Between a rock and a hard place with discipline.

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My son will be nine years old in a few months. He is doing great academically and has progressed in all areas over the last few years. He now goes to an all-day Autistic private school with children with varying degrees and diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders. Although Nathan has been doing well overall, he still has pretty bad behavioral issues which became worse over the last six months. Basically, he is defiant constantly. He argues everything. He has an entirely unprovoked nasty attitude with his dad and I all the time. He has been cussing and hitting again (the hitting stopped over a year ago and just started again recently for some reason). On Easter, his dad was trying to help Nathan look through all of his Easter eggs to see what he got and Nathan called him a "b****" and kicked him where a man should never be kicked. The other day, he hit one of his teachers and told her he was going to shoot her with a gun and kill her. The main point is that Nathan's attitude and behavior are out of control. Here is the other issue: Nathan LOVES the computer. Absolutely loves it. The problem is, all he wants to do is sneak onto youtube and watch videos of kids being mean and cartoons full of cussing and nasty behavior. His dad and I have told him a million times that he can't watch this sort of stuff. We even put parental blocks that only allow "children friendly" websites and have gone so far as to take away the power cords to all of the desktop and laptop computers in our home. Since Easter, Nathan has not been allowed the computer for anything, including games that are not online. His behavior has been somewhat better. This afternoon, he went to piano lessons with his grandparents who allow him to use the internet on their phones and when he came home, Nathan instantly started with the bad attitude, whining, saying nasty things under his breath and being overall rude to me and his dad. So, there is a direct relationship between his access to the Internet and his nasty behavior.

My dilemma is this: Nathan loves the computer more than anything. It makes him happy. It is what he enjoys. However, he has found a way to bypass the parental controls and even to access the Internet when there is a total block placed on the Internet on his computer. When he uses the Internet, every single time, without a doubt, he will try to watch something vulgar, nasty or inappropriate. We have decided that he simply cannot use a computer for any purpose in the foreseeable future. So, the only way we can effectively discipline Nathan is to take away the thing that brings him joy/happiness until... that is the problem... We can't allow him to use the computer at all, essentially forever. I am totally fine with disciplining my kids, autistic or not, but I feel like it is extreme to take something away from a child "until the end of time"...but at the same time, it is the only thing that works even a little.

Do any of you other parents have any advice or, at least, can any of you relate?

I might be misunderstanding, but it's not clear to me you're disciplining him when you take the computer away. It seems like you might be protecting him from something he isn't able to handle yet.

Do you think he might be confused by the aggression he encounters and thinks that's normal social interaction and copies it?

@ Waterfalls: It's both: protection and discipline. Nathan loves the computer for games, especially Minecraft, and for some child friendly websites, plus youtube videos of piano playing and some other good things, but EVERY time he says he wants to play a game or watch a movie on his computer, we also catch him watching something he isn't allowed. He tries really hard to hide it from us, but we always catch him closing out a window really quickly or he will think he has the volume low enough that dad and I can't hear what he is listening to, but we can still hear it. So, he truly loves his computer games and good websites, but can't seem to control his urge to simultaneously do things he isn't supposed to on the computer. So, we have to take away the computer all together to keep him from watching bad things. Plus, after about two warnings of "Nathan, you better not cuss again" or "Nathan, you better stop hitting", and he continues the bad behavior, we will tell him "Ok, no Minecraft/Internet/Computer for three days" or something along those lines. So, losing computer has been a punishment up to this point, but it appears that we need to completely take away the computer indefinitely, even on his good days, because it is negatively impacting his behavior.

Also, a bit more clarification: The reason I am feeling this is a dilemma and feeling "guilt" is that Nathan keeps asking to play Minecraft. Or to watch Frozen on his computer. His eyes will be tearing up and his voice cracking because he wants to use the computer for these supposed "good" activities. He is legitimately hurt and saddened that he has no access to his computer, but, sadly, we realize Nathan cannot be trusted. Even when we have allowed his to use the laptop right in front of us to monitor what he is doing, we catch him on the not-allowed sites. I hate to say I can't trust my kid, but I would be a fool to give him another chance when I've given him a thousand before. I just don't know what else to do.

