3 yr old son deliberately hurting others

[Cantthinkofausername1]

My son is 3 yrs and 8 months old. He was diagnosed with ASD 4 months ago and the paediatrician told us it was highly likely he would receive an ADHD diagnosis when he is older. Of the many problematic behaviours we encounter on a daily basis there is one in particular that really concerns us.

If you have an injury he will deliberately go out of his way to hit it and hurt you. No matter how many times you tell him not to/explain/redirect attention.

His dad has a large cut on his leg and my son keeps trying to hit it and scratch it. I think you can imagine what happened after his dad had a vasectomy and tried to gently tell him that area was sensitive

Sometimes it’s hard to not to see this behaviour as deliberately malicious and I’d really like to be able to see why he does it.

Any advice or opinions?

Sounds hard. It wasn't a miracle fix but I found the book 'hands are not for hitting' helpful when my toddler was going through slightly aggressive phase

Are you sure he understands he is hurting when he does these things? Is he verbal?

My son did this a lot when he was younger. He didn't understand that he was hurting when pressing cuts/bruises, he did it purely because he enjoyed the reaction. He enjoyed the sounds we would make. It was mummy jumps and makes a funny noise when i do this, and i like it. He still finds it funny if i hurt myself, its not malicious. He's purely reacting to what he is seeing/hearing without fully understanding the emotions involved.

Thank you mintplum. He is verbal but his ability to speak and his ability to understand don’t match up so what you say is actually really true. He probably does just like the noise and reaction. Sometimes his face looks like he’s playing a game. There’s just so much challenging behaviour at the moment and it’s really hard to see each behaviour clearly and see a reason for it, if you see what I mean?

My DS is the same. The minute you tell him NOT to do something, he will do it. It's like, once you've put the idea into his head, he can't stop himself from acting on it. ABSOLUTELY no impulse control whatsoever.

So I never preemptively tell him not to do something, if that makes sense. I just don't mention it. I might tell him what I want him to do, but not what I don't want him to do. - so instead of "no hitting", I might say "kind hands" or "keep your hands to yourself" or whatever.

Also - no reaction, just remove yourself from the situation, walk away, go to another room, stop talking to him or playing with him until he calms down.

I totally know what you mean and it's really frustrating. My son is 9 (non verbal) and we've had every behaviour under the sun by this point. Figuring out why he did those things and trying to prevent them is difficult, can't lie about that and it's taken a long time to understand. We've had biting, turned out he just wanted to chew on something, gave him something he can chew. He hasn't bitten anyone since. Once we stopped giving him a reaction when he pressed a bruise he stopped doing it. As his communication has improved so has the negative behaviours. Using visual aids and social stories have really helped. Visual aids can really help with anxiety which can be displayed as negative behaviours.

We still have our dodgy days but far fewer.