Am posting this on behalf of a close friend (lone parent) who is having difficulties with her son's aggression towards her. I know there are a lot of parents of children with autism on this board who I am hoping will have some experience and advice that I can pass on to her.
Her boy is 13. For the past six months or so, he has started showing increasingly aggressive behaviour, particularly towards his mum. He does things like grabbing her face or grabbing her round the neck from behind. Sometimes he will ask for a hug and she's wary of saying yes anymore because he crushes her. He is strong and won't stop or modify his behaviour when she asks him to stop, so she has to wrench herself out of his grasp. At other times, he and his brother will have a play fight that escalates out of control and she has to step in to separate them. This week, she fell and bruised her wrist whilst trying to get them apart. She has told her other son not to play fight with his brother because it always goes too far, but he doesn't always obey and then she has to step in.
This boy is not violent at school (he goes to a school for children with autism) and school have not been able to offer any useful advice to my friend on how to handle this. She says she can tell when her son is in one of these aggressive moods and she knows he will spring on her at some point. She says it puts her on edge and she is watchful all the time, waiting for him to 'pounce', as she puts it. She isn't sure about what triggers it, but says that sometimes she can trace it to something she did the day before that annoyed him and that he is still brewing over. She tries distraction, but it doesn't work.
I inadvertently made my friend's boy angry once (I made the mistake of asking him to return a toy he was holding which belonged to my son) and his rage was, to be honest, quite scary. He was absolutely furious and I really thought he was going to hit me. In fact, he did control himself enough not to hit me, but he was very agitated. My friend said he scares her too when he is angry and she is worried about him getting bigger and still not being able to control his emotions.
Does anyone know what she can do or who she can contact for advice?