Struggling with sons behaviour

[Shutupyoutart]

Hi, sorry this is prob going to be long so well done if you make it to the end! Basically in a nut shell I am really struggling to cope with my ds(6) behaviour. He has a working diagnosis of autism however I do and have thought for a long time that his struggles are more like ADHD. He is a real sensory seeker and has been since about a year old, he really lacks impulse control and will touch and break things constantly. He knows when he's doing something wrong but it's like he just can't help himself, just this week he's broken toys, a bracelet that I had for a day tipped paint all over his sister's carpet, drawn on the wall. It was my daughter's birthday the other day and we can't lay out anyone's presents for their birthdays anymore because he wakes up really early like 5/6am tells me he's going to the toilet(he still sleeps with me) and proceeds to destroy things down stairs! I know you may be thinking he needs more supervision but honestly he can do these things in a matter of seconds as soon as I take my eyes off him! (I have another three kids as well to care for)He struggles to listen or process what we say or else will appear to listen and apologise and then repeat the same behaviour again. I've been hit three times this eve by him while trying to get him to sleep. He lashes out often and is always remorseful. Despite what I've said he is an amazing kid with a huge personality and loving heart but I don't know how to cope with this behaviour anymore we have an ot which has helped a little even tho we have only seen her twice!He has sensory circuits to do every day multiple times I prob haven't been consistent enough with this it's a busy house and I have very little support. Any advice or even a handhold for a worn out mum.

Has the OT done an assessment of the home to look at how to make it safer for DS and better meet his needs? Does DS have an EHCP? If so, the sensory OT should be in there - DS needs ongoing, direct sensory OT. Do you have any sensory equipment at home?

You can request social care assessments - a carer’s assessment for you and an assessment by the disabled children’s team for DS. Also, Scope offer mentoring to parents of DC going through the diagnosis process. Are any of DS’s siblings under 5? If so, contact Home Start to see whether they can support you. For you other DC, it is worth contacting your local young carer’s service.

Some people find Ross Greene’s The Explosive Child boo and Yvonne Newbold’s resources helpful.

Ultimately though, DS does need more supervision and restricted access to things that can harm him/others and things like paints. For example, paint need locking away and if DS destroys things when downstairs someone needs to get up with him when he goes to the toilet. Can be relentless and exhausting, but necessary.

That sounds really tough.

We have so many locks all over our house trying to keep him / stuff safe. I’m also always covered it bruises too.

You can only do what you can do.

Thank you both for your replies, he has had assessment from the ot yes(we are in Ireland so some things may be a bit different to UK)she has given me tips to manage his sensory needs in particular his seeking at home with circuits he has to do multiple times daily,it takes a lot of badgering to do these at home and he will get fed up half way through a circuit I think there are too many distractions.He did similar ones at school and really thrived there doing this, he returned back to school this week and he seems really unhappy said he hates school butI can't get anything out of him. He has a new teacher. During the summer I had to fill out forms for him to get an sna again this year which I did, no idea if it was granted or not I asked him did he have two teachers this year he said no,I asked if he did his sensory circuits and he said no. Going to ring Monday morning and ask for a meeting. We do have locks on a lot of things but I'm not exaggerating when I say how fast he is to get into things, the house is safe and things like knifes or anything dangerous is locked away of course it's more that he will get in to his sister's belongings or raid the cupboards we obviously need to just get more locks on anythings that there's a chance he can get into. I do get up with him and supervise him he will literally jump out of bed and say I'm going to toilet and leg it down the stairs before I've had a chance to get out of the bed.. believe me I am up and after him straight away but the boy is like the flash 😂. I really do appreciate the support and advice I was having a particularly difficult day the other day, have to just keep going, sometimes he's tough but like I say he is a brilliant kid just wish I knew what was going on his head sometimes

Sorry overloadedbylego I just realised I didn't answer some of your questions we do have some sensory equipment he has a huge therapy ball that he loves to bounce on, and we have a sensory swing too that he also loves. He loves deep pressure so we got him a weighty bear he seems to like that too and he will sometimes request a deep pressure massage that the ot showed me how to do with a smaller therapy ball. We haven't heard from her or our resource worker all summer and it's been tough but there's only so much they can do I suppose she has given us the tools and we have to practice them but it's hard to get ds to go along with it at home.

If DS likes to bounce, do you have a trampoline (indoor or outdoor)? Ours is used daily to help self regulation. For deep pressure, you could look at rollers (similar to soft play mangle type equipment). If DS gets up before you able to keep up with him and it is causing difficulties, have you considered a safe space bed or similar?

Just had a look at safe space beds thank you I will defo look more into that. we do have a trampoline used to be used a lot more but I think the novelty has worn off a bit will try and get him out on it more. The sensory circuits do kind of help when I can get him to do them. His ot said he needs to do them regularly and it's important that we do each stage of them. alerting, organising and then calming because if he's just doing lots of alerting(jumping ,spinning etc) it's having a counter effect and putting him up higher. I'm trying to get the balance right. Thanks so much for your advice I really appreciate it. Another thing that's a bit more sensitive he has starting having a lot of accidents lately, will leave it too late to go to the toilet and just pee all over the house, I prompt him a lot and remind him to go to the toilet throughout the day. I've had to put pull ups back on at night as he wets the bed every night In his sleep. I'm trying to not make a big deal out of it to him as don't want to make him feel upset or ashamed but it is getting worse I'm worried that I've made him go backwards in the day by putting on pull ups at night I asked his resource worker what I could do about the bed wetting and she suggested a plastic sheet on the mattress!

In the UK, there is a continence service you can be referred to? Do you have anything similar in Ireland?

DS1 isn’t reliably toilet trained either. We manage by a mixture of using slips (too big for the normal pull ups/nappies now) and regularly taking him to the toilet (and cleaning up accidents when we don’t get it right).

Not sure if they do have anything like that here I'd say they do. But I don't think ds is incontinent as such, for ex he doesn't have accidents at school just home so I think it's more that he's ignoring the Ques to go to the toilet and that's when he's wetting himself. At night it's the same he's obviously too deep asleep and not waking up to his bodys que that he needs to go. I will look into it tho maybe they give some more tips, we do lots of prompting and he has a visual toilet schedule to remind him how to use it properly we did go through a poo smearing stage for a while but he got passed that with the visuals and a poo goes to poo land video on YouTube! 😂

Here, incontinence services would support DS if he wasn’t reliably dry at home even if he was elsewhere. Night wetting is slightly different and in some areas they don’t support until 8. It may also be a sensory need, for which OT could help.