Physical fight with teen boy

[Reallysoreandhurt]

I can’t believe I’m typing this.

He is 12, he has autism and is also medicated for adhd. His meds wear off after school and he punched his brother as they got in the car. He deliberately antagonised him, his brother shouted back and so he punched him, hard, so as I think he will bruise.

We got home and I said he was on a screen ban. He had a lock on his door and he went in and locked it. He knows he is not supposed to lock it unless he’s going out. I have a key but it was in the cupboard. I can control screens via the router so I did this and then he came downstairs. I gave him a couple of jobs to do and I went up and took his keys and carried on cooking dinner. I suspect he wanted to lock his room so he can get on some other device somehow, he’s very tech savvy.

I tried de-escalating, distracting, walking away, humour, anything. But I wasn’t prepared to just hand over his keys.

He started to cry saying he wanted his keys back and then started swearing. I said that that wasn’t going to get him anywhere and he grabbed a ladle and threw it.

I said I absolutely would not be handing his keys back, he could go back to his room and there would be no screens.

He stood in front of me swearing and shouting “give me my fucking keys woman, give them to me now you fucking stupid woman give me my keys.” I stayed calm and he carried on getting closer into my face and I said “if you carry on swearing into my face I shall slap you.” And he said “fuck you” and I slapped him on the cheek.

He went bezerk and punched me to the ground. I ended up on the kitchen floor with him standing over me. Im really really sore all down one side and on my arm, and very shaken. He’s gone to his room and I’ve stopped crying now.

I have no idea what to do. I shouldn’t have slapped him. In my entire life I’ve never ever been physically battered like this.

Im on my own with them, their dad is hopeless and lives an hour away.

This may be so, and you may feel embarrassed/ashamed about slapping your son first. It’s normal to try to minimise it and hope it won’t happen again.

But - a line has been crossed. You and your son now know he is stronger than you and you are physically vulnerable. You need a practical back up plan for if (when) it happens again, and that may mean he goes to his dad’s house. Your son won’t try to beat up his dad.

you can’t minimise or excuse your son’s behaviour, or keep it as a secret between you. Your physical safety matters.

Sometimes when I’m on MN I feel like I’m on a different planet.

He swore repeatedly in his mum’s face. She slapped him - yes wrong, and had he shoved her or perhaps one hit back I could see it as a momentary retaliation. But he punched her to the floor. He literally beat her up. That is majorly fucked up. Mumsnet posters go on and on about male violence and domestic violence, and zero tolerance, yet seem desperate to excuse this wife beater in the making because he is ND? Give me a break.

Op, I’m not worried about him - sadly violent men are usually fine, it’s you that needs to be protected here. As PP says he now knows he is stronger than you and that there won’t be any major consequences for beating you up, in fact it seems you are blaming yourself.

I really hope you can turn this around and find your anger because what should really be happening is a police report.

I do understand as well that if you consider yourself the competent parent it’s a blow to self-esteem to admit your parenting failings (slapping your son) to the “beyond hopeless” one but you need support and a safety plan

@TheHandmaiden

He should Not have told @Reallysoreandhurt to Fuck off , Aswell, !

He is lucky he is teenager in this age,
If he was a teenager in certain decades, he would have had bloody Hiding that's for sure, and probably no food atv

I’m sorry OP but I think you've opened a window for him here. You hit out just this once and he responded hitting back harder and worse. He'll take that and use it again. Look into any help you can now because he won't forget it, and you'll be the one on the receiving end going forwards. I regrettably have experience here

If I had told my mum to fuck off she would have slapped me, no two ways about it. I didn’t even try it because I knew that would be the punishment. She wasn’t heavy handed but that’s how things were 30 years ago, you just didn’t dare.

I wanted to mention when my son had this huge outburst he was emotionally drained and just a wreck and I kept him out of school for two or three days and also took him to the doctor here in the USA. He was evaluated and they found he was suffering from anxiety/depression and put him on anti depressants. I tried to get him to see a counselor but he absolutely refused, even though I found a great guy. Again, boys don’t necessarily want to talk it out (not all girls do either) and he and his dad got a personal trainer instead and starting working out together and getting very buff, which they still do to this day.

He has never been violent to family members (except that one struggle with my husband but it was more wrestling) or been in trouble at school for violence.

When I sat him down and told him how he can’t take anger out on others I did use the example of if he had a girlfriend in a few years. I said if he felt angry and displayed his anger by yelling/slamming doors etc. there would be a very good chance the relationship would be over and he would get a reputation as a violent jerk. I explained that if he felt anger rising within him (and we talked about the signs of that) it was better to say “I am feeling really angry right now, I am going to take a break to calm down and we can talk about it later” and then LEAVE or go in another room etc. Just take the time to calm right down and process your thoughts and feelings, maybe exercise, take the dog out for a walk etc.

