I'm so worried about my 16yo son

[MerryMarigold]

He's just had the mother of all rages at me. This is because I asked him to stop playing FIFA because he was getting shouty and sweary. He's hit me several times on the arm (it's ok no bruising), grabbed me and pushed me into the sofa, hit me with cushions and spat in my face whilst screaming and told me it's all my fault. I wasn't saying anything except we'll talk about it tomorrow. There is of course loads of background, huge insecurities and bullying at school in younger years, anxiety and sleep issues, inability to deal with stress of exams too I think. Any boundaries at the moment lead to reactions like this, huge tantrums basically. I have two younger children (13yo twins) who are not like this at all and never have been. They have moments but it's not like this.

I'm really worried about his mental health and also wondering about ASD as he displays a lot of signs but I don't know how to even begin getting him diagnosed at this point. He was diagnosed with ADD so it could be this rather than ASD. It could be mental health issues.. It could be all of it.

Where do I start?

We had intermittent episodes of screaming, swearing and rage mixed with lovely straightforward play with friends. A few items were chucked at wall and a clotheshorse damaged but they knew they’d overstepped the mark at this point and the damage stopped. They didn’t ever hit us. I turned a blind eye when they chucked soft items such as socks instead. If it had escalated beyond this we would have had to remove the Xbox or game itself preferably after a discussion and agreement that it was in the child’s best interests not as a ‘punishment’ as such but we didn’t quite reach this stage. Poor you, I really feel for you. It can turn them into raging, seemingly out of control monsters during that moment of play and It’s very easy for people not in this position to say take it away but I know it’s not as straightforward as this. Try your best to have him on side whatever decision you take. Good luck

Take the PlayStation and lock it in the boot of your car.

My son agreed to stop playing the ‘tournament’ side of the game. We waited until he was calm and in a good mood to have a chat, reflect back his behaviour and it’s impact on us. Made us feel ‘ sick, anxious, angry and worried’ and spoilt and dominated our weekends etc. He also agreed to stop in the run up to exams. This was all achieved after many conversations in calm and peaceful moments not in the immediate aftermath of play. I think he had a slight change of mindset when he realised the effect it was having on us. Sometimes this worked, sometimes not, we just muddled along and it was stressful.

We locked it in boot of car and husband took it to work a few times but after a while he felt isolated and cut off from friends during holidays etc ( we live in country with poor poor transport network). We strived to get the right balance, not easy

The only game my 16 year old son is banned from is fifa!

Gcses causing lots of pressure too.

I would go out with him and your DH and eat out for lunch. Food is a calming influence and talk about how you saw the event and let him talk about how he feels.

We put all gaming devices away while exams were on, not to punish but to limit distraction. It helped

Food is a calming influence and talk about how you saw the event and let him talk about how he feels

Food is very stressful for him. He doesn't like most foods and struggles to eat out (unless it's McDonalds where the menu is familiar).

We are going away today for a short break at an Airbnb. It was supposed to be a little relaxing treat before he starts revision; I wanted him to know exams aren't everything and that he can have a little break between school finishing and before he gets going on serious revision.

This period is even more stressful for him as his next steps after school are all in the balance. His A levels hang on a 7 in Maths which he's really struggling with (he wants to do physics and maths but they both require a maths 7). We paid for an expensive tutor to support this, but even if he can get the 7, I'm not sure he can cope with Maths A level. He doesn't even seem to enjoy Maths. I was encouraging him to think about other options at college but he gets so upset at the thought of not being at school, needing to travel, not knowing people so I haven't talked about this for a bit. I will apply for him so he has backup options and we can talk about this again when exams are over.

OP you need to get this right as he has to be able to navigate the adult world. No one will care if he's stressed and has lashed out. I have had a tough time with some of mine. We have even put devices in the loft. My worse offender is now pretty good but we've achieved a good outcome by being quite tough. You deserve to be safe in your home. This needs to be a firm boundary

Read the explosive child. We had similar issues (not related to Xbox or PlayStation) when DD was 13 - we didn't realise at the time she has autism and made things much worse meaning I was being attacked by her. We have other children with autism and a couple of them are explosive if anxiety peaks so it's always best to avoid it if possible. I have a rule with our DS who has ADHD if I hear him getting shouty and sweary on the PlayStation he'll get a warning that he needs to tone it down. If it goes on he knows he'll be made to come off it. With autism (please refrain from using ASD to describe people as autistic people are very often insulted by the term) it is usually counter productive to remove their security blankets (screen, Xbox, books etc)

Remove PlayStation/Xbox. Don't even consider giving it back. If he wants one he can have one when he moves out.

Frankly if a 16 year old attacked me like that I'd be calling the police, son or not. Let them arrest him, take him to the station and scare the vile little fucker straight.

