Frustrated. Need ideas to put an end to aggressive hitting

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Sooo frustrated. My son is 5. Diagnosed AS and SPD. He is currently in speech therapy and OT (sensory integration therapy). Both of those have been awesome and have helped a lot. My son is a bright, verbal, Lego-lover. Generally, I don’t think of him as being ‘rough’, although he does often have an anger issue--gets angry quickly and can't verbalize when he is.

However, one problem that has not improved and seems to be getting worse is his playground behavior. He has a few friends of the same who we usually go to the playground with in the afternoons. However, often a group of slightly older boys will show up. He will go hang around them and try to play, but typically A) he is unable to do what they are doing physically on the jungle gym or B) they don’t want to play with him or C) both. He then starts trying to ‘play’ by sticking his tongue out at them, getting in their faces, kicking their shins, saying, ‘you can’t catch me!’, pushing, etc. He wants their attention.
He hit one of those kids a few days ago and the kid got angry and ran away from him. I asked my son if he thought the kid was now his friend and he said, “Yes!” (Not what I was going for.) I explained (again) what friendship looked like.
Then two days ago, he started playing ‘rough’ with one of our adult friends by running and punching him in the stomach (we told him that wasn’t ok). The adult friend responded by playfully picking up our son and running with him. That resulted in hysterics from DS, and the rest of the day was then terrible. We explained to our son that he ‘sent a message’ that he wanted to play rough by playfully punching our friend in the stomach. And that he shouldn’t send ‘rough play’ messages if he wasn’t ready to play rough.
We’ve been addressing the playground play the same way. Telling him he’s not sending friend messages, and that if he initiates rough play, he should expect the same.
So, today he started it up again—slightly older group of boys (7-9 years old) and he was doing his grab, push, tongue out, trying to get them to acknowledge him. I told him that he was not to touch or do any ‘rough play’. Next thing I know, a kid is screaming bloody murder and pointing to my son. My son had kind of intruded/pushed and the kid grabbed my sons arm (not very hard) and moved him, so my son socked the kid in the eye REALLY hard.

So, I made him apologize and we went home. We did an autopsy of the situation. When I told him hitting eyes was very serious, and that if someone’s eye was injured they could lose vision for life. He nonchalantly said—“Well, they could still see with their other eye.” Ahhhh!! ! I was hoping he would grasp the gravity of the situation, but he did not. Needless to say, I was very frustrated and angry, although I did not take out my anger on him, of course.
Later with my husband and we came up with two rules. NO touching of ANY KIND on the playground or we go home immediately AND he loses one day of computer time. Other than that, I just don’t know what to do. We’ve had the ‘friends’ talk, the social story, the ‘bad touching’ talks, everything. But he just can’t seem to control himself.
Then, we came home and he hit his 3-year old sister twice. And he raised his fist at me. Now, we are not a ‘hitting’ family AND I don’t let him watch any kind of show with fighting. If I do, it goes straight to his head and he literally ‘goes crazy’ and starts hitting.

Is there anything else I can do to help him out? I am just so frustrated. It isn’t fair to my daughter either that we have to leave the playground every time her brother misbehaves. We use ‘sticker rewards’ and positive re-enforcement and plenty of encouragement and praise when he does things well.

If you have any ideas, would love to hear them. (Do NT boys have this much trouble understanding friends/touch, etc.?) Otherwise, thanks for just listening to my rant. Needed to let it out.

I do not know what to say. My daughter was the opposite: kids hit her and she did not hit back. We told her If someone hit her she should hit back, and nothing happened. She only started defending herself way later, when she was about 10.

If it was me I would keep a vigilant eye and as soon as he starts trying to "get" the other children attention with bad behavior, I would remove him from the playground. You do not need to go home, just do not allow him to go back until he behaves. You can take games to the park that you can play both of you and play with him until he is able to go back. Another idea eold be to call your friends and make appointment and go to the park with friends, so he has children is own age to play with. You can also intervene in helping him make new friends. I did that with my kid when she was very little. It helped her learn how to behave and make friends.

You may want to try the post I just put up....its an age appropriate site with printable charts, coupons and strategies for just about everything you can think of. Here is the site http://www.freeprintablebehaviorcharts.com/ scroll down and to the left you will see the printables, there is anger management http://www.freeprintablebehaviorcharts. ... charts.htm and conflict resolutions http://www.freeprintablebehaviorcharts. ... charts.htm

They have just about everything. Things are working great in my house. We had so much trouble getting my son to remember to care for his rabbit (he has Aspergers). Their is a printable for taking care of pets so we printed out the bunny one and posted it on his bed. You could use stickers but we just draw happy or faces with a line for a mouth....sad faces are too upsetting to my kids. So we have rewards for doing all chores and being nice to sister and brother ect. (going to the park, allowed a soda, McDonalds) we are careful on the McDonalds and soda rewards...these are for REALLY good things. There is just about everything you can think of on that page and its mainly made for ASD kids. Like I said in my post my daughter loves getting her coupons and she is wearing her "I slept in my bed all night" coupon today. If you have a printer, it is all free!

I see that you use stickers, ect but these things are more than just charts. They give you ideas on how to deal with situations. Its worth a look!

I don't have much advice but I couldn't read and not post. My ASD child is 3 so we are not there yet. My NT son is 6 and when we go to the play ground, if he sees some kids he wants to play with, he will stand on the sidelines for a few minutes and then somehow finds an "in". Once he starts playing he never has physical contact with the kids. I am hoping that my 6 yo will help his brother navigate the social structure of the playground.

