Teenager out of control and violent (Aspergers)

[paulfoel]

Posted about him many times I'm sure....

15 now, big lad. Got a diagnosis of Aspergers.

Not sure if its related to Aspergers or just general bad teenager behaviour. Like most he doesn't listen, makes a mess, is moody and stroppy. Normal I guess. One thing is he generally believes hes so hard done by and thinks we pick on him. In all honestly, he gets away with murder.

We try not to get into arguments with him. We warn him then we remove PC priveleges. But he wont take and gets VERY aggressive. He just cannot control himself. In the past, hes been violent towards me.

Today, after some typical lazy behaviour that he'd been warned for, he got a 1 day ban. Then he got in my wifes face in a very threatening way. Thing is he would have been back on there by tommorow but hes made it 1000x times worse now.

Hes a big lad. What do I do here? Yes understand teenagers can be a nightmare but surely being aggressive towards your mother is just a bit too far.

Ultimately, I can see me calling the Police one day and getting him arrested.

How to deal?

@Gershwin @Kleimnveit

Not tried the social services route to be honest. I'm scared it'll make things worse to be honest.

Judging by how poor the "professionals" I've met so far at CAMHS have been I'm a little dubious. For one thing, son has said in the past he'd tell lies to social services about us.

I really dont want some do-gooder social worker getting an idea in their head and turning it around on us. Especially involving our 5 year old. At the moment, I couldnt rule son out of doing anything to get his way!

@Tawanda I had the book "Asperger's Syndrome and Difficult Moments" which describes three stages of rage for people with autism - rumbling, rage and recovery. They're also described here and here with some strategies for dealing with them. They're a bit focussed on school/teaching settings rather than home, and probably not much you don't already know!

@paulfoel I was also wondering if it's worth getting a second opinion especially about the severity. I'm not an expert but from an outsider's perspective the things you're describing really do seem pretty extreme and very much "autistic". Thing is, capacity isn't constant or fixed. The fact that your DS understands right and wrong and can discuss them reasonably when he's having a nice calm chat with the psych doesn't mean that he can understand right and wrong when he's caught up in a panic about his laundry! And the fact that he doesn't talk to counsellors isn't surprising, counselling doesn't tend to work for people with ASCs unless the counsellor has specialist training and it doesn't always work then either because of extreme difficulty with introspection and articulating feelings. When my DS was talking to the language therapist for his diagnostic assessments they had a lovely friendly articulate conversation about his current interest - maps. Then the therapist deliberately changed the subject to something personal about DS and the change was stunning. He went dumb. He just couldn't do it. And I also don't see any meaning in describing an ASC as "mild". Of course it's all relative and other people may be more severe but they don't give a diagnosis at all unless it's serious.

@kleinzeit Yes know what you mean. 2nd opinion is going to mean paying privately I guess. Are you in the uk BTW?

But yes the guy at CAMHS is completely useless but its all we've got.

Past experience has shown this is VERY VERY expensive for mental health for kids. Not just a bit expensive we're talking thousands of pounds......

Not sure if DS does understand right from wrong to be honest. Had a chat with him yesterday when he was calm and it just hasnt seemed to have sunk in that he assaulted his mother and put her in hospital. I think hes a little sorry it happened but still seems focused on the fact that hes hard done by. I've tried to calmly explain the consequences of this sort of thing as I've done many times and it just doesnt seem to register at all.

He actually said "yes but mum wouldnt let me go on my PC".

I was a little taken aback by this. Its as if he cant comprehend. I just thought WOW - what do we do now?

OK. I have no idea if being ASD affect this but surely a NT typical teenager when they had pushed it this far would be catatonic with remorse and worry about that they'd done?

Had a chat with my Dad last night. My brother was a bit off the rails. Got caught breaking into an empty house by the police once. They took him to the station and basically read him the riot act. He was terrified and never did it again.

I just cant even see my son being bothered by this....

The response from your son with regard to hurting his mum seems about spot on to me. It's really tough. I'm sorry Camhs isn't helpful. Does he do any clubs? One of our boys liked Air Cadets.

He actually said "yes but mum wouldnt let me go on my PC".

