Son's love of mess and disorder causing me meltdowns

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My son is four and non-verbal, and he absolutely loves making a mess at home and scattering and hiding objects and just generally making our household chaotic and looking like a tornado moves through several times a day.

He takes clean clothes off the hanger and mixes them with dirty clothes waiting to be washed and makes "nests" and forts so I can't find my clothes or know what is clean or dirty, he scatters the things I need to get ready for work and takes my cash and keys and credit cards out of my pants every night or morning before I wake and scatters and hides them. I can't find anything I need for work, every single time I need to get on it I have to recruit my wife to play scavenger hunt. His toys always end up EVERYWHERE no matter how many times we put them back in the toy corner, he even will dump out a trash can or bag and scatter that around. He often attacks the groceries after we bring them home and does the same even if they are already put away.

Everytime I need to get ready and go for work or just to grab some groceries I waste hours finding my money, keys etc.

Often my toothbrush and toothpaste and missing, have to waste time and energy finding them. Hell I have sometimes just said forget it and rinsed with water and left(gross but I did not have the mental capital to spend at the time).

Our home is just a mess, me and my wife devote an hour to cleaning and then the next day it is back to how it was.

I don't know where I am on the spectrum exactly but I am getting less functional and this is a reason, ironically my wife can roll with this issue WAY better than me, she can just run around looking for everything and be able to do more things at once without going into a meltdown or shutdown.

I have sometimes just screamed BEEP IT and blown off work or clients due to the extreme frustration, and I am afraid this is getting bad and is going to cost me financially. It already has clients breathing down my neck via email and finding me incompetent and unreliable. Just today I found he hid and scattered all my socks when dressing.

I thrive on scripts and routine, I had a whole routine in my head before him where ok shower, dress, etc. Now my routine is blasted to bits and I am a stressed mess and always running on empty mental energy wise and this chaos at home is a big reason.

Does anyone know advice for this? It is impossible to monitor him 24/7 and the minute you turn your back or read something he has messed up something.

You will have to agree with your wife what measures to take but I have been in a similar situation with my stepson.

We used locks on high risk areas. So the food cupboard (still) has a lock on it. My belongings are always somewhere he's not going to be looking, etc. His bedroom is a real mess but we have reduced his toys by a lot to help with this.

Locks can go on the clothes cupboard too. It doesn't have to be complicated, a small bolt will do but put it high up so he can't reach.

He will have to learn boundaries but in the meantime you can change the environment to help the whole family.

We also used to lock away the toothpaste etc as well. It was more of a pain to get ready in the morning but it was better than cleaning toothpaste off the walls.

Just get a safe and put your keys, money, etc, in it.

Does he actually pretend he's a soldier or something when he builds these "forts? Even if he's nonverbal? No matter how aggravating, if this is true, at least he's playing "normally."

I know he's a real pain in the butt. But I would take defensive measures to ensure that you could always find your important stuff.

De-Cluttering was a great help top me
less things to destroy
locks helpful

Some messes can't be helped with kids so find something calming might help as well

I've been there. My son was exactly the same at that age.
We bought a pantry/wardrobe/storage thing with doors, and kept things we didn't need every day locked away in there. We learned to put our other things on high shelves. We kept a baby gate across the kitchen, and DS was not allowed in there. He was able to open the gate at that age, but it served as a visual reminder for him. We installed a latch at the top of our bedroom door to keep him out of there. And still our house looked like a tornado had passed through. Even though I was at home with him, I just couldn't pick up as fast as he could dump and spread things around.
The good news is that you're probably almost at the end of it. Once DS started kindergarten things started to improve, and though he is still a very messy boy it is mostly contained to his room now. And he no longer does things like dump all the books off the bookcase or take all the clothes out of his drawers. It's been years since he last stripped his bed down to the mattress, then pulled the mattress onto the floor and pried up the slats. He used to do that almost every day.
So hang in there! Lock up your stuff, and take some photos. Some day you'll laugh about it. I'm almost to that point, honest.

Sorry I meant safety latches not locks

Some of this is down to you needing to change your routines and finding new ones. It's not your son's love of mess that's causing you meltdowns, it's your failure to adapt to having a kid in the house and dealing with your stuff better. Basically, putting keys, wallets, etc out of reach. Meltdowns from an adult male can be very scary - and it's your responsibility to manage the triggers. It is certainly not the responsibility of your 4yr old non-verbal son. You hurt those around you and you hurt them too by blowing off client meetings and putting income at risk.

You're unlikely to be able to change your son's behaviour or behavioural urges, but you can change his environment to make the mess less likely. Toys and such, I'm afraid that's just what kids are like.

