Advice to deal with extremely challenging behaviour

[MrsT1704]

I am at my wits end at the moment. I as to call the police for the ASD son who is 12. It was horrible.

I am usually able to manage his behaviour but he smashed many things and kept attacking myself and the animals in the house. He also smashed a window. I was worried for all our safety

Please does anyone have any advice i am open to anything to help him and us as a family. We are waiting for CAHMS but it’s a long waiting list, the police are going to emphasis to referral.

I feel so tired 😞 and im worried about his future

I'm sorry it is very hard

Do you know what triggers him and causes a meltdown?
Does he have enough language to tell you?

His language is very limited. Yesterday he got angry when he was told he could no longer play on games on the phone (plenty of warning beforehand) and smashed his phone on the floor. I feel this was the underlying frustration for the rest of the day. He eventually blew up over a small disagreement with his sister. She asked him to not put his feet on her lap. His has impaired speech and language and speaks in short sentences and can not always understand what we say so a lot of upset can come from misunderstandings of communication

That sounds exceptionally hard. Is your son in mainstream or special school? Do you use symbols to support his understanding and communication? Have you got a visual timer for him to see how long before something is going to finish? Have you looked into social stories for tricky situations?

The wait time for CAMHS is ridiculous but I do know one case where the child was moved quicker up the list because of the extreme behaviour.

In my experience puberty is often quite a tricky time for autistic children. My own autistic son became more volatile especially at the beginning and similarly with children I work with.

He currently attends a ASD base in a secondary school who try to integrate him into mainstream. It’s been a rocky start to high school due to COVID but he has managed really well.

We tend to use pictures a lot and rely on as little language as possible. Pictures to describe the situation work really well for him.

We have used the visual timer previously with the red, amber and green section and it worked great for a few years and then it would frustrate him more than help so we stopped using it. We now use echo with a timer and also verbally remind him of the time left. We have used social stories a lot and also used charts to describe what is happening inside his body when angry so he can understand it. When he is calm he can tell me the things he could do to calm down and these sometimes work but other times it just feels like something we need to ride out. It would be ok if I could leave him and give him space but he tells me to leave him alone but continues to throw things and push, hit or punch me. Once he calms down it’s like as if nothing has happened and he is very happy and I’m left exhausted.

I have read the explosive child book which I thought was amazing and have put a lot of the advice into practice such as working on the underlying skills he struggles with but it feels like an uphill struggle. It’s so horrible to see him like that and to see my daughter also struggle. I wonder if anyone has gone private for support? As I don’t want to wait a couple of years for a CAHMS appointment.

I haven't done this myself, but I would look for a clinical psychologist in private practice - they are the people, who give advice on how to handle challenging behaviour. DD was at two specialist schools, who employed their own clinical psychologists, to help them handle the challenging behaviour of some pupils.

It sounds exhausting.

I have recently been recommended the books 'the incredible 5 point scale' and 'a 5 is against the law'. They really helped one of my students get a better understanding of how she felt, what she could do and how we could help. It certainly was not a magic bullet but we saw a significant improvement in how she managed her own emotions (without hurting those around her)

@MrsT1704 sorry you’re having a rough time with your ds.

Can you look into Yvonne Newbold send vcb, she has some webinars on an evening for £4 specifically targeting violent and challenging behaviour, I’ve just done 2. Maybe everything you already know (it was pretty much for us) but i tried anyway as nothing much to lose. It’s about parenting the opposite to what you usually would and almost all of your ds behaviour being anxiety related and tips to decrease that etc.

You are far from alone with what you’re experiencing

[quote danni0509]@MrsT1704 sorry you’re having a rough time with your ds.

Can you look into Yvonne Newbold send vcb, she has some webinars on an evening for £4 specifically targeting violent and challenging behaviour, I’ve just done 2. Maybe everything you already know (it was pretty much for us) but i tried anyway as nothing much to lose. It’s about parenting the opposite to what you usually would and almost all of your ds behaviour being anxiety related and tips to decrease that etc.

You are far from alone with what you’re experiencing [/quote]
Thank you. I have just had a look and her webinars look good. As you say it can't hurt to look. Had a good think about what we have been doing with DS lately and I can see that we have let a few things slide so I am going to slowly pick some things back up.

Also had a very good conversation with him which has really helped. Thank you everyone for your advice and support.

I was going to recommend the Explosive Child but see you're putting into place those strategies. Are there particular problems that cause the biggest reactions that you're prioritising above others? I think the book recommends that where the situation is very volatile, you focus on one or two high priorities - I.e. those that impact on safety (yours, his, other people's). I'm so sorry you're going through this, it's really tough isn't it? Dd is only 4 and it's hard enough with her meltdowns, I can only imagine how hard it is with a 12yo who is much bigger and stronger.

Not much more by way of practical advice, as I'm only just getting to grips with the process myself, but here for a virtual hand hold.

It is so hard and we have managed these behaviours for years but it is so much harder now that he is older and of co take puberty!

We found some information about PDA recently and although I don’t think he has PDA we recognise that these strategies work very well for him! It seems that he does have extreme reactions to demands.

We are slowly working on better managing his behaviour. Today the meltdown went like this: he had the tablet in his room. He screamed and ran down the stairs with the tablet and said ‘it was annoying him’. I was on the phone busy and dad asked calmly ‘can you tell me what’s wrong so we can help you’ he shouted and swore, smashed the tablet and then tried smashing the mirror and anything else in his path. He wouldn’t tell us what was wrong. It is so hard.