If you really want to let him on, it sounds like you have to do it with him. I'm not saying you should, just that there's maybe a way out for you if you want it.

Does he normally need a lot of adult attention and supervision? Sometimes it's impulsivity other times it's a desire / need for attention, other times our kids just aren't quite there developmentally.

It sounds very hard on you, but you can't give in to his tears when it's bad for him any more than if he cried to sit in the middle of a road and play.

It's the computers. My 7 year old son is potentially Autistic (undergoing testing, but they said they think he has it).

When he gets on the YouTube, or plays anything online, game over. I purchased a macbook for him because his behaviour was superb, the first week he got it, he lost it, and we've now decided he's far too young. He's had no iPad for a month, because that too causes the same problems.

He has his xbox, which my partner seems to use as a "keep quite" tool. But after he punched his friend yesterday, he lost it all day. Again, I got into arguments with my partner because she said I was unfair.

He responds to discipline, today he has the xbox back (if it were up to me he'd lose it for a while). He's been fine though. He spent a considerable amount of time in the naughty corner yesterday.

Computers are bad at this age. I wish I didn't introduce him to any computer, but the damage is done. And when you have a partner with completely conflicting views, who listens to much to parents who don't discipline their children .... well it's a messy household. My son hasn't even done any of his school homework that he was asked to do on his school break, when I ask him to do it, he moans and them my partner lets him continue with playing on the xbox.

I haven't figured the magic bullet out yet, but I do know any sort of computer time should be severely limited.

I'm at the point of giving up here myself.

@ Waterfalls: Nathan doesn't require a huge amount of supervision, but he gets it anyway. I always know what he is doing and where he is. He seems to be annoyed sometimes at always having mom and dad there, but we live in a small house and my kids are my world. We do a lot of stuff as a family and I prefer outdoor activities and pretty much anything to get him off the electronics. So, I don't think what he is doing is to get attention from us. It does seem like there is quite a bit of impulsiveness involved - it's like he just can't help but do the wrong thing even though he knows he will lose the computer.

@ jayjayuk: I agree. It's the computers. Our issue is that Nathan's dad is in IT and has loved computers his entire life. Our house is full of electronics: several desktops, laptops, ipads, ipods, 3DS, PS3, smart phones... Scott (Nathan's dad) even runs a server out of our computer room. Nathan was introduced to computers very young and has excelled at using them. For the first several years of computer use, Nathan enjoyed educational games and could play them for hours. It has changed over the last two years, though. I have also noticed that, even if he isn't on the bad videos or forbidden websites, his behavior goes downhill after he is on the computer for an extended period of time. I feel ridiculous saying it, but it does seem that the computer itself is negatively effecting him. We do so many family/outdoor activities, but we all need time to unwind and relax when we are at home. Nathan's way of unwinding and relaxing has always been the computer (he doesn't play with kids toys even though he has a ton of them), so my guilty feeling stems from the fact that I feel like I am taking away something he loves and enjoys even when his behavior is good. He told me the other day "I was good at school today. Can I play my computer today?" The answer, however, was "No". I really don't know what else to do. I'm just so sick of the cussing, hitting and horrible attitude/behavior he has. This is the only thing I can think of that *might* help turn things around.

We had a similar issue with our daughter - though not to this extreme - Remember looney tunes cartoons? Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd etc. My dear husband got me the set for xmas one year and the family sat down to watch it - my girls both loved it - but it completely changed their behavior.

They started to become agressive, hit etc. So we took it away for over a year. Then we tried again. The older could handle it, but the younger couldn't so we took it away again for another 6 months. By that time both girls could handle it.

I don't think we realize how much our kids internalize what they see.

I know you feel badly for taking away his access to the internet - but really you are the parent and you are protecting him - also there is a way to turn 'off' internet access on a computer so he could still watch movies on it.

Good Luck

I think you need to figure out what his obsession with those sites is. HE needs to understand where it comes from, as well. I know, about the most difficult advice I could have given you, but the answer is in there somewhere: there is a reason he is attracted to those sites and there is a reason he feels compelled to copy them. You need to know what that reason is.

