ack! Does your AS child hit? More behavior issues!

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My 7 yr old dd got sent home from school today because she stood up and hit another child on the head with her fist. I posted last week about the issues we've been having. There was no precipitating event and when they asked her why she did it, she said her finger got squished in PE the other day. huh? She also began laughing hysterically and they couldn't bring her back down, so I had to go pick her up. What are some strategies that you would use to deal with this? As for right now, we've been having her spend the rest of the day in her room to give her some time to recharge and get away from people and expectations (she loves people and complains of being lonely quite a bit, oddly enough). What else can I do? What strategies can i give the school for dealing with this? They are trying to minimize her sensory overload as much as they can. She has a para with her all the time. She just gets in these funks where she acts like this and it seems totally unprecipitated. Obviously, these skills are not going to earn her any friends and I have no clue how to help her work through this. Is this normal? Why does she just haul off an whack someone for no reason?

I had this problem a fair amount as a child, actually. I'm not sure if its related to AS or not, but sometimes the most innocuous things would set me off, even when it wasn't caused by the person or was harmless in reality.

In the end I had to be taught using both negative reinforcement (punishments) and weekly in school counseling in order to learn not to. Looking back I guess it could have been anger management, the counselor would talk to me about what made me upset and both suggest and assist with putting into action alternatives to confrontations like that. She would always tell me the first thing I should do is seek out the person and apologize to them on my own time - apologizing with a teacher about is notoriously insincere. That always seemed to help me.

I'm going to agree with the idea of a dual approach. Hitting simply is not acceptable, regardless of why she does it. However, there is a "why," and she needs to learn to understand her own triggers so that she can control them.

My daughter who we think is NT hit another child when she was 7. It all had just built up so high and one tiny little thing and she let it all out on the one. The child she hit, btw, is very much like her older AS brother, and I do think that was part of the dynamic in breaking the dam with her. Regardless, my daughter definitely has anger management issues and a very fragile internal mental life, and all of that I am finding very, very difficult to sort through and help her with. Add AS onto that ... I empathise with what you are dealing with, and really wish I had a more solid answer.

Knowing the way AS kids think, btw, I do believe the incident from the previous day could have been the trigger. Its odd to me how things like that haunt my son, or spring back to life days later, and when it does he will usually give the response he wished he had given the first time. Unfortunatley, since I don't usually know about the trigger until the delayed response, what you see is his twisted version of what a better response might have been, instead of a more appropriate and effective one you might have helped him work out.

I hit as a child in self defence. For quite some time people only approached me to be mean so I soon believed that anyone who approached me was going to hurt me or say something mean so I hit them whenever they got close because I thought I had to defend myself. The other kids made it appear as if I had started it and no one believed me so I was veiwed as the bully. Sometimes I would hit because I wanted to get back at a person who was mean in the past because I couldn't get them before and now I had a good shot.

My 12YO SS is bullied at school, a lot. Lately, he's taken to hitting back at the bullies. Doesn't work, since he gets in trouble for hitting, even if it is a defensive situation.

As usual, trying to explain to SS why he can't hit people doesn't seem to work. He doesn't see that around home, and we sure haven't taught his that this is how to deal.

As a young child I had problems with hitting myself when angry. I would always punch myself in the knees when annoyed at something. I generally didn't hit other people though.

That was because those kids were just minding their own business and then all of a sudden they got hit. But to your point of view, they were coming towards you to hit you or be mean so you hit them before they could do it. So technically you did start it. It didn't matter what you thought what they were going to do or that you misread their actions.


I've been there myself when I was suffering trauma and I was having difficulty with transition to change. We moved to Montana and the things kids were doing to me at my new school, I thought I was being picked on so I defended myself. But no I was the bully and I accept that now. It didn't matter if I misread their actions, same as when they bump me in the halls and I thought it was intentional.

I hit my bullies and by sixth grade it became acceptable by my mother. They wouldn't leave me alone and I would tell them to and they always told me to make them so I did. I got in trouble every time and my mother always stood by me.

My husband once hit a kid in middle school because he was being picked on and he knocked the bully in the mud puddle. he deserved it and the principal though it was funny and she laughed and told the kid he is very lucky Mike (my husband) is a very nice guy or else he could have done worse to him. But unfortunately she had to suspend him because she had to follow the school policy. Even my in laws laughed and thought it was funny. I have been in a similar situation myself. Some jerk in my class pissed me off and I got mad at him and threatened to beat him up. he told me "Sure go ahead" I start hitting him and pinching him and I get pulled away and sent out of class. I got suspended. Kids actually liked what I did. I left marks on his neck and had no remorse for it. I didn't care then about the suspension. School was hell. Of course I don't remember being suspended, I only remember being sent home and I didn't care.
Years later my mom finds out how much I felt about the move to Montana and she said I did a good job hiding it.
But what about all these behavior problems I had and all these meltdowns? That should have told her. I thought I even said I missed my old house and my old friend. Perhaps an aspie trait she has or she didn't remember my actions and my words.

Not ALL of it was in my mind. Some of the other kids were downright evil, they would call me mean things to my face or poke me with a huge grin on their face. In self defence I had to hit and it just got turned into a cycle.

My son is only 3 and just been diagnosed. We are seeing a lot of hitting too. I think it is usually because he doesn't have the words to express his displeasure verbally. We have been giving him time outs when he hits and repeatedly tell him there is no hitting allowed in our family. I have no idea if the message is getting through!! Any tips on how to deal would be appreciated.

My son has a problem with aggression, which I can't really explain because he's actually very kind hearted. He has impulse issues and I've seen him haul off and hit a kid for no reason. The inappropriate laughter is something my son would do too.

I wish I had an answer to this problem.

Interesting statement. My son holds onto things, but I never thought he would physically react a day later in an apparent random moment. My son has started hitting for no apparent reason, and he cannot tell me why. I wonder if that's it.

This is exactly how my daughter is. She thinks of people all the time and wants to do special things for them. She is very kind hearted, yet she doesn't things like this. It's so frustrating because I want people to know her and her heart, but when she does things like this, it turns others away. It tears my heart apart to hear her come home from school and say she doesn't have any friends. She so badly wants to have friends, but can't seem to control her impulses enough to make sure she doesn't do these things to other people.