I also explained abusive and violent behavior once you are 18 can mean you are arrested for assault and things will get very serious. Again, obvious, but boys really need to hear these obvious things at times.

It may be obvious to us but often teens when they are new to overwhelming emotions can actually have no idea what to do, so giving them some concrete ways of dealing with emotions helps. Maybe also ask him what he thinks he could do to process anger without taking it out on others.

I also told him this was how his dad and I dealt with arguments (rare). If we feel our blood rising we agree to take time out apart until we have both calmed down enough to talk. We are both usually very apologetic by then and more willing to compromise.

The frontal cortex is also developing but has to learn to to control behavior and won’t be fully developed until 25. Teens of both sexes can be very self-involved particularly from 12-16, and get very wrapped up in themselves and their own worldview. Maybe, if you are able to talk with your son you could do regular check ins when you talk about his emotions and what is typical and ideas of how to process those emotions.

I would definitely have a pact that NOONE was going to lay their hands on anyone else in the household, stop your boys fighting between themselves and explain why, that they need to learn other ways of dealing with anger and they are getting too big and strong to use what may have worked as younger children. Maybe ask them for ideas of how you could manage your anger better too.

I would also talk about heros and role models of men who take on risks and challenges, particularly to help and protect others. I would explain how being a mature man who can achieve great things means being able to control your emotions and channel them in positive ways. If you are watching a movie/TV together and you see characters like that, discuss them with him. There are plenty in Lord of the Rings for example.

My ds has autism, he used to be like a bottle of pop that had been shook up all day when he came out of school, I could tell by his face if he was heading for a meltdown. Things that helped were
A snack in the car for him to eat on the way home
No talking In the car & no radio on
Allowing him to go straight to his room if he wanted
Never banning screens
Waiting for him to talk, he decided when quiet time was over.
Sometimes he was angry like your ds, but I never argued with him, other times he played with his Lego or gamed, sometimes he just fell asleep exhausted from the pressure of having to appear"normal" all day at school.

Yes I've got lots of members of my family on the spectrum. A close family member has a child with autism, PDA, and ADHD. She gets physical and verbal abuse daily and the child will be a grown up soon. Let's down by CAMHs she has never had therapy. If she ever moves out and stops abusing her Mother she will be abusive to whoever she ends up being close to as an adult. Not how she wants to be at all but she's had no therapy to learn to cope with her feelings.

People are focusing on the physical violence of the slap and the beating - understandable, but what happened before that was already serious. He threw a ladle - that could have seriously hurt someone or broken something. And then he was verbally aggressive with a touch of misogyny. It wasn't "Mum! Give me my keys!!", it was:

“give me my fucking keys woman, give them to me now you fucking stupid woman give me my keys.”

That is an absolutely unacceptable way to speak to a woman. To be clear, he's using the word "woman" as an insult. It's derogatory. He's either picked this up from his dad or online, because I'm guessing OP never speaks like this.

OP you are framing it all through a lease of neurodivergence, which is correct in my opinion. At the same time, your child doesn't live in a world where only neurodivergent things impact him. He is not closed off to external influences. The words he used need looking at too, not just the punching. Do you know what he's doing online? "Screen time" covers an awful lot of things.

Finally, you're being criticised for viewing all this through the lens of his neurodiversity/disability. Like I said above I don't think you're wrong, but I see it the other way. Because of his ND it needs to be extra clear, unambiguously clear, that this is (all) unacceptable behaviour. It needs explicit clarification too. This should be part of a package of "what to do when angry/triggered/anxious", including things that are appropriate to say and not. If you work on assumptions and work on "it was a one off" or "he could't help himself" you do him no favours. Because to him it's not an exploit hard rule.

Good luck. My friend went through similar and when it happened the first time she was so shocked she thought it must be a one off. It lasted 4-5 years. She frequently had pain and/or bruises. Always related to screen time. I'm glad you've already emailed the nurse and looks like you're planning some strategies.

Sounds like you assaulted him first.
Do you slap him often?

How have things been today, OP? Has he shown any remorse for his actions?. You may not have had your finest hour, but his retaliation was way beyond a slap back.
Unfortunately, I'm also of the opinion that this will be a reoccurring theme now that he has done it once, particularly if consequences aren't enough of an impact.

Unfortunately, the courts are constantly processing young men who are neurodiverse, he is going to get into serious trouble if he acts that way in the future. Being ND is not a get out of jail free card with the courts.
Locks on doors would disappear very quickly if that's a flash point.

Has he got any strong positive role models who would put him in the picture of his future if he doesn't rein it in?

@Craver
Unsurprisingly you’re factually incorrect.
He was shouting and swearing and threw a ladle at the Op first.

‘Does she slap him often.’

Do you often have poor reading and comprehension skills?