How do you cope when your child attacks you?

[Ampersand44]

I don't mean 'no hitting' rules, just how on earth do you deal with it emotionally? I have been attacked 3 times by DS2 tonight, he's 8 but he hit me so hard it really hurts. He flipped over coming off his DS despite clear arrangement about what he could do and for how long, staged warnings etc. I just feel so emotionally battered by it, and to be honest scared - is this what the future holds? Sorry, that's a bit melodramatic and I haven't even had the first glass of wine - it is not the first time this has happened but it has really shaken me this time.

I have scars all over my hands where DS1 has scratched me and I've been hit so hard there are marks.

But never mind the marks it's so bruising emotionally to be attacked by your child. My main reaction has been to feel incredibly drained and exhausted -- if I can I have a glass of wine and go to bed as soon as I can.

I too fear for the future what will happen when he's a teenager and taller than me? but the main thing I feel is the strain it puts on my feelings for him. It's so hard to feel loving towards someone who's harming you. It doesn't touch the real underneath love that would make me throw myself underneath a train to save him, but it's my ability to be gentle and affectionate that gets eroded.

But we have good phases and bad phases with this. At the moment we're in a good phase; and when we're in a bad phase it just helps, a bit, to remember that it probably won't last forever.

(passes glass of wine)

Thank you - downed in one! You have said everything I feel. (passes a glass to you too)

Slurp! thanks!

I am one of a small group of parents who have pushed hard for behaviour training for children with severe learning disabilities and challenging behaviour as we are always left out of training for parents - like Triple P - that has been rolled out nationally.

It was a two day course and we learnt lots of things about how to avoid or diffuse violence then we learnt a few basic physical interventions - basically SCIP training. It has immediately made me feel more confident about taking my son out. AT LAST.

DS is 14 and I wish I had learned all this a long time ago before his negative behaviours had become established.

If you need training, push for it - generally, no-one will offer it

Thank you - I will do. DS waiting DX of AS and I keep putting off dealing with lashing out as have tendency to feel it is just my rubbish parenting and lack of understanding of AS. Have been kidding myself it is not that bad but after yesterday and an incident in London last week where he tried to push us onto the Tube line (would not have succeeded but still scary) time to stop pretending.
Have looked up Triple P on internet, no practitioners in our area but will ask around. Anyone else tried it?

My DS is 15 and when he hit puberty he became very violent towards me and DS. We were so ashamed I could not bring myself to tell anyone- although in the end we did tell school and EP at a meeting.
We went on a course for parents of AS children and were so disappointed at the pathetic session on behaviour. The real "hardcore" stuff wasn't dealt with at all. I found "People with Autism behaving Badly" really useful (avaialble on Amazon).
Eventually the Community Paed put him on Respiridone and that made a significant difference. He seems to be through the worst and is now reducing his dose. We asked for family counselling from CAMHS but that was useless as well.
The problems won't be to do with rubbish parenting, but a better understanding of AS might help you to cope better. We had to learn to be non confrontatiional and to give him warnings before we wanted him to change an activity- we used to use a timer and tell him he had 10 minutes to come off his PSP or whatever. We also learnt to pick our battles and to think about what we wanted him to do was really necessary. DH in particular had to think through all the events and decide whether it was necessary to ask him to stop what he was doing NOW when dinner wasn't going to be ready for 20 minutes and whether he could break it down into smaller tasks.
It makes me cross when people say parents of ASD children are rubbish parents. On the whole I would say we are far superior parents to those whose children are compliant, because we have so much more to deal with.

I run, and I run fast.

I'm with happycamper.
My own personal emotions I keep in check as having kept a behaviour diary, ds2s violence were meltdowns and I hadn't seen the triggers. Not my fault he chose aggressive behaviour, but not his fault to a point either.. He had been overloaded.
We worked on recognising his emotions before he blew! Keeping an eye out for triggers, and deffusing.
Time warnings, picking battles and staying calm.
We don't get it right all the time.. But it is getting better! However I am not looking forward to puberty at all!