I have found with my kids that they will stop negative behaviors if they can see the self-destructive patterns behind them. I don't know if you can get there with Nathan's cognitive levels, but if you can, that will be the best long term solution.

When my son had similar behavior problems at age eight, it turned out that he was being really badly bullied at school. I think seeking violent YouTube videos and acting out can be a way of expressing anger and hurt, and is a symptom of a problem rather than the problem itself.

I'm with YippySkippy - every time we had an uptick in problem behavior, there was an outside issue (given - once the outside issue was him stealing the computer after we were asleep and keeping himself up all night watching things we wouldn't have allowed him to watch. But other times it was bullying that DS was unable to frame properly enough to express what was happening.)

Can he have a closed-ended device? For instance, a not-internet-connected game console with a selection of games on disk?

When DS had a problem with hitting, we told him that he had to earn access to violent media by proving to us that he was capable of using it without behaving violently. We changed it from a "discipline" or "punishment" concept to a maturity concept - we told him that if he could go for 6 months without any angry touching (we made the house rule of "no angry touching" so that there wasn't wiggle room) then he could have access - and access would be denied immediately if he slipped up, first for a day, then doubling the time for every day he wasn't able to manage his behavior (e.g. two days, four days, eight days, 16 days.)

In the meantime, we gave him options to "tune out" that were not violent. DS was not as proficient as your son, so it wasn't a problem to restrict him - but I have friends who put a lock through the plug of all the electronics they are trying to control, or who lock the portable ones in a cabinet.

We also addressed DS's curiosity about sexuality that appeared at about this time (he was freaking out about behavior that was totally normal for a kid his age, and his shame was driving a lot of bad behavior.) We gave him unlimited access to the website "Scarleteen" which is very frank and factual...and doesn't have a lot of visuals, so it gets them actually thinking; there's a very good page on pornography there. Mostly, DS was just curious about what adult bodies looked like. We explained to him that was totally normal and nothing to be worried about, but that almost everything on the internet represents bodies in the way that cartoons do, so it isn't a good place to go for information (those websites showing models before and after photoshop are helpful in this instance.)

Sometimes, you really need to set aside your personal ideas about things and be very frank and straightforward. You also need to backtrack and see if there is anything happening outside your home (Once, we found that DS was being shoved on purpose by other kids who figured out it was an easy way to get him to freak out and get in trouble; another time we found out the social worker had tried to get him to stop taking his alotted "break" by bribing him with a toy if he didn't take a break all week.)

Good luck - it's tough. Finding soothing but appropriate things for a kid that likes computers can be a real challenge - does he like to tinker? Can you give him old electronics to repair? You will need to find a replacement behavior for the computer - he needs something; clearly his life is very stressful. We found the OT program "How Does Your Engine Run" to be helpful - essentially, they tried every activity they could think of with the kids in the group, and made them rate each one to find the ones that worked; we found some good strategies there. (e.g. playdough, dancing, loud music, soft music, different fidgets, building and tinkering, etc.)

If he can't handle computers, he can't handle them. It's not being mean to keep a child away from something they can't handle.

For an analogy - there's this one genetic disorder called Prader-Willi Syndrome, and affected individuals feel hungry all the time regardless of how much food they've eaten. If you give them the freedom to control their own diet, they will eat themselves to death. Even the ones with normal IQ who fully understand their condition and the dangers of obesity will eat themselves to death, because they can't control themselves. So parents and caregivers of people with Prader-Willi Syndrome end up having to padlock their fridge and rigidly control & monitor the person's access to food, even if that means telling a sad, hungry child that no, they can't have food right now. It feels cruel, but that's what they need.

If I were you, I'd explain to your son that he has shown that he can't handle computers, and so he will not be getting computer access anymore. It doesn't have to be forever, maybe he'll outgrow this issue, but at least for the foreseeable future, he will have to amuse himself with non-electronic pasttimes. He will be very sad and upset by this, but you know it's what he needs, even if he doesn't understand that.