Overwhelmed parent needs help
CaliBrit
Emu Egg
Joined: 15 May 2016
Age: 50
Gender: Female
Posts: 5
Location: Orange County, California
My son is 9. He has Asd, Sensory processing disorder and recently picked up an ADHD diagnosis too. He's had a horrible couple of years with a dreadful school district (a story for another post) but as a result his behaviours have escalated. In the spirit of full disclosure, but hideously embaressed, he laughs at awful innappropriate things, he says things even worse so much so that the district tried to suggest he was a sexual deviant and mentally disturbed, he searches youtube for 'violence to babies', he is terribly delayed socially and cries because he wants friends but then has started pushing, hitting, hair pulling at school and calling the other kids idiots. The laughing and terrible things he says (even though he doesn't understand them) are really bothering me. Its not surprising he has no friends, its not surprising that he keeps getting into trouble at school and its so hard for me to hear the terrible things he has been saying and doing.
Ive read lots of other posts on here so I understand that its all part of the diagnosis but I need practical ways to teach him to behave in a more socially appropriate way. Has anyone else had this issue? What did you do? What helped? Even the word innapropriate is too abstract.
We dont swear in our house, weve taken away youtube and safari but that doesnt solve the problem. He is going to hear innapropriate things, we need to teach him how to handle it.
We are losing this battle and this Momma cant take it anymore.
If he has echolalia (a common thing with ASD) he may be repeating things he has heard from someone else, and is repeating it without it being processed through the thinking part of the brain, if that makes sense.
Is it all stuff from the Internet or are kids (or adults) telling him things that he repeats. Echolalia can be immediate or and/or delayed--meaning he can repeat things he stored in a mental database hours or even days after he originally heard it and it can happen repeatedly, as well.
If he is saying violent and sexual things, I would really try to do my best to track down as many of the sources as I could.
CaliBrit
Emu Egg
Joined: 15 May 2016
Age: 50
Gender: Female
Posts: 5
Location: Orange County, California
That is totally what it is. The problem is he says it, gets a reaction and then keeps saying it. My question is, how do you teach that it isn't okay? One of the most awful things he says came from a YouTube poop video he watched years ago, I was keeping an eye on him and thought he was watching Caillou. I had no idea that sick people would overdub it!
The best way is the non-reaction strategy. If he is doing it for a reaction, you can try ignoring it and just positively react to things you want to see him do. It can take a while before he stops though, and you will need many trials of that before it stops. Also, school will not likely ignore it if it is disruptive or they find it disturbing. That will undermine the strategy, and if anything it will increase in school. My son is the class clown type of personality, and if your son is too, any reaction will encourage behaviors he thinks are funny and will get a laugh.
In addition, if it is echolalia, it still may pop at random, just because the thought flows up into the brain,and he will repeat it without filtering it first. I used to do this as a child, and I would say things and literally wonder how they came out of my mouth. I do it very, very rarely these days, but it still happens, maybe once a year. I don't know how else to describe it. With me it was never frequent and I never did anything to stop. I just grew out of it somehow.
My son did it much more frequently and still does it more frequently than I ever did it. (I am unofficially but mostly self diagnosed as an adult as a result of my son's diagnosis) he just does it less and less over time. Now what he repeats are technology video audio tracks. Maybe if you can let him watch YouTube if you are right there and you are picking the videos, you could fill his database with other things that are socially acceptable special interest related. If you think that is not a good idea, may try getting DVDs of subjects interesting to him and play those and hope you can repopulate his database.
I am just really straightforward with my son (he tends to repeat violent things he has heard people say), and will say things like: "If you say that in school, the staff will think that you are threatening violence in school and they will suspend you." I also told my friend's kid (who was imitating some gross behavior some kid showed him, and saying that the boys were daring each other to show it to girls): "That would be sexual harassment. You cannot behave that way with girls. You cannot behave that way in school, or the school will think you are harassing girls, and you will be suspended."
This approach works with my kid. I don't know if it will work for your son.
CaliBrit
Emu Egg
Joined: 15 May 2016
Age: 50
Gender: Female
Posts: 5
Location: Orange County, California
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