DS1 - AS meltdown in the kitchen with a knife - help!

[Lorns]

Hi can anyone cheer me up please?

My DS who is 10 with Aspergers had a meltdown in the kitchen today. I can cope with restraining him (just), but he then picked up a sharp knife and threatened to hurt me.

Luckly I was able to get him to back off. Has anyone been in a similar situation. How can I get help for him?

Hi, just a quick message to let you know you are not alone. We have had same problem with our 8 yr old asd. We have had help from cafmh at hospital. It is late and I am just of to bed but I will post tomorow eve with more details.

Hope today has been better. x

Just over a year ago my ds (then 8) had one of his regular meltdowns, and this time he tore off a banister spindle and brandished it at me as a sword. He fully intended to hurt me and admitted as much afterwards. This was after he'd pulled his wardrobe doors off and trashed his room.

This was a regular occurrence at that time. We got no help from outside the home because he appeared 'normal' at CAMHS interviews and in school (at least during lesson times when staff could be bothered to notice). So we set about a programme of anger management at home and worked our arses off to teach him how to control his temper and recognise the signs of getting cross. It's been a battle but now he very rarely has meltdowns and certainly isn't violent to that degree. Don't get me wrong, he's not 'fixed', it's still something he has to work on and probably will be for many years yet, but there is hope and he can learn.

I strongly recommend the NAS Help2 seminar on Anger Management, which was life-changing for us. Rewards and consequences have helped here too.

Good luck, and I hope your lad is OK this morning.

Thanks to both of you!

I need to spend more time going to seminars, so thanks for your recommendation KarenThirl. I do an ABA chart for him but he doesn't care if he gets rewards!

He's woken up (early of course), but CALM! He even said sorry when I reminded him about his outburst yesterday....

Lets see what a day at school brings!

Hi Lorns, hope you and your son are well.

Life can be very up and down with an as child, we got some help from his docter through at the hospital. Does he have one?, the Nas also does a parent to parent advice line the website is www.nas.org.co.uk . Charts do not work with Stuart at home but they do in school (he sees it as a 'school thing'). Does he do any after school activites, Stuart is so much better now he has things to do and look forward to. We also get restbite care which really helps and gives us a break.

We are going to try special needs yoga with him and we also managed to pinpoint his anger by using charts, if you would like more information on these please ask.

KarenThirl, I don't live in the UK, but that angre management seminar sounds very interesting. Would it be possible for you to give me an idea of what strategies they teach? (just to have an idea)

yummumummy, just out of interest, how is special needs yoga different from yoga? (I am always keen to learn about something that might help DS, thanks!)

Tinysocks, email me at [email protected] and I can send you some notes.

I am not sure as we have not tried it yet class starts next month. The teacher is basically trained in special needs and teaches a lot of breathing and how to calm down when angry.