Oh sigh, that does sound very typical for (many kids with) ASC. He really isn't making the connections.

I was a little taken aback by this. Its as if he cant comprehend. I just thought WOW - what do we do now?

Yes, you're right. Most likely he really doesn't get it. His emotional understanding does sound way behind an NT teenager. He doesn't think he's pushing it, in his mind he was pushed to do it and he can't see the bigger picture or anyone else's point of view, any more than a young child could. One of the things that can be hard to get behind is the way that someone really can be perfectly intelligent (or even super-clever) about some things and yet have total blindness to other simple things most of us take for granted.

I'm in the UK, though not in England. CAMHS were very good for us but DS was acting up in school so it was obvious he had a problem and it was caught and dealt with much younger. He went through a multi-disciplinary assessment - development paediatritian, clinical psychologist and speech & language therapist all involved, educational psychologist through the school later on. DS was getting social-skills therapy from age 6 and DH and I were learning coping strategies all the way through.

Even so it wasn't straightforward. The child-psych told us that all we could do was try to get the right kind of education for DS, to try to teach him to cope, and to manage things for him until he was mature enough to manage for himself. We adapted our parenting a lot, tried to keep the pressure off DS at home because he found school so challenging. DS's school did a lot of work with him (he had a one to one TA through primary school) and he also got several rounds of social skills group therapy. The other thing the child psych told us to do was to contact the NAS and find parent groups - in his words "they're the ones who really know about this". I did some NAS parent training, and I went along just to chat to other parents as well, and sometimes they knew ways of dealing with it that I didn't and even when they didn't it was reassuring because they were going through similar kinds of things.

Getting his ASC picked up young was a blessing, it made the teen years a lot easier for us. And for DS too.

@Kleinzeit Thankyou for the rage information.

I wish I was as knowledgeable and less emotional about it all as you are. My child didn't get diagnosed until everything fell apart as a teenager.

2 things here op

1. i have a grown up AS lad of 27
2. im a police officer

your ascertion that the police wont "get it" is false. we deal with SN and mental health daily.

my boy started pushing boundaries at around 17. im afraid i just refused to tolerate it and he got sat on his arse a couple of times when he got in my "face" because direct consequences are the only thing he understood.

reasoning doesnt work when they are in that frame of mind. my ds was almost like a toddler and needed to feel the what it was like for someone to scare them - so when he shouted in my face he got it back with enough force to scare him right back and shut him up.
rightly or wrongly this worked.
i also never allowed his autism to be an excuse for bad behaviour. he had to learn how to become a member of society and function as such.
at 27 he is a delight and lives independently. he is married. he respects people.

i get why you dont want to call police - they would be obliged to act in a domestic situation and you could end up criminalising him which could be worse in the long run for career prospects etc.

im not sayng my way was right but it worked.

when he raged and barricaded his door - i took a screwdriver to his door and took it off the hinges and put it in the garage.
that was the consequence of that action. he did learn that behaving this way meant he got what he didnt want.
he learnt to control his temper and his actions.
he was high functioning. i knew he knew what he was doing. so the lessons were tough enough to make him stop and think before he acted that way.
i do genuinely think a lot of parents are scared to parent and enforce rules because they have special needs - its hard but they have to learn to fit in with the rest of society and cant simply get away with bouts of violence in the real world.

I was a little taken aback by this. Its as if he cant comprehend

The complete lack of comprehension thing is really hard to understand.
I'd suggest you read up as much as you can about autism and its presentation in boys and men.

There are some threads in relationships which are for NT (NeuroTypical) partners of people with Asperger's, the majority are Asperger's male and NT female. If you have a read through, it may give you some insight into your son's behaviour, show you what's fairly ordinary for an Asperger's presentation. www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/3463341-Married-to-someone-with-Aspergers-Support-group-here-Thread-3?pg=1

Sweeping generalisation coming up. A lot of people with autism develop emotionally a lot slower than they do physically. As a very rough guide, their emotional age can seem to be about two thirds of their physical age.
Bearing that in mind, would it help you to understand him a bit better if you approached him as looking like a mid-teen, but being aware that he has the emotional maturity of a 10 year old.

