Asd meltdowns ...Please explain to me?

[mysonben]

I read/hear a lot about these huge scary meltdowns that asd kids have regularly.
I think my ds has only had four full scale tantrums that i would class as a meltdown. He didn't bite or became violent, but he was screaming/crying pretty loud ,all arms and legs on the floor, took ages to calm down and was very upset with chin quivering and fast uneven breathing. These were very bad tantrums , a mixture of anger and despair.

My ds is quite a placid child ,(he has his moments like all kids and will push/snatch toys,...) but often instead of having a tantrum he gets very ,very emotional like fearful or anxious and sobs his heart out.

Is anyone else's asd child has similar emotional crying instead of regular meltdowns?

Cheers ladies.

I also wanted to ask are all kids on the spectrum supposed to have these meltdowns on a regular basis? It's just that only four meltdowns since the end of babyhood doesn't seem a lot in my eyes. (Not that i'm complaining! )

Mine hasn't had anything I would describe as a meltdown, just normal toddler tantrums and pretty placid ones compared to his non ASD older brothers at the same age (2.5). However now we are trying to get him to do things he doesn't want to do eg making him communicate to get things we would previously have just given him, he is getting very cross about that. So I would not say we were out of the woods. I can also see how his behaviour could get worse if he gets more frustrated at being unable to communicate. However even a tantrum only lasts a few minutes so hardly a meltdown.

mine has "meltdowns" where she temper-tantrums, and gets violent(kicks and head=buts) and self harms, she bites her arms and hands and bangs her head off floor or furniture.These could last a couple of hours!... they have got less frequent and shorter in time, since she got her weighted blanket and we started giving her omega oil...mabey just a coincedence, but

Oh blimey no...not 'supposed to' at all
Ds is 12 and i can only remember about 6 tantrummy meltdowns when he was very little.
He stopped doing it at around the time when most nt children would stop tantrums. He still goes into what we (in our house) call 'meltdown mode' though ...it just doesn't manifest as a tantrum....just absolute wild panicky fear/terror and a need to escape in ds's case.
They are all very different

DS3 is similar to your son mysonben, ds1 is the opposite (need 8another* new door this week, it's at least one a month!).

Sphiland I refer to it as 'passive autism' 9alongside a few other traits).

My son has a lot of meltdowns, were on the 4th already this morning at the moment, he gets very violent so im keeping my distance!!!!

My son is also called Ben and i think a similar age to yours, mine was born november 2005 and im guessing from a previous post of age yours is similar?!

Our meltdowns started when DS got older, he was a very passive toddler. He moved from a passive personality that was quite separate from the world around him to being very reactive (screaming, crying, wailing) at around school age. He is not aggressive, but more terrified.
We can go weeks and months without incident, and then they can be a daily occurance, depending on his background anxiety levels.
We have had the first meltdown in weeks this morning because we opened a new bottle of suncream and the smell has changed. He completely lost it and I have left him at school in a state of shutdown - quite usual after the meltdown.

Thank you ladies, yet again i see that tere is a lot of variation of behaviours , They are all different just as the rest of us (NT).

JennyBensmummy- yes it seems our ds share the same name and birth month too.

DS' SALT started again this morning (had to leave the house nice and early so was rushing a bit), so the getting up routine was different (i'd left ds2 upstairs with ds1 and asked ds1 (16 y) to get ds2 dressed while i was making his breakfast) well what a crying fit we got from ds2 because i was downstairs and the routine wasn't what he is used to!

My ten year old gets very emotional and cries when something upsets him, unfortunately we have had quite a few incidents recently due to his inability to cope with not winning things (school sports day was traumatic and the swimming gala last night was also tough), it doesn't make much difference to him that his friends and grown-ups can see, he just can't seem to control it and we haven't found an effective way to help him with this yet.
He used to have volcanic tantrims when a toddler until he was about 7, I think, he just gets angry and thumps cushions and growls now!

DS2 has at least 3 meltdowns a week, mostly when he has an idea in his head that can't be carried through. They can last for 10 minutes or they can last a few hours. He once had a full day meltdown, and by the end of it I was on the wine.

He had a spectacular on after school yesterday. It lasted for a good 45 minutes. He thought we were going straight home after school to watch Wall-E (I might have agreed at some point on the way to school but can't remember) but we went to Tesco's instead. Once he knew we were not going in the irection of hom, he started sceaming very loudly and high pitched on the bus until we had to get off about 5/6 stops before our actual one. We walked the rest of the way, ds2 being dragged most of the way while holding me holding his hand/wrist. If I had not held him he would have ran into the road and tried to go home. I had to wrestle him into a trolley as there was no way I could shop without him in one. I had to then put DS3 in next to him but had to put a blanket between them incase he nipped ds3 (who is only 6 months old). He only calmed down when I passed him a wall-e book with buttons on. Luckily I know where these books are located in Tescos, as usually they are my first port of call when shopping with him.

I hate meltdowns, they make me look like I am the worst mother on earth/ds2 is the spoilt child from hell/I am trying to kidnap him

My son can have them regularly. They are far far worse than a standard tantrum, he becomes violent, almost not on this planet, Will scream, shout, hit and kick anything in sight, will get all hot and sweaty he is that angry and can take a good 40mins for him to calm down. But then he can just snap out of it as though its never happened..Weird.!
These are normally down to him not getting his own way or being told off.

DS1 can't remember what has happened in a meltdown it seems

My dd2 (ASD) hasn't had many melt downs, she seems to go months without one, when she does have one its more emotional crying, maybe a little bit of kicking her legs around but no violence. It takes her a while to calm down after and sometimes she gets so tiered she will fall asleep.

Was just about to post a thread asking "will the tantrums EVER stop" when I came across this one! My DS2 is 5 1/2 and has regular shouty tantrums - maybe I am getting used to them but I wouldn't describe them as total meltdowns. He doesn't get violent to others (or himself), just very shouty and unable to see reason. He also does a jumping-up-and-down foot-stamping routine that just reminds me of Riverdance Everytime he does it DS1 and I can't stop ourselves laughing which doesn't exactly help, it just looks so funny ... he probably has these a couple of times a week but they don't normally last more than 20mins

5inthebed - this is what my DS is like. DS2 didn't want to come to DS1's football club yesterday, screaming and shouting at the bus-stop while all the old ladies looked on and rolled their eyes and tutted

mysonben My DS (now 3, CP and ASD and non-verbal) does EXACTLY what your LO does!

CBreezy, so good to hear your exact description of my son, it really helps knowing im not the only one. Im only just getting to used to excepting their is a reason for his behaviour, but its still depressing. Today he started at 9am throwing everything in the living room at his teenager brother, little one is 4.5, i was in the bath and all i could hear was screaming! Id asked my eldest to sit with his brother otherwise i wouldnt get a bath full stop. My eldest ended up in tears and i told him to lock himself in his room

My youngest then physically attacks me, screaming,scratching,punching,kicking, absolutely awful like a little mad man. He carried on like this till about 2oc and then seemed to just snap out of it. I had awful headache by then and felt totally exhausted.I havent got a clue what caused it, which i find frustrating.

Anyway, it hadnt happened for about 5 days but it still shocks the hell out of me. Im hoping they wont be so bad as he gets older perhaps.

sorry for waffling, good to sound off though. im already dreading work in the morning as hes told me hes not going to grandmas because he doesnt like her house anymore

i meant my eldest to lock himself in the room to keep himself safe from the missiles, not that id told him off