Mine arent too bad tbh.

My niece (non verbal) flipped totally out of the blue yesterday, so much so a police car stopped and offered to help my sis (rather stupidly imo) said no and got battered all the way on the 3mile walk home.

She later had a seizure.

I once got assaulted because she wanted a chuffin mars bar and the shop was shut (black and blue for weeks after)

Dunno it's hard, we have to keep her/them and the public sake however tempting it is to run away !!

Ampersand just wanted to say please don't give yourself grief about rubbish parenting. Kids with ASD can be really, really tough to parent and as happycamper says often we have far superior parenting skills. Forged in the fiery furnace, I always think.

The other thing is that dealing with violence is a long old business because even if you are doing really well and staying calm and understanding him sometimes the world will just throw him a whammy (like changing school, or puberty) and it can feel like you're going back down into the pit again.

And there's no one magic solution but a matter of finding what works. I've been on parenting courses, had advice from paed, HV, psychologist, this board, read books -- and all of them have helped in different ways.

I think the key for me is to try and stay calm at the time, whatever it takes. But I don't always manage it. And also I try to forgive myself when I don't get it right. And try to get some time off when the violence is getting to me.

Thanks for all advice, and thanks for reassurance Niminy. I haven't been on the courses yet but have ordered books - still floundering round waiting for diagnosis confirmation and naively hoping someone will do something!! Time to wake up and get on with it myself, just seem to have got a bit bogged down. Working slowly to creating a 'calm' place he could go to in the house, he did ask 'can I go there too if I just want to be on my own' and said when he was there he only wanted to be communicated with by pictures - so fingers crossed we have something to work on there.

Truth is am just tired (aren't we all I know), after lots of absence he is now only at school 1½ to 2 hours a day with difficulty and it is a bit relentless at times.

Am also still lost about what sanctions to impose to show him there really are boundaries and to show his older brother that we won't let ourselves be treated like that. After all if an adult had attacked me like that I would have called the police

I think that I have tried every sanction going with ds2 .. He is pretty sanction proof... For us what does work is praise ... Praise for recognising when he is going to blow and using the safe space to calm down.
Praise for jumping as hard as he can on the doormat instead of lashing out. Big visual praises with rewards.. It's a bit pavlovs dogs tbh.. But it does seem to be working.
Have you looked at the parents info on the NAS site? There are lots of suggestions about challenging behaviour and teaching dc's how to recognise there emotions etc

i might be helpful.
The big big thing I believe is to get them to know when they are going to blow.. It takes ages.. But it's a really important skill to learn for life.

Like I say thing have improved here, we still have our awful days.. But they are lessening.

I had the support of having been a teacher in a very tough area for years before I had DS, who was also a second child (I did all the I'm a crap parent stuff with DD )

Most useful strategies were what happycamper said.
'We had to learn to be non confrontational and to give him warnings before we wanted him to change an activity- we used to use a timer and tell him he had 10 minutes to come off his PSP or whatever.
We also learnt to pick our battles and to think about what we wanted him to do was really necessary.'
That still works well.

I also went on some restraint training so that I could pin him and hold him without breaking anything when necessary.
And I know it sounds tough, but I never took it personally, whatever happened.
We haven't had a problem along these lines for over three years now, at one time it occurred several times a week.

My ds is very violent at times.He is in his 20s.He has SLD.I am now trying to avoid putting myself in the position of been near him when there are triggers.The triggers are always a change of routine from the normal tram lines of home and day centre.Like yesterday we took him to a summer fete.He walloped me so hard in the back that parents hurried their kids away.This hurt much more than the wallop,tho I could understand it.I have told my dh I dont want to go to a family wedding with him as I know he will kick off and humiliate me.Also the stares.
He can only cope with very familiar situations otherwise I don`t think it is worth it.