Kleinzeit's first paragraph nails it. "Not seeing the bigger picture" is so spot on for autism, only being able to see the details and therefore to everyone else the behaviour seems to be completely off the wall, whereas to the autistic kid, they are being perfectly reasonable.

It really is so difficult to understand when no-one's explained that type of thought-process to you and it's even more difficult to understand when he appears to process other things in a perfectly ordinary way, giving the illusion that he understands everything physical age-appropriately, but that's very typical for autism.

The more you can understand how he sees his world, the more likely you are to be able to help him grow into a great adult who can find his way in life. That won't be by traditional parenting, it will be by the parenting he needs at different stages in his development.

Hi Paul. We have a 13 year old DS who has PDA. He is aggressive and violent. He is on a reduced timetable in school because he is so disruptive. He becomes aggressive and violent when challenged.

He pushed me over last year and I hurt my ankle. It was the latest in a long line of violent outbursts. He had smashed up 2 TV's by throwing a remote control, Threw my vacuum down the stairs, punched my full length mirror which had shattered, there are dents in our walls and our doors are hanging off their hinges from being slammed so hard.

I snapped. I called the police. An officer came to the house and spoke at length to my son about the serious nature of domestic violence. Although I had no intention of taking it any further, I was hoping this would put the frighteners on my son. He simply sat on the sofa opposite the police officer looking bored and occasionally smirking. Words cannot express the sheer embarassment I felt.

I know you are reluctant to call the police and I personally woudn't. The police are there to uphold the law and if you don't want your son arrested (which presumably you don't) then I wouldn't bother.

My son (like yours) does not respond to punishments and cannot process information to understand consequences. We have had no choice but to change how we parent him.

We have identified triggers (raised voices, direct requests) and things have improved in the last couple of months.

We have limited his boundaries to the bare minimum such as he is to be home by 9pm on a weekday and 10pm on a weekend. If this changes he must call us.

I have given up on all the 'normal' stuff we want our kids to do such as tidy their rooms / do homework etc.

I tidy his room when he is out and ensure his laundry is done. When we need to talk about something I word it in a way where I am appearing to ask for his opinion and letting him think he is in control of situations and their outcomes.

If he starts becoming verbally abusive, I simply and calmly say 'I will talk to you when you are less angry' and turn and leave the room. There is no point in interacting when he is in a rage. Would it be worth you saying to your son something like 'I know you love playing on your PC, but sometimes we have to try and find time to do XXX - what do you think?' Or 'I know it's important for your laundry to get done, if you're finding it difficult to put them in the basket in the bathroom, maybe you'd like your own laundry basket in your room?'

My son also started smoking weed as it says it's the only thing that takes away the anger and rage he feels. We are heart broken.

You have to also remember that all these rages and moods are exaggerated with puberty.

My son is massively moody and a right PITA but his angry outbursts are far less frequent.

As hard as it is, you should not take anything personally. The names which I am called is shocking, but I tell myself to take it all with a pinch of salt. He still needs to learn how to articulate and control himself.

Keep us updated. May be contact the National Autistic Society for advise with strategies which may help?

Good luck

@kleinzeit So his behaviour is very typical?

Hes fine in school for us. To be honest, thats a double edged sword. When the school did a questionnaire for his asperfers assessment it was opposite to ours. In a way, we get less help because the school ignore it and are completely useless. If he kicked off in school they'd have to get more interested.

@Blanktimes many thanks for the info.

OP just for reassurance I have ADHD and likely ASD too. I was a nightmare teenager. Throwing things, breaking them, running away, getting into fights, screaming etc. I'm small and female so not as intimidating but still horrendous.

I'm now married with three children, been to uni and fairly "normal". Teenage years are horrendous for the non NT folk. Don't give him a criminal record OP.

@hellenbackagen Fair play it worked for you. Not sure it would for our son.
We've tried similar in the past. I do tend to agree with you to be honest in a way to deal with it but its not working.

Of course, I guess being a police officer you have the training to deal with things physically. My wife is 5ft 1" hes 5ft 11".

