Ds2 is 8, being assessed for possible ASD. He's fine at school, but violent and aggressive at home.
We have some times when things are relatively calm, and we feel that we know what we're doing, then we have weeks like this week, which are absolute hell on earth, and drive us to near breaking point.
I don't know if it's a normal back to school thing, but every evening this week, we've (all the rest of the family - me, dh, ds1, dd and ds3) been threatened, punched, slapped, bitten, spat at, sworn at, insulted constantly.
I can't cope. I know he'll calm down a bit at some point, we'll still have this behaviour, but not as intensely. But for now, the whole family is struggling.
We've explained to the older dc (13 and 11) that they need to back off from ds2, when he's feeling angry, he needs space.
Ds1 in particular seems to think that we are favouring ds2 because he gets more time with us, but this week he has only had more time because he has been wound up to the point of being a danger to himself and the others, and one of us has to help him calm down (he usually ends up sobbing that we should just kill him) and basically supervise him.
Ds1 cannot resist winding him up, he doesn't seem able to back off, so we have more outbursts than we should probably have.
I don't want ds1 and dd to feel responsible, but I want them to understand that how they react to him makes a huge difference to the severity of ds2's behaviour - is this unreasonable of me to expect this? (Really, I genuinely want to know!)
Dh and I are relatively new to this, it's only been a few months that we have allowed ourselves to see that there is a problem, and not a naughty child/crap parent situation.
There isn't really anyone in RL who gets what's going on, mostly they think we're soft on him(we're not), or suggest that we get really cross with him (like we don't do that already, but it doesn't work and makes the situation worse)
He has been referred to CAMHS, but that could take months.
We have noticed that we can do practical things that have helped - putting a tent over his bed, giving him opportunities to tell us how he's feeling, and do something calm with him if he's feeling angry, not taking him to the supermarket etc.
This week is off the wall though. Please, please tell me what else I can do to help him. He's such a lovely little boy when he's not angry.
^ I posted the above in chat, I had a thread in here a while ago, but I've lost it.
I really need practical advice. I feel like our family could break up over this, and I don't want that to happen.