HELP!! !

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About saying no all the time..... I read somewhere to try to find a way to say yes, and use no really rarely.

Q "Can I have that toy?" A " Why don't we put it on your list?"
Q " Can I have that cookie?" A "After you have eaten your healthy dinner"
Q "Can I play with explosives" A "NO"

Save the no's for the big ones.

BTW - I define naughty as intentionally doing something one knows is wrong, for instance hitting. At four I wouldn't put a tantrum or meltdown in the naughty category.

Him: Can I have a cookie?
Me: Sure, after you eat your lunch/dinner.
Him: You ALWAYS say NO!! !! !
Me: I didn't say No, I said you can have it after you eat your _____
Him: I want it NOW!!
Me: I said you can have it after your ________
Him: You ALWAYS do that! You ALWAYS say NO!


Naughty - While in tantrum/meltdown, what if he starts banging the glass wall/window with his fist? What if he starts throwing things and his little brother is walking around? What if his little brother came over and grabbed a toy of his, say after Big Boy didn't get his cookie and therefore didn't want to eat his lunch, thus resulting in a rage attack? Would those scenarios warrant a time-out? I'm seriously not good at judging these things as they happen. I get flustered and feel I often regret my decisions, because I simply don't know what was really going on and I feel so utterly lame and ineffective as a result.

I'm serious. This is what it's like for me!

In our home, throwing things, and pounding glass are time-out offenses because of the safety issue---so is trashing stuff because destroying valued things is also on our list of things that earn a time out. I let him shriek, rip up old junk mail, bang on things (if he is not apt to break them) and jump on the bed, when necessary so he can vent. I think giving them a way to vent is important, but safety and not destroying stuff is important, too.

Is there a way you could redirect him to safer, but also physically oriented ways of expressing himself? When they are not able to articulate themselves well and manage emotions it helps to have something they can do.

I have found that this has reduced safety and destruction issues dramatically, and I rarely have those problems at home, anymore. He still has them at school, but I think that is because they want to extinguish all of his venting options; they treat them all equally harshly and he has no reason to moderate himself and keep to the lesser evils, so to speak.

TL:DR I would try to redirect him to safer, less destructive physical options while he develops emotional control.

You might want to write down a list one day of every time you say "No" to him, and see how often it is, and if there is a pattern to the requests. Think about whether there are some rules you can relax for now. In this instance, would there really be a big harm to allow him to have the cookie BEFORE lunch? Either way he gets a sandwich and a cookie. Sure, he may eat a little less of the sandwich, but in the long run it's not nutritionally harmful.

In our house I ended up relaxing the rule that DS had to be completely ready for school before watching TV. Now he watches a bit (or plays wii) when he first gets up, then I get him to pause to get dressed (we worked for awhile on teaching him to pick a stopping place within a minute or so of my request). We have calm mornings and are making it to school on time, and that's more important than being strict about the "work before play" rule.



Your DS4.5 is emotionally still like a toddler -- having huge rages when he can't have instant gratification. At this age my DS used to get into a punishment spiral. He'd do something and get a timeout, then get in trouble for not sitting in timeout, then it would escalate to hitting and kicking and I would carry him to his room for the dreaded "room timeout". Preventing the trigger is key.

I don't know how much is maturity and how much is medication, but DS7 is in a much better place now.

My son is seven and will do the punishment spiral, sometimes, too. Usually at school, like as though he wants to see how far they will go. We are consistent here, and that seems to help b/c there is no point in testing us here. He knows the narrow range of results he will get and he knows our upward bound.

Wow, that is EXACTLY what he does with the punishments. He starts hitting things and throwing things and getting up from his time-outs and then I have to threaten him with taking toys away, early bedtime, etc., and it just devolves further from there with hitting me, etc.

I'm really glad to hear that your DS7 is in a much better place! What meds is he on and was it to treat the rages specifically? When did he go on them?

Me: I bet it feels like that, doesn't it? It's hard being a kid.

I should've added "change of environment" to my list of "maturity and medications" in what made a difference.

DS7 has been diagnosed with both AS and ADHD. He started taking ADHD meds around Thanksgiving of his kindergarten year, when he was a little over 6. (The ADHD portion was so clear to me that I would've been ok with starting at age 5, but the diagnosing psychologist steered us in a different direction.) It took a good 6-8 months to figure out the best dosage and combination of meds. (He takes 3 -- my understanding is that for him the stimulant (Aderall XR) helps with focus, the non-stimulant (Intuniv) reduces hyperactivity and impulsiveness, and Risperidone decreases obsessive thinking.)

Even with medication he was unable to handle a general ed classroom with 24 kids -- he was mostly fine at home (although stressed from his school day) but having meltdowns with severe aggression at least once a week. Things came to a crisis in November, and the school was pressuring us to move him to a special day class with Downs Syndrome kids. We pulled him out to homeschool, and almost overnight the problems we saw at home went down to a very low level. A few weeks later, I discovered that there was a school just for Aspergers kids, and it had an opening. He's been there a month now. He had a few tantrums/meltdowns at first, but has rapidly settled in and we are hopeful this is the right place for him. We may experiment with lowering some of his medications at a later date, but don't want to change too much at once. Medication clearly is helpful to him -- I've seen the difference trying to read or do written work with him before and after he takes the ADHD meds, and it's dramatic. Risperidone was similarly dramatic for him -- he will sit and build a lego set rather than get stuck and scream about how he can't do anything.

This experience has convinced me that adapting the environment to suit the child is much more successful than trying to teach the child to handle an environment he's not suited to. A book I recently read also steered my thinking in this direction:
No fighting, no biting, no screaming : how to make behaving positively possible for people with autism and other developmental disabilities by Elvén, Bo Hejlskov.

He still will need to learn to handle the real world, but now I think he's at a place where we can add the real world back in a little bit at a time, and he can actually learn to handle things instead of just drowning.

As far as maturity, over the last year I've seen real growth in his awareness that he's upset and his ability to stop a meltdown in the early stages and choose a different path. I really don't think this was possible for him at age 5 and 6.

Thanks for all the really helpful responses. I am so fortunate to have found this site.

I have great fears about the anger issue. I often worry every time I hear about a school shooter or some boy who was socially inept and ostracized who subsequently went on a killing rampage, and fear, "Is that the future of my son?" I know it is a far stretch but after enough bullying, teasing, not getting laid, and on, who knows what can happen. Today my DS4.5 was playing with a space gun and pointing it at me and his little brother when he was mad. I told him he is never to point that toy at anyone when mad, otherwise it will be taken away. I did give him the sage advice to punch a pillow, which he did, although I'm not sure how much it helped him. Lately my stomach has been in knots. The stress is really wearing me down.

There's always a difficult balance between enforcing discipline and providing a loving safety blanket.

Once my daughter started school, she did well in class, but accumulated so much stress that she had uncontrollable rage as soon as she got home. It was hard not to take personally her antagonistic, seemingly irrational, and violent behavior, And it was really hard to exercise any influence, I could threaten her, if you do "this" then I will take away your favorite thing. And then immediately she would do "this" anyway. And then she would freak out if I took away her favorite thing as promised.

My personal experience has been that active discipline (e.g. taking something away) has often led to a poor result. Passive discipline (e.g. withholding favors like playing a game together) has been more effective,

Often nothing works. Everybody takes a beating sometime.