good ideas carrotcake my ds nearly 11 and still really struggles with thisi may give it a go, he kept telling me he had a funny feeling and ache in his tummy he says this for most distressing situations wether meeting new people /going somewhere new, actually feeling ill, and the butterfly feeling when scared i worked it out as hes not very verbal at times he prefers to hide under the duvet and just not say he was like it last night as we had watched a film last Action Hero with Arnold Schwarzenegger he loved it but when he went to bed was scared stiff about the grim reaper as he touched someone in the streat and the man started coughing and fell down ill id remembered watching it before he likes action films didnt remember that bit he was up all night with a funny tummy

I think you need to ask the SENCO at your son's school what they are doing to help support him. Are they monitoring the kinds of things that "flip the switch" for your son? Are they identifying the difficult times of day/areas of the school/bits of the curriculum/peers which cause him to lose his self-control? Are they helping him to avoid these, or helping him work out some coping strategies? Are they keeping you regularly updated as to the kinds of things he reacts badly to, and how often this happens, and the nature of the melt-downs?

Does he have somewhere he can go to if he's feeling unsafe?

Does he have someone he can talk to for reassurance?

A safe, quiet corner of the SEN room (if there is one!) that he could retreat to when he's feeling anxious or tearful might be helpful, particularly if there was a small box of squishy, pull-able toys to hand. A laminated "I NEED TO GO TO THE SEN ROOM NOW PLEASE" card on a lanyard or clipped to his belt, ie somewhere he can lay his hand on it immediately, would avoid the need for him to ask for permission to leave the classroom (if that's where the problem is occurring).

If the melt-downs happen more than once a day, reward system would be good if the day were broken down into chunks. A "well done for having a good morning/afternoon" voucher, given by a teaching assistant or SENCO or someone else.... and 10 vouchers earn a reward. For my daughter the day had to be broken down into four parts!

Thanks for the good suggestions and support.
I'm going to try out the traffic light thing and pursue the idea of finding a quiet room where he can go to when the playground gets too much for him. Although when he melts down at home, I'm the one who needs a quiet room...!

Dean Beadle, one of the main speakers about autism spectrum disorders, has a lovely way of phrasing what happens to our brains when we have a panic attack of that sort...he describes it as "egg whisk thinking". Imagine putting an egg whisk in a bowl. Quite small...
Now whisk it like mad. Now you have a whole bowlful of fluffy stuff that just grows and grows.

So it is with our worries...a thought that becomes a 'heck I don't know what to do/I don't know what this means' can turn from just one thought into the Biggest Disaster The World Has Ever Seen, because our brains whisk it into a frenzy and can't stop.

Learning how to calm ourselves down is absolutely vital. Trouble is, we're very resistant to rewards (new research on this) so just reassuring us doesn't really work that well.

Good advice above. I find wrapping myself in something, somewhere very quiet, is for me the best way to let my brain stop panicking. Others find different things that defuse it for them. Either way, yes, we need quiet and space and enough chance to think about what we're feeling and make sense of it.

Love that egg whisk analogy! I think my ds would love a duvet to wrap himself up in mid-meltdown, but not always convenient in the playground, on the bus, in the library....
I had a chat with him today and we made a list of things that tend to upset him. Turns out they are all pretty reasonable things (e.g. a computer crashing), it's just that his reaction to them is so extreme, to most people's way of thinking.
Thanks for the insights and advice.

Jumper, coat, anything that could double up as a pressure-wrap. They all work

Amberlight - thank you so mch for this.

My lad starts a new school soon and that egg whisk description was perfect to use to explain what happens when my son hits an anxiety melt down.

We've found ear defenders and closing his eyes, & then curling himself into a ball for 5 minutes realy helps. Also a trusted adult offering a hug (he's 6).