Best come down on him now before he goes for someone else who doesn't love him and will happily flatten him and they won't give a damn if he is autistic. Either you teach him or someone else will, only difference is that with you, he'll come out of it with all his teeth.

I have a rule with our DS who has ADHD if I hear him getting shouty and sweary on the PlayStation he'll get a warning that he needs to tone it down. If it goes on he knows he'll be made to come off it.

Yes, this is our rule too. But he was clearly already upset so me telling him he needs to come off provoked that. Despite agreement, he never comes off if he's asked without a fuss. Very occasionally he will bring himself off.

With autism (please refrain from using ASD to describe people as autistic people are very often insulted by the term)

Thank you. I didn't know that. My friend always uses the term for her son. He is more obviously autistic in that he doesn't seem to care what people think, and very low school attendance. My son can behave around other people and is very sensitive to what people think of him, to criticism or displeasure.

Best come down on him now before he goes for someone else who doesn't love him and will happily flatten him

He would never ever do it to anyone except us. In fact, he's the first target for bullying. I'm more worried he could himself serious damage than anyone else if we weren't around.

He could cause himself serious damage

I personally would suggest a timer on the machine, so many hours per day (more at weekends) as it does let them relax even though to us they look angry at the game. You need to also be careful over where your red lines are re language and shouting. He sounds very normal for a 16 year old playing the game, his overreacting to you is inexcusable though. We had a list of words that could not be used in the house

The length of time doesn't seem to matter. Last night it was after about 20 minutes of being on. He was winning a game and then lost. He'd already had an incident after school but it wasn't too bad and he apologized and said if he started shouting he would come off. When he didn't come off, and I had to ask him to, is when he went mad completely denying he was angry or upset to the point I disbelieved myself. I had to ask DS2 and DH, who were in the same room and they confirmed he'd been shouting and swearing.

I think this needs a much much more serious punishment than Xbox removed for a week, he’s 16 and assaulted you numerous times, shoved you around and spat in your face over an Xbox game, thats absolutely disgusting. I would have called the police, autism or not, he knows right from wrong at that age.

I pity any woman he ends up with because he seems to have no issue resorting to violence against women as said he’s done this before. I’m guess he doesn’t do this to your husband?

I think you’re being far far too lenient, he needs to know violence is absolutely unacceptable, his behaviour is shameful and will face serious consequences.

Elsiebear, do you have teenaged kids? Particularly struggling autistic teenaged kids? Punishment per se and/or calling the police is an escalation. Yes he needs to manage himself better and yes violence is unacceptable. It's possible to teach both of those things without resorting to giving an autistic person in meltdown a criminal record or taking away their only outlet.

The behaviour is just a symptom.

Identify the cause, prevent it from happening again if you can, in agreement with the young person. Laying down the law is further disempowering a person who is managing his life on the thinnest of veneers at the moment and likely to trigger even more of an escalation.

He’s not even been diagnosed with autism yet, regardless he’s 16 not 10 and he’s been violent to her before, so the softer approach she is taking has not worked. She has also described him as showing no remorse following his violence either. So I am inclined to believe this is not an out of control meltdown that couldn’t be helped, this is a kid who thinks it’s acceptable to assault his mother when she does something he doesn’t like.

I think only advice I would give is to stay united as a couple and to try and keep a calm house, even when it’s very difficult as I found when everyone starts shouting it gets so much worse. We ended up involving social services as our problem was very complex,. They were very helpful actually as they got us someone to speak to, which helped me as well as I felt I was having a breakdown as the stress was awful and the violence was escalating. Family therapy did not work as the same as your son, there was little understanding of any of it being their fault so it was a waste of time as people don’t change if they feel they are in the right-

We cut down tech use massively and although it was worse to begin with it definitely improved things- gave them a break as I do believe some children cannot self regulate it and also showed some boundaries had to change and there could not be this behaviour with no consequences

We have moved through the terrible times and I feel we all actually like each other again:) But I totally know where you are coming from- from the extreme worry about mental health to the worrying that the neighbours would call the police.
This will pass but you need to address it or it will not. Good luck

You poor thing. He sounds awful. Can you afford to pack him off to boarding school? Maybe the army in a couple of years, that would straighten him out.

@Elsiebear90

I think this needs a much much more serious punishment than Xbox removed for a week, he’s 16 and assaulted you numerous times, shoved you around and spat in your face over an Xbox game, thats absolutely disgusting. I would have called the police, autism or not, he knows right from wrong at that age.

I pity any woman he ends up with because he seems to have no issue resorting to violence against women as said he’s done this before. I’m guess he doesn’t do this to your husband?

