How do I deal with the meltdowns?

[veronicasawyerheartsjd]

ds6 is undiagnosed, and has very violent meltdowns. I picked him up from after school club today and he was on a massive high, that turned into a meltdown when I wouldn't let him go and knock on the door of an old neighbour's house he used to be obsessed with on our way home.

He ran away when we got out of the car, then when we got in the house he punched, hit, bit, screamed, kicked and picked up the coffee table and threatened me with it and then hit me with it. He has calmed down now as I gave in and gave him his tablet to watch stampy videos.

I stayed calm, blocked his attacks, tried to talk him down, tried giving jim sensory pressure, tried to walk away, but it doesn't work as he just follows me when I walk away even though I tell him I am there for him when he is ready. I feel like I am being too passive by just taking the abuse and punches and giving into demands eventually as I can't watch him get so distraught after half an hour of it. He will say he will be a good boy if I give him what he wants but will carry on being bad if I don't.

Help! What else can I do when in mid - meltdown? The professionals can't won't give me the answers, all CAMHS have said is that I need to teach him stress management and have sent me on a parenting course

when ds is on a massive high, I send him to run up and down the school field several times before anything else.

I feed him. urgently. biscuits if necessary swiftly followed by something more long acting. (you may need to take the snack to the door of the school if he is on a high. a sandwich?)

the death grip on the way back to the car.

hugging/rocking/ holding when we get back to the car. his sister is usually put in the car and he is kept out until he has calmed enough to put them in together

he gets consequences after he has melted down for violence to people. this is removing five minutes of his computer time of fifteen minutes. this is a major deal to him. this is the same as grounding a nt kid for a week.

if we get to melt down, he is restrained....for everyones safety. he is held diagonally across my body facing out. legs are therefore off to one side and not able to kick me or anyone, head can only head butt my well padded arm not my face. (learnt that the hard way) arms restrained to stop him clawing at my face/smacking me across the face. gently rock. this is the hold when we are out and about. we have not had to use this for a while since school has put in place better support.

oh I remind him early of the consequences of his behaviour... before he does them so we can work on prevention. often sending him off to play on his own to calm down, we also do a lot of talking about how he should behave.

i talk him through his emotions. hopefully at some point in the future he will be able to tell me what is wrong and how he is feeling.

Firstly, sorry you are all having such a hard time - stay strong as you're doing a great job.

DD1 (10) has displayed same behaviour for over 3 years, aggressive behaviour, anxiety & school refusal. She has had support workers in place, SS referral to look into my parenting (now closed) and a CAMHS referral which was closed as no incidents over a couple of months (school hols). However, these episodes reappeared from October and have increased dramatically. May seem an extreme action to some but after a particularly bad episode a few nights ago which lasted a few hours I took her to A&E as there was no calming or rationalising her (children's hospital with Pead CAMHS unit). After the professionals actually witnessing her in this pattern she was admitted overnight, immediate CAMHS referral who spoke with her and us next morning, ASD traits picked up & referrals to appropriate teams now going through.

I felt like shit taking her in and putting her through that thinking that made me a bad mum but honestly, it was probably the best step I have taken as things are finally moving now and have received proper advice and support which would have been a long time coming otherwise (have to admit school is fantastically supportive and engaged though so am very lucky In that respect). However all families and children are different so this may not be the option for you but wanted to share my experience.

Have some and on me and all the best.

Whatcha, that sounds very difficult, I hope you now get somewhere and things improve

We do the 5 point scale and it definitely helps, even if it takes a while to see the improvements!
With ds, we have learnt to spot triggers, but also to see how he is feeling on a scale of 1-5, 1 being relaxed and happy, 5 being KABOOM.
Once he gets to number three, we need to work to put things into place for ds to calm down, usually something physical like jumping on a trampoline, and hopefully he'll go back down to 2 then 1. If he doesn't, we keep going and wait for inevitable meltdown and see it through, making sure he and the other dc are safe. Using the 5 point scale means that ds is slowly learning to recognise how he feels and knows that at a certain point, he can do something to make him feel better.

I did the Incredible years trough CAMHS, but ds hated it, felt patronised and it made him really angry (although I noticed at the same time that his younger brother responded to it and became more confident) so I found it difficult to see it through, particularly when we find the 5 point scale works.

I have some mini laminated 5 point scales I made for ds for out and about, if you want a couple, let me know.

Thanks Dishwasher, just taking each day as it comes and making the most of the good ones.

OP, one helpful tip the CAMHS worker gave is to research into strategies and coping techniques for ASD children and use those when dealing with her even if we don't get a formal diagnosis. The usual reward/punishment systems have not worked so I'm going to give it a try

and to all of you going through similar, and some great tips on here. I haven't had time to sit down and draw up a contract with ds yet but will definitely doing that, I think that will really help.

dishwasherdogs your laminated 5 point scales you sent me have been a godsend. I took one into school before Christmas and it now has pride of place on the notice board for all the children to use . We have a new SENCO who I met up with a couple of weeks ago who suggested I use something similar at home .

I tried shutting the door on ds in his room on Tuesday night and waiting outside when he started melting down but it made him more wound up, think I will try this after we have agreed it in our meltdown contract. One thing that is working though is changing my mindset about meltdowns, that I need to try and get him out of it once he is in full throttle or rush him. He was refusing to go to school this morning and I left him to it, and although we were late he eventually asked me to help him get ready, rather than me forcing him to dress, carrying him to the car, me and his sister being hurt in the process, which is usually what happens.