My 3 yo used to hit, then tap and now touch his 1 yo sister when she cried. His response to her was not sensory, but some complicated response that he felt he needed to perform when she cried. We have done 2 things so far to curb his behavior. Fist, time out. That used to be him sitting in my lap but now he sits by himself on the sofa. Thes second is redirecting his behavior. He is told to ask her if she is okay and gives her a kiss and a hug. Obviously this wouldn't work on the playground, but I think he needs to see cause and reaction. If he does something he is not supposed to do, something he doesn't want to happen will happen. If he will sit next to you, I would put him on time out right next to you on the park bench.

I don't know. I have the same issue with my soon to be 5 yo daughter who we suspect has AS. She hits kids when they get in her space or even THINK about touching her toy. Then when we put her in time out she will have a complete and total meltdown. During the meltdown she becomes very abusive to anyone nearby.

When we ask her about her behavior she says, " I hit him because he was in my space/interrupting me/touching my toy" We explain that it's wrong to hit, but she feels totally justified. Further, she makes NO connection between her action and the punishment and views the punishment as a totally seperate even concocted by us just to be mean to her... I have tried many of the cool down techniques described in the other webpage but they don't work. She either won't do them because it would further interrupt her activity or if she is in a meltdown, there is no reasoning or logic...

Use whatever his obsession is to your advantage. When my son was little, it was Bob the Builder. As he got older, it became Bionicles. Then it was Star Wars. Now its his heavy metal/guitar playing. I agree with you that if he hits at the park you IMMEDIATELY take him home. Then you ground him for a short period of time (a couple of hours) from something he really enjoys. I found if I hooked the taking away to something my son was obsessed about he was more willing to control himself. Of course, I also praised him when he was behaving in social situations that were similar and he DID NOT GET aggressive. You could even tie a rewards system to it. I use to give him tokens when I saw him being kind to others in social situations he typically would struggle with that would earn him money to get a special toy he wanted.

Yep, it isn't. But the reality is that your daughter is going to have to deal with these things for her entire childhood. You will feel guilty at times knowing this. My daughter has always felt like my son has been the center of attention, and she is right he has. Everything Ive done though, is not only for his benefit but for OUR Families benefit, and specifically for HER benefit (indirectly, who wants a brother who tears up the house everyday, hits her, etc.). When there is a special needs child in the house, the attention is going to be unequally divided.

My suggestion is that when you set up playdates at the park, you do so with BOTH of you there so that if something does happen one of you can leave and the other one can stay. Also, set up times when just you or your husband can go to the park with your daughter WITHOUT your son. Make "dates" for her so she can feel special and that she gets the attention.

She will, I guarantee, feel left out and ignored because of her brothers issues at times. She will also have a different perspective on life in general that most people are lacking. My daughter is friends with a lot of kids who otherwise would not have them. She is not afraid to tell people who are bullying others to knock it off. She is highly independent. She does not take forgranted the gifts she has been given in life, because she knows that there are people that were not given those same gifts. Your daughter will be a better person because of her brother. The gift he gives her, will NOT be apparent to her until she is older and can understand it fully.

I probably would disallow ANY interaction with kids he doesn't know at the park that until he has figured ut how to interact with them. Is there a child his age that he knows that you could meet with at the park? That way he wouldn't need to seek out other companions. Does he do OT or any social groups? Our OT has started doing sessions with our son and another boy so they can work on social skills.

There's a section in the Parenting Index (stickied at the top) that has several threads you should read through. We struggled with this for years.

DS had several things going on at once that made this very hard to unpack: a proprioperceptive deficit (and subsequent bullying of poking or pushing him) which made him misinterpret when he'd bumped into someone or when someone bumped him. He also is very rules-bound, and will "enforce" rules with physical correction. If he's overwhelmed socially and sensorily, he has poor impulse control.

I just read this article on toddlers that explains a lot to me - somebody else here posted about thinking of their child as about 1/3 less of his own age, that's about where we are (I imagine for every kid on the spectrum there is a different ratio of chronological age vs developmental age.) Remember that a lot of these behaviors are totally normal for much younger kids.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ls-sharing

Thanks for the thoughts everyone! Some very helpful reminders . . .

Lilome, our chart system could definitely use some help. It is sloppy and weak. That site is great--I am not an artsy supermom, and like the ready-to-print stuff.

He is going to OT, and that has helped a lot. But they aren't doing any peer-therapy yet. I think they feel he's not ready yet. They mentioned proprioperceptive, momsparky . . . and definitely that's part of it. He's so smart that sometimes it's hard to think of the 1/3 his age socially part, though I know that's true. That's what got us started on this whole journey. Realizing his behavioral/social behaviors were still about the level of a 3 year old. Enforcing rules with physical correction, poor impulse control... totally him.

We usually have friends his age that we meet at the park. But the moment older kids show up, he abandons his sister/friends and gravitates to the older kids. We went to the park today and he was fine until a few older girls came to play . . . I was more on top of things today, though. It felt harsh, but I cut him off as I saw him gravitating toward them. I told him he was not allowed to play with the older kids. (Your suggestion, Bombaloo) He got angry and asked why and I told him frankly but lovingly that it was because he wasn't ready and he always has problems with them. He was a bit miffed with me, but it seemed to work . . . for today, anyway. I know telling him 'why' may seem too much. But, in spite of his social/behavioral issues, he is quite smart. And I find the best approach is to just tell him the truth because he will figure it out anyway.

Also, didn't realize the parenting index had all those links. Very nice idea to put that together.

I think telling him why is appropriate and it sounds like you did it in just the right way. Hopefully this successful visit to the park will lead to more!