I think you’re being far far too lenient, he needs to know violence is absolutely unacceptable, his behaviour is shameful and will face serious consequences.

I completely disagree with this post . We had many many incidents of DS hitting things and breaking things, kicking in doors etc. He has a diagnosis of ASD( not everybody objects to that term!) and ADHD. He and we had a terrible time from year 9 to the beginning of year 11. My DS was actually more anxious and had worse behaviour problems at school than at home but eventually the terrible stress he was under at school made things worse at home as well. The things that absolutely did not help were:

Using any sort of strict or harsh tone.about absolutely anything. ( I had to do A LOT of work on myself so that I was able to stop getting angry or upset with him)

Any sort of punishment . He would just start rocking and crying and saying sorry sorry sorry and eventually started cutting himself as a way to punish himself even more.We ended up having to set harsher and harsher punishments for a while until we stopped as they were making things ten times worse

Trying to discuss anything while he was in the throes of his meltdown

What did work:

Getting home on the right medication ( anti depressants, ADHD medication and melatonin for sleep - he was barely sleeping 2-4 hours a night at his worst

Telling him we all loved him but that we felt unsafe around his behaviour so we had to leave the room until he calmed down or he had to try harder to control his temper ( when he was getting very upset and breaking things ). Usually this worked to get him to stop breaking or kicking things. If we just left he would.follow.us though getting more and more upset so we had to explain what we were doing and why

Using a loving kind tone when speaking to him and empathising even when he was very aggressive

DH who has no problem staying calm had to work on having some warmth in his voice when DS was very upset as otherwise DS interpreted the calm voice as meaning DH didn't care

Anything broken which it was possible for him to replace he had to pay for

Not replacing anything of his that he broke

Discussing what had happen and what we all could have all done differently ( afterwards when things had calmed down)

Getting his GCSES out of the way( which he just scraped 5 grades 4-6 instead of his predicted 8 at grades 7-9 at the beginning of year 9.

I don't say we had it right and I still struggle.to keep completely calm on the odd occasion DS gets very upset now, which is much much rarer anyway

In the end he was having a terrible time and had had not been coping at school at all,.socially ot academically. There was a lot of bullying to which he reacted aggressively and over the this led to his suspension. He was absolutely devastated by this and it continues to his downward spiral . He needed help and understanding not punishment

He is much much better now and attending A level college and so much more resilient and calmer but it took about 2 years to get there

Sadly not terribly rare in teens on computer games although sounds like your having it particularly rough. Really do feel for you as most awful experience to be going through. For most parents it’s usually just abuse when called for dinner etc. Definitely try and cut out the console use of at all possible, if can take him away for a camping trip over the Easter holidays and then when he’s a bit calmer mid trip introduce the idea. See GP and talk to school to see if any help or referrals they can offer. Once he’s calmer too see if you can start introducing him to more activities, the gym etc. Even though you’ll no doubt feel at times like all your efforts just thrown back in your face
As dreadful as it all is at the moment please don’t give up hope, as other posters have said, he’ll probably be a totally different person at 18-19, their brain at 13-18 is apparently totally jumbled up and they can go through some nightmare phases. I’ve done teenagers and newborns and toddlers at the same time and at least they made the newborns and toddlers look like a walk in the park!

@bumblingbovine49 except he hasn’t been diagnosed with autism and he shows absolutely no remorse for his actions, instead rewriting the story so he is a victim. Not every teenager who is badly behaved or violent has a condition causing them to act that way, some are just badly behaved and need more discipline. Regardless of whether he has autism or not there should be serious consequences (and I don’t think an Xbox ban for a week is serious) for assaulting his mum including spitting in her face, he’s not just getting frustrated and throwing things around because he’s overwhelmed. He’s two years away from being an adult, what if he gets a girlfriend and behaves this way with her?

Let's called it what it is, abuse. Your son physically abused you.

There is one thing to do and that is to call police.

He needs a hell of a wake up call before he gets comfortable with being violent and ends up seriously hurting someone.

He can tell, he can be as angry as he likes but he cannot hurt people. He needs to get that message crystal clear.

Police involvement may also open the door to proper support.

I would be interested to know why you think he may be autistic rather than the ADD he has been diagnosed with. The violence? Or something else?

For the poster who asked OP not to say 'ASD' - that's not your call, you don't get to police other peoples language. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is the diagnostic wording, it's absolutely fine for OP to use it.

He would never ever do it to anyone except us.

So he can control himself, its just you he has no respect or regard for. I think some firmer parenting is needed here because his attitude is appalling and there is no acceptable excuse for his actions.

Hell, lose your shit and scream back at him. Tell him what a nasty little bully he is becoming! Time to realise that mum is a person too.