Lots of food for thought here and things to try out. Thanks all, what great support

Oh and a question about CAMHS dishwasherdogs, when you did the Incredible Years through them were they seeing your ds as well as you doing it? CAMHS won't see ds until I have finished the course. He has his ADOS in 2 weeks and I am pissed off they won't have anything to bring to the table about his anxiety and meltdowns when all the professionals meet afterwards. It's interesting what you say about the course, I have only done the first two weeks and there is some good stuff but I am already thinking it will help me with his sister (who is a little.... ummmm. .. spirited herself ) more than ds.

CAMHS wouldn't see ds at all, even though he talks about suicide a lot, and wanting to kill other people (all weathermen are on his hit list at the moment because it didn't snow enough this week). They will only see him if he actually self harms or tries to kill himself.
At some point in the Incredible years course we did an anxiety test for our dc, would it be possible to ask the leader to let you do this and send on a copy to the autism co-ordinator as evidence?
Have you been asked to make a DVD for them? If not, if you can film meltdowns etc as evidence and hand that in to them.

Ds was assessed a couple of weeks ago but didn't get a diagnosis (autistic features during ADOS and disco, but none observed in school) and we've been recommended a fresh start, CAMHS referral (which will no doubt mean another parenting course), sleep therapy and some more strategies to try. I suspect we'll have to do the incredible years again as this is a new CAMHS referral. Hopefully this time I'll be more assertive and ask for more tips as to how to carry it out with a child who doesn't really play and who hates being commentated about, which seems to be the main focuses of the course.

I forgot I sent you some scales! I still have loads if you want any more.

dishwasher Funnily enough I took my first video of a meltdown this morning!

I think it may be a bit easier to get a CAMHS referral in my area than yours by the sound of it, that sounds a nightmare . I have a feeling ds will have a similar outcome to your ds after his ADOS. He is mostly well behaved in school but pretty spirited, and performs well at set tasks and doesn't tick some of the typical ASD boxes, I know something isn't right but he is not obviously ASD iyswim.

2 or 3 more of your little 1-5 scales would be great, we have lost one and one is in school, but it'd be great to have one for in my handbag and one at his Dad's. I am happy to pay postage .

They both sound quite similar!
Ds doesn't give anything away at school, but can be silly, which is interpreted as normal 9 yr old silliness, which it may be, but we can see him masking and he comes home complaining about tiny little things that have stressed him out . He ticks boxes for SPD, but not enough for a diagnosis and he ticks boxes for ASD, but not enough for a diagnosis.

I have been told that my area is terrible for ASD and related issues, which is probably why it's difficult to get CAMHS involvement.

I'll post some scales to you this afternoon, don't worry about postage, I'm happy that they're going to be used :)

Spookily similar, my ds is a bit younger but has loads of sensory stuff going on too! Thanks for sending some more scales, and you can have my first ever honk honk ... keep going getting somewhere towards the help your ds needs dishwasher

Thank you
Same to you, hope his assessment gets you somewhere.

Why do these ideas sound so good, but I can never make them work?

I talked to DS about a contract today. All was going well. He decided that if he needs to 'slow down' (his words) he needs a gentle cuddle.
However, if he has 'crashed', he needs us to leave him alone, but stay in the same room as him.
I agreed, but with the proviso that if he was hurting us, we could not stay in the room with him, and would have to leave.
Then he added that watching TV would help him calm down.

I agree that this does seem to help, but tonight he 'crashed' about 15 mins before bed. And we have a strict rule, because he has real trouble sleeping, that he has no screens in the hour before bed.

So we were left with the dilema, stick to the contract, or else he might not trust us to do so again, or stick to the no screen before be rule, as suggested by the Dr.

aarrggh, nothing is ever easy!
So,

No, it's not easy, and some strategies will never work with some children, but the only way to find out is to try. I expect your ds is feeling a bit overwhelmed at the new suggestion of a contract and is struggling to process it - give him a bit of time and space to adjust before moving on with it.

What we did (and still do, at age 16) is to have a weekly meeting, same place, same time, in which to discuss the past week's events and bring up any issues arising, and plan ahead to the following week. My son finds this helps as it's part of a regular routine and I don't spring meetings on him. Predictability is key for him, and this method gives it to him.

Another technique we used to use, linked to this, was a six-monthly progress plan (a bit like IEP SMART targets in school) and we'd talk about how he was doing with each of his goals and look at ways I could help him and he could help himself to achieve them. We had a good reward at the end of it (when hew as younger, it was a bigger Lego set or something similar), so he had something material to aim for even if he didn't see the developmental benefits. Ds made a lot of progress in that time, using this method, but as above not all techniques will work for all children and you'd have to work it out for yourselves.

We were also big fans of social stories - we had one for every eventuality, including as descriptors for all the other strategies we used. So he'd have one for how we had progress meetings, and a positive one every six months to show what he'd achieved.

A contract has to be negotiated, and it can take time to find the right balance, as you're finding. And don't forget our kids can be very manipulative and will always go for what they see as the best option for themselves . You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, there will be objection and no-cooperation at times, but consistency is key if you're to find something that works for all concerned.