Do you punish your child???

[shazzarooney99]

Do you? what do you think is appropriate? this evening after another meltdown,with hitting and smashing his brothers iphone i have said no football and he will be losing his spends till hes paid for the iphone, does this sound to harsh?

Bit of both, for us. Totally agree you have to differentiate between what can be controlled and what can't, and true meltdown needs support and sympathy rather than more punishment. Our kids usually feel at their worst during and after meltdown so there's not much point in adding to it.

We have also worked on proactive approaches, scaling, natural consequences and lots and lots of talking and explaining. It isn't easy, but it does work. Positive reinforcement has worked to encourage the kind of behaviour/attitudes I wanted him to learn, but it takes a long time.

Social stories had their place but for my son, encouraging the positive didn't always work and he needed to know what the negative outcomes would be if he didn't comply or behave in an acceptable way. So we introduced choice (visually presented on Choice Cards), so that he knew the outcomes, good or bad, would be his own responsibility.

It's different now because he's sixteen, about to go to college, and the adult world doesn't work the way we'd like it to, so we have had to consider the way some attitudes (eg lateness, not attending to tasks) would be addressed under adult circumstances.

I also admit to removing his phone on rare occasions when it's taking over his life and he needs a break, but doesn't recognise it for himself. But even then, I know that he can do without it if he puts in the effort, and it's not an obsessive autistic need. The way we handle discipline is very much down to experience and understanding him very very well.

Thanks,we had a really bad day today, in fact extremley bad,the more ideas i can get the better. xxx

It isn't easy, and we can all empathise with your bad day - we've all had them, and we've all handled it badly at times too, so don't be too hard on yourself if you do slip up.

IMO, you'll make best progress if you really research your strategies before implementing them, and with some they'll work better if you discuss them with your son before starting so that nothing comes as a surprise. For example, most people want to use social stories to correct behaviours that are considered inappropriate, but they are often so wrapped up in wanting 'progress' that they forget you're meant to write 50% of your stories as positives, which works to engage and encourage the child in the concept of social stories so that you'll have a better chance of success when you do tackle the problem areas. And they have to be right for the individual too, with the right font, the right graphics etc - for some children, one element wrong and it just won't work.

So spend a bit of time on a plateau, if you can, doing some reading and finding out about other people's experiences and their tools, cherry pick what you think might work for you and your child and start with one or two at a time. You need to keep it manageable or you run the risk of it becoming overwhelming for both of you.

There's loads of very experienced and knowledgeable people here, so you won't be short of good advice. The hard part is picking out what's relevant to your situation.