Hugs please.

[1805]

My dd has just attacked me and I'm on my own. Dh is uncontactable at work.
Dd is ASD 10yrs old and can pack a punch. This was prob the most abusive attack yet and included trying to strangle me and trying to pull my hair out.
I never know what to do when this happens. I just sort of shut down and stayed calm. She is now in her room and seems calm but I'm not going in yet as she's probably destroying stuff and I'll get upset.

How do other people handle these kind of meltdowns please?

I mood manage DS1 as much as possible. When this fails I take DS2 into the bedroom with me and lock the door. But the criticism was that I was pandering to him and not putting DS2 'first'.

I have tried this the other way around - DS2 'escapes' and I stay in the locked room with DS1 until he calms down. I won't try this again!

DS1 can't hear me when he is in meltdown. But he loves me and hates to hurt me. I can chose to do things differently so that he doesn't feel he has to.

We talk later when he is calm and agree strategies - but he has trouble generalising what d'ya know?

See the thing is for me, we do have a consequence if we are not ready and go to go on time and thats to lose his xbox, he has a chart with a picture of his xbox and if he does not do this then he does not get it.

However there are days when he gets anxious about school and even though i have tried de escalating before i know it hes blown, and on other occasions just like the flick of a switch and most often when school has finished, now if he hurts me he loses his xbox.

Sorry poulter we make a big fuss of him earning his xbox, thats what we say in the morning are you going to earn your xbox today, then if hes is all right he will and we make a fuss of that, then of course if he doesnt then we will say ok xbox has gone. And to be fair it is working most days now, for instance i have managed to get back into work for 2 and a half days this week, which i have not managed to do since October by using the xbox and a visual timetable at home, it does seem to be having a positive effect as he does want to earn it.

zzzzz it doesnt work all the time,as we still have days when hes kicking off going into school, however as i said i have managed two n half days this week at work which is a huge step for us. But it is working more and more, or perhaps we are just having a goodish week.

I may eat my words next week lol

Shazza - your methods sound good, i.e. they are working for you. We parents know our special dc the best and of course one approach won't suit all children. This is why I love forums like this where I can read lots of peoples approaches and get some ideas of new techniques that may work for us.
Dd recently went 5 weeks without being late for school once, which was nothing short of a miracle. Since January though, we are back to being late (anywhere from 9.00am/10am/11/am/12noon/not-at-all) at least once a week.

This is something that really frustrates me - the constant changing of routines and requirements that work.

I've now talked through last night with dd - who had no idea what she'd done- and was upset when I told her what she did. We had a lovely chat about how her "bad brain" takes over her "good brain" (her terminology) and how she has recently been able to "fool her bad brain into calming down, but now it's wise to this and won't calm down any more". So we discussed how to find new ways to get 'good brain' back in charge.

Anyway, good luck everybody! And thanks for last night! I feel much better today.

1805, it frustrates me too being late for school, i hate being late for anything, im a very punctual person, i always like to be early lol.

Glad you are feeling better luv, the sad thing with out kids is these things dont last for long anyway when you put them in place xxxx

We don't punish meltdowns. They're punishment enough on their own. DS1 often has very little memory of exactly what he did and he tends to dissociate, even when he sees the evidence. Any attempt to punish would simply re-escalate the problem.

It's much more productive with DS1 to work on him not getting into that situation again. The act of him developing coping skills that keep the red mist at bay is far more useful to him for when we're no longer around.

It's interesting that his biggest meltdowns always happen when I'm at a particular point in my cycle when I'm a little quicker to get cross or tearful rather than see the bizarre side of a situation and point out how ridiculous something is. He can sense when I'm that little bit anxious and uptight.

It is not a coincidence ourvye. One of the most helpful things we were told about dealing with a meltdown is let the least stressed parent deal with it or swop over when you can hear the other parent getting heated or even take 5 minutes out (not always possible if missiles are being hurled across the room) & walk away before dealing with if possible.

I probably read this in the explosive child book but the question to ask yourself if you are thinking about the desirability of using sanctions is whether or not they improve the behaviour. In our household they do not and usually escalate things so there is no point us using them because we want to improve the behaviour.

With ds1 we often see a biphasic meltdown where he has the initial explosion, starts to calm down, then realises the consequence of his behaviour and then goes into a volcanic eruption. By not having punitive sanctions we have reduced somewhat the secondary phase.

I also think that ds1 and ds2 have very little control when they are in a meltdown. Sanctions will only work if a child has control over their behaviour. That's not to say that we do not try and control or sanction pre-meltdown behaviour but just not for the actual behaviour that occurs in the meltdown.

Forget also to say for the OP. It is horrible dealing with a child in meltdown.