@Seline I REALLY don't want to. BUT how far do I let it go?
Hes already seriously injured his mother - do I wait until he kills someone?

@CroesoY

Hmm yeh I get the feeling my son would be the same with the Police.

I appreciate lots of people saying you've got to let it go etc. and do this and do that. Now I'm willing to do it if it works BUT there are other people in the family inc his little sister.

His mother has a long term illness and, as I said, hes got a 5 year old sister. We've already reduced rules to an absolute minimum - anything less and it would have an effect on other family members.

p.s. In wales too I guess?

I understand how difficult it is. I don't have all the solutions in my case I just grew out of it, and starting medication for my ADHD helped massively. Obviously they don't medicate for ASD so that's not really an option.

@Seline My son takes Sertraline but this was prescribed when he was diagnosed as OCD first. (Now they think it was more ASD).

Now I'm willing to do it if it works BUT there are other people in the family inc his little sister.

Then maybe think about it the other way round. How do you best protect his sister? How do you minimise the effects on her, and make sure that her own needs are met, and protect her from the worst effects? She needs to feel safe in her own home. Is her brother a threat to that? If he attacks her then the police called on her brother may be the lesser evil but it wont necessarily make her feel safe, or be safe. You all have to live together afterwards.

Thinking about Greene's approach.... your DD's physical safety might be Basket C, something you'll protect no matter what. And then there's her privacy and autonomy, she should not be bullied, have her possessions destroyed or her privacy invaded. Those might be things you're willing to stand up for no matter what.

But of course she can't be totally unaffected. He's her brother. And you might look for sibling support, for example there's a charity near us that offers a social club for siblings of children with ASCs.

(Oops wrong basket - I meant Basket A)

My DD was like this. An angel at school and a fucking nightmare at home. To the point that school didn't really believe her diagnosis (until circumstances meant 1 week of not masking and school and the teachers all horrified and ringing me every 5 minutes).

With DD we found the only 'currency' was the wifi. But it had to be used as an incentive not a punishment. The wifi was only switched on once the jobs she needed to do were complete. But the jobs had to be broken down into manageable chunks and in a list form so she could tick them off. So 'tidy you room' was a trigger for meltdown. But 1. Take all the dirty pots downstairs. 2. Pick up all the clothes off the floor and put them in the laundry basket. was manageable. But keep it to just a couple of things to begin with.

And if it's any consolation, my DD is now 25 and a fully qualified language teacher. You wouldn't recognise her from the extremely troubled teenager she was.

@BB thanks. Yes same with us with school. Like I said, its like they've got the kids names mixed up when they talk about him.

The problem we have now is how to deal with this situation. It seems there are differing views whoever you speak to.

Like I said, in the past we've tried it all. The softly softly approach and it hasnt work to be honest. He just takes it as a free ride. We've sat him down many many times and calmly explained about boundaries and how violence is unnacceptable. Spoke to his CAMHS psych and his opinion is that he is 100% able to understand this and stick to this boundary and that Aspergers is not to blame here.

Without access to the PC hes a different kid - hes better behaved, speak to people, plays with his sister and does family stuff. If he never ever had a PC it would be a godend to be honest. BUT he does chill out and loves it.

Hes not got his PC at the moment since the issues. His mum is still very annoyed and upset - quite rightly and doesnt want to give him his PC back for a long, long time.

Personally, I don't know. One idea is he has no access during the week (might get him to concentrate a bit on homework) and just the weekend? I dont want to set it as a punishment (because it wont work anyway) but if I'm honest the PC is the root of all evil in the house.

It could go either way:-

1. He moans a little. He gets limited access and we get a better behaved kid because hes off during the week.

1. He kicks off because he has limited access, or doesnt understand why and thinks of it as punishment and it gets worse.

Went to see a lovely guy at a charity who specialises in helping families like us. Absolutely brilliant.

Some really good advice. Mostly what others have said on here. about backing off etc.

Now to try and put it into practice. Wife (his mum) is still very very annoyed which is natural of course..... But she knows how we need to do this....

So glad you found some real-life support, it can make a huge difference.

Good Luck, at last you've found some real-life support