Being stricter brings more tears. ..will it change anything ?

[Babieseverywhere]

My DH is home atm and determined to show me that I am too soft in our 5 yo DS, who hates school and is terribly behaved in the school runs. No dx awaiting first comm paed appointment.

DH came home this afternoon with DS bright red in the face crying so hard, that his breathing was ragged...you get the picture.

DH decided due to 'bad' behaviour on both school runs today, there is to be no Minecraft....DS ultimate obsession :(

DH is trying so hard to make school runs more pleasant for everyone and I am backing him up, we support each other parenting, but I can't help but feel DS can't help his behaviour and that it is not on to use his obsession against him. :(

While DH was telling him off, DS can't hold eye contact, best in normally manage is glancing at your face, today he was staring at the ceiling and hold hands over his ears. There was no listening going on at all.

Does this kind of tough approach ever work ?

Honestly? It depends on what issues your DS has and what is causing his problems. My best guess is that no, it wont work for your DS, but that's still only a guess. (I'm sorry, this must be so tough for you )

While we waited for assessment I stopped punishing my DS for anything short of major physical violence because it seemed so unfair to punish him before I had any clue what was a “can’t” and what was a “wont”. Afterwards I spent a long time working out how to do discipline that worked for him.

But there are some good reasons for not getting into a disagreement with your DH about it just now. You are on the right path. So let your DH try his way, and back him up for the time being. It’s only a few days til you see the paed? I’m not saying the paed will be able say who is right at this stage, but giving your DH’s way a try strengthens your position. Then your DH will be able to see for himself if it isn't working, and he wont end up believing “it would have worked if only she’d backed me up”. Hang in there.

Yes, that is what I feel, it is not fair to punish him IF he can't help himself.

But I owe my lovely DH my full support in the meantime, it is only fair.

I am so worried about the appointment, it is not with one of the doctors, it is a person who works with my prefered consultant. But this was the super early appointment slot, so I grabbed it with both hands.

I was reassured that this lady would see everything, now I am panicking, what if she doesn't !

Ps, Is it worth noting down that he sucks fingers, his socks (takes them off first) and his arms on occassion...is that sensory stuff ?

Of course you're worried - you can't see what the end of the path will be from where you are now. This is a path with lots of branches and all you can do is choose what looks like a good path now, take a few steps along, then look around and choose where to go next. One bit at a time. Just be reassured that yes, you are doing the right things for this stage.

And by all means, do note down those things, sensory or self-calming etc. It all helps the paed to build up her picture of your DS.

I am worrying all the time atm...not sleeping well....roll on the weekend, when we will know if there is anything to warrant looking into further or not.

Is your DH coming to the appointment?

I would suggest keeping notes and taking them along with you.
When DH is calm you can ask him about the school runs today and see if there is anything you can get from them that is worth noting down. Also see if he believes his way is working.

When my eldest was being seen by an Ed Psych for dyslexia, I remember driving away (he could cope with the assessment by himself and it was in a specialist centre) and realising the worst result would be to be told there was nothing wrong.
Hopefully you DS will be acting very clearly.
It could be helpful for your DH to be there, but do make sure he doesn't minimise things (not that they won't be used to parents minimising).

Oh DH is calm, just sad that he can't get DS to behave. We had a chat in the kitchen earlier and I asked if he thought DS would walk ok tomorrow, he sighed sadly and said no, he wasn't even listening :(

I think DS is very stressed out by everything, he hasn't said anything apart from long Minecraft monologues since he got home. I tried to talk to him about different things, but all I got was irrelevant Minecraft facts back :(

DH is just settling all the kids upstairs and I can hear laughter as they all jump on him...everything will be alright won't it.

DH will come around ?
DS will talk to me again ?
They will SEE what I see ?

It's so sad, Babies. But to answer your last 3 questions, Yes, yes! and (although it may take more than one appointment) yes.

Your DH is trying to help your DS in his own way and sometimes you have to try something to be able to say 'No, this doesn't work.'

Thank you

Lets be honest - even if the school run was awful, and the punishment wrong - I really don't believe that any child has been permanently damaged by one badly handled day like today may have been.

Dads often are more in denial than Mums - in our family the one who handles DD least well is Dad, even her brother and sister get it much better (they are 5+ years older, and teens). He tries, accepts the diagnosis, just doesn't always really get it. But he's getting there.

Babies Your DH sounds great tbh. Not perhaps making the right choices atm, but working hard to figure it out. I'm sad for you both that it hasn't worked.