He is non-verbal but <intelligent>, he knows he isn't supposed to do many of these things which is why he takes advantage during moments when he knows we can't stop him. The sophistication of some of his escape attempts are above what I would think a normal four year old would be capable of.

I don't take it out on him, I'm not beating him or cursing him during a meltdown etc.

Like I said my wife can't stand other aspects, but she can roll with this one. What do you call a NT meltdown lol?

But I agree with you and I just don't know how to find a new routine when it is essentially a random element.

My son has always been like that- still is. Even when he was 2, he was like a monkey, he could climb up onto my dresser (HOW?). Like your son, he's also an escape artist. Now he's 5'6" so imagine the joy...LOL. I'm actually not bothered by mess, but even so, this type of destructive certainly gets tiresome, so I get where you're coming from.

Anyway, locks are your friend. What I do is lock important stuff (like keys) into boxes which are glued down / not movable. All of my drawers are locked too. I also keep a whole bunch of stuff in a storage bin (everything breakable and toys) and i rotate toys so there aren't as many.

I agree with the others that this is likely not something you can stop. There will be mess. It's your job to get used to it. But there are ways to make it easier to get out the door.

To OP, if you are having meltdowns they are scary even if you are not verbally accosting or physically attacking anyone. A grown man out of control is a scary thing. It causes flight or fight reactions in those witnessing - it causes an adrenalin rush which impacts those around you. When my husband loses control it feels like abuse to me even if it isn't what he intends. At the very least you aren't role modelling good behaviour.

Get yourself a locking drawer for your wallet, keys etc. Work with your wife to find new ways to manage laundry. Invest in some toy chests.

I wonder if it would help to provide a variety of things for him to make nests and forts with so that the laundry was less tempting? Give him a more acceptable way to make a mess.

My kids got this fort building set for Christmas, and my 5 yo is able to assemble it. It is a hit so far -- hopefully they will use it instead of pulling all the cushions off the couch (which I'm ok with but drives DH bananas):
http://www.amazon.com/Discovery-Kids-72pc-Build-Construction/dp/B009L9QZUA

Also as another poster suggested a very high latch on the closet so he can't open it to get to the laundry that is put away.



This may be an executive function challenge for you, but prevention is key here. Definitely invest in creating a routine for yourself so that these items are put away in a locked place where he can't get them.



I had this problem with my NT kids -- at one point my husband literally took a push broom to clear the floor of toys. I solved it by buying a bunch of large, clear Rubbermaid bins, and sorting the toys by category (play dough, train set, duplos, etc). Then the bins went on shelves in the garage, creating a sort of toy library. (You might need a lock on the room or closet where they are stored.) The rule was that each child was allowed to have one bin at a time. To play with a different toy, the pieces had to be put back into the bin, and I would then trade the old bin for the new. The current toy would still tend to be scattered all over the floor, but it brought the sheer volume of mess down considerably.

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Another environmental fix -- perhaps don't have trash cans inside the house, put them in the garage or just outside the door.



What does he do with the groceries? Would a set of jumbo cardboard blocks to build with fill the need?

http://www.amazon.com/Melissa-Doug-Deluxe-Cardboard-Blocks/dp/B000A12YBW/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1419770318&sr=1-1&keywords=large+cardboard+blocks

You might also invest time in making your house as minimalist as possible -- reduce possessions so there are fewer things to scatter.

I agree and in the long run it might turn out as manipulative behaviour.

Some of this sounds like it might be related to sensory issues. Sand, rice, beans, shaving cream, putty or play do, maybe if you can find what he likes and make that part of his routine you can contain some of the escapism issues.

And safety latches if they work. The toothpaste has a lot of fluoride, and who knows what else he might get into that needs latches, but trouble is sounds like he may be growing out of being kept safe with them before he knows how to be safe.

If he gets OT I would ask for advice if the therapist seems competent.

We tried setting up some like "sandboxes" with marbles or dry beans for play, but he ended up just throwing them everywhere and didn't seem interested.

Last night he pushed a couch, then put a chair on top of the couch so he could reach the top of a entertainment center that is over my head. He is basically able to access anything we can, we even try not to store chairs in the house cuz of this which gets annoying.

I had a long reply typed out twice and the board or browser ate it!

Oh, got it. My daughter liked to go after the light fixture over the kitchen table. Our OT had her do a lot of swinging and said things about the vestibular system. I don't understand that stuff, maybe someone else can say more. But It works, for a lot of kids swinging is great. We got the metal rotating thing to let it rotate 360 degrees so she could go around.