If you can afford a BCBA trained consultant to come take a look at some of the issues they can often point out really simple things that will make you all happier, especially ds, and help you be able to move forward. Sometimes we all get caught up in our own behaviour patterns that set one another off and it can spiral out of control.

I really think the key is school. He is much happier on school holidays and weekend.

If I could only figure out why he is so unhappy there.

I don't really agree with sanctions for behaviour that occurs as a result of anxiety as I think it just increases the anxiety and escalates the behaviour. Having said this I picked up from a programme last night one thing to do is to keep the sanctions small e.g. 5 minutes lost of minecraft rather than an absolute loss which would serve the purpose of telling your son that the behaviour is unacceptable but is still manageable to implement without escalating the situation. I too would love to know what it is that makes ds2 unhappy at school - a combination of lots of little things I think in his case.

I would suspect the problem with school is a mix of: sensory overload (a poster called Mrs seems to have a very sensible classroom in comparison to most), not being in control, too many transitions, changes, and....
Noise, brightness, conflicting hard to understand demands, and rush are probably major factors.

I'm having the same dilemma. DD may have aspergers, but no diagnosis yet. Her behaviour is regularly appalling. She often completely ruins family days out. I have no idea what the best way is to help her improve her behaviour or if it's even possible to do so.

We had a star chart, but she just got really really anxious about it, which caused meltdowns.

The time out step caused terrible meltdowns, she just sat there hitting herself on the head :( so obviously we stopped that straight away.

It's impossible to reason with her or in any way discuss her behaviour when she's already lost it.

Getting cross with her causes an escalation in her behaviour.

Removing her from the situation thats causing the stress seems to help, but that's not always possible (like in your situation).

It doesn't help that DD has very black/white thinking so if I tell her off, then that's the worst thing in the world, it means I'm deliberately being mean to her to upset her, and it means I hates her. She can't understand that I'm just mildly cross with one particular thing she's done. She takes it as a complete rejection of her :(

It's difficult isn't it. I feel like I need a parenting course for parents with children with ASD, but I'm not even sure if such a thing exists.

D. Schools Opinion
Yes, it is difficult and yes a magic book of rules which work and don't result in meltdowns would be great :)

DH gave me a call just now and was worried that he won't be home in time to pick up the children as promised. He was worried that DS would be upset, which he will probably me....but it is good to hear DH acknowledge that DS has some difficulties.

In contrast to yesterday when he said that DS had played tag in the playground and therfore everything was well in the world. I said that I liked watching him play tag, it is th e only game he 'gets' but less fun when he gets caught....sometimes he will be fine and ther days melts down on the spot.

Ignore first sentence in last post.

I had times when I had to be really strict with DS at that age. I found it worked best if I laid down the ground rules beforehand and made sure he knew what the consequences of not following them were. I found with DS that if I had to discipline him, he accepted it a lot better if I took this approach.

Gurningpig have you looked at the strategies in Ross Greene’s Explosive Child book? His “baskets” approach worked well for my DS especially during the pre-diagnosis uncertainty. After DS was diagnosed and I knew just how serious his communication difficulties were I started using ASC communication, like giving simple, concrete instructions, using few words, using the same words for the same things, and making sure to pause for a few seconds so he could process what I said. Count-to-three-and-consequence tended to work for him too. I’ve also used countdowns to get him to stop doing things - “two more hits with the stick and then put it down – two, one, and down. Good boy!” (given that he wasn’t hitting a person that is!!) I avoided telling my DS off for anything at all, because being scolded was such a trigger. He has a very good memory so I could wait until an incident was long over and then tell him what he should do if the situation came up again. Doing it in a Social Story kind of style worked best.

The NAS used to do very good one-day courses for parents of kids with recent ASC diagnoses, which they took to different venues round the country. They don’t list them on their website now so I suppose they’ve stopped but there do seem to be some weekly courses such as this one in Bristol and this in Lincolnshire One of their local branches might be able to point you at something near you? Or there may be other local autism or disability charities who offer courses.

Having said all that, in my experience there was no way to avoid meltdowns altogether. DS was just too fragile. It was about making life better by having fewer of them and feeling less scared because I could (usually) work out where they were coming from even if I couldn't always avoid them.

PS This is a better link about Social Stories than Carol Gray's own site though she originated the idea.

Thanks for advice kleinzeit DDs school say parenting courses are only available in my area once you have a diagnosis :(

I haven't read that book but it sounds good, I've added it to my amazon basket :) I do the count to three thing - where you say "I'm going to give you till the count of 3 to put your shoes on" - is that what you mean? DD ALWAYS shouts "NO I'm sending it back to zero" as soon as I start counting Social stories look like a good idea :)