Discipline and Aspergers

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I think that with the younger kids in the house, and worrying about physical violence, you need to have a real heart to heart with him and let him know what his options are.

Don't do this in the middle of a meltdown, this needs to be done at a time when things are fairly calm, take him out, maybe to a park or for a car ride, buy him a milkshake or a drink, and tell him that you need to talk.

Let him know that you love him and care about him and want to help him in anyway that you possibly can. But you also need to let him know that he is really scaring you and his mother. (Considering that you are a step parent, it may be better if this actually came from your wife, if both of you could take him out and you support her in this conversation that would be ideal). Tell him that you do not live in a violent home, and will not accept his violence any longer as you have 3 other kids to consider and if he where to hurt one of them, it would be horrible for all concerned, including himself, because depending on what happens, the police or childrens aid may press charges against him or insist that he be removed from the home.

Ask him if he wants to be a part of your family. If he does, and he wants to live at home, then set the expectation of behavior, no violence, no swearing. Tell him he always has the right to remove himself from the room or go to his room.

Then when he goes into a meltdown in the future, stay calm, and do not escalate the situation. Ask him to go to his room until he is ready to be civil. If he won't, walk away from him.

I really think that anger management classes may be good for him, perhaps a therapist for both you and your wife, and one for him. (This is not family councelling, that may be helpful, but you and your wife may benifit from talking to someone independant of him, and he may benifit from one on one coucelling too).

I think the choice in words you use with him are important. Say to him "your behavior is not appropreate". Or "you are scaring us" or "you know what you have to do, this is not a compromise". Try to leave discussions of "feelings" out of the mix when in a meltdown. Don't ask him "how do you think your behavior makes us feel?" or "you don't seem to understand..."

Overall, I think it would be helpful to take the next meltdown you have, and do a play by play, to see what others may suggest you could have done differently to better control the situation.

Depending on how bad the situation gets, you may need to consider temporarly removing him from the house. This is not the best thing for him, far from it, but if you truely are afraid that he is going to physically assult your wife and children, then there may be nothing else you can do.

My dad made the mistake of viewing my AS as a Disability and telling me so, when I was fifteen years old. Nowadays, I sit around my clubhouse dressed in leather and denim and with my hair spiked, just hangning out, talking and going on the Internet. The only money of my own that I make is $80 dollars a month, doing lawns for supported work. It doesn't take much brains to do yard work. I'm a low-life because my parents saw my AS as a Disability, instead of a difference or a gift. I have a hard time believing that employees would like to hire a chubby Sid-like creature like me. The thing is that I'm too set in my new ways to spruce myself up and go back to my old 1960s Mod-like ways in order to enter the workforce. I do admit that a Punker's life is a good life. I lack the motivation to make myself normal and boring enough to get a real job.

We've tried walking away from the behavior wherever possible, but because it often occurs when the other kids are around, we don't always have that ability. A lot of the reading and professionals we've dealt with suggest just that. But with the other kids around, and one in particular (his younger brother), seems to be the frequently the focus of the tantrum. In those cases we normally try to remove the others from the situation, though that frequently makes them feel as if they've done something wrong. That's one the hardest things for me to deal with. The NT kids in our house pay a price because of his AS.

Talking after the event sometimes has some benefits, though lately in general, he seems to be taking no responsibility for anything that happens. I normally default to letting my wife (his mother) deal with the interactions in these situations as much as possible, but because of his size and the physical intimidation, I can't always let things play out. Particularly when he's explosive. At those times, I'm the only person in the house capable of intervening. This more than anything I hate. The last thing I want to do is pull him away from physical situations, but there I am the only person who's even capable of handling him in those situations.

Which I guess is a part of my frustration. Because of the logistics of our family, I need to be the bad guy at times, and I know that's what he perceives.

That's an interesting thought. His diagnosis is from a fairly well respected doctor in the area. At least that's my understanding. So I assume we're at least in the ball park.

He's been through diagnosis of ADHD, OCD and finally AS. In truth from what I've learned, I think they all play in his case. Or maybe they're all so close together that it's difficult to separate. He's been on meds for at least the last 6 or 7 years, some of which predates my presence, and it seems there is an adjustment at least twice a year, more lately because he's grown.

I suspect we're due for another adjustment, he sleeps way more than usual, is uncommonly (even for him) lethargic, etc.

Is it common for AS to be a mis-diagnosis?

I know with my son, that I sometimes tell his 4 year old sister "Your brother is not able to be nice right now, it is nothing you did, but we need to ignore him for awhile".

As for them "paying the price for his AS" that may be partly true. Unless you are ready to remove him from the house there is really no point in dwelling on that. You can't just "change him" or make him "act normal". It sounds like your family is in a really bad place right now and there is no overnight solution.

It is important in the middle of a tantrum to be very firm on what your expectations are and use directional langauge or offer solutions. If he won't take advantage of them, then he needs to know he his option is to remove himself from the situation.

I really suggest though that you start using some specific examples though, as it is hard to give advice to things if you don't have a full picture of the situation.

Again, anger management may be something to look into with him.

I hear you on the physical intimidation and violence, that you are the only one who can handle him. I suggest though with it, to try and work as a restraint, and let your wife do the talking. You may need your physical strength, but it is your wifes voice that will reach him.

Also I think he needs to know that living at home is not an automatic right. If he cannot curb the violence he may be placed elsewhere for his own protection including his mother and siblings safety.

Are you currently in coucelling yourself or with him? Is he in councelling? Are there any outreach support groups you can tap into?

Again, giving an example of a situation that you think you cannot walk away from and what happened may be helpful...

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your responses.

As to the impact on other kids, I understand what you mean, but I'm still not sure how to not dwell on it. The other kids are amazingly tolerant of this, but for an 11 or 12 year old who finds that they are frequently having their life disrupted, often significantly, at least weekly, if not more.

I've been seeing a therapist for about 6 months. My step son sees a Therapist who specializes in AS and seems to be very good at seeing through him. My wife and I are seeing a specialist who helps us learn ways to deal with his AS also. I thin the therapists that I see are helping learn to deal, I'm not so sure his is helping that much, but my perception of a lot of things is probably not objective.

Here's an example, a few weeks ago, he placed his arm around his brother's neck and was hugging him. His brother sat up unexpectedly and the back of his head my AS step son in the nose. It was all innocent, but my AS stepson exploded. He was yelling and swearing and refused to let go of his brother. Mom wasn't in the room, so I did my best to talk him down and get his arms off of his brothers neck. Less than 10 minutes later he had his brother bent backward over the couch with his head in a headlock. In this case I didn't feel like I had an option to try and talk him down.

One of his issues with AS is that he's very sensitive to touches that he perceives are negative. As you can imagine, I didn't feel like I had a choice but to remove his arms from his brother's neck. This was a somewhat extreme occurrence, but we seem to be having things grow gradually worse.

That was a good example.

I would work towards a no physical contact rule in the house without permission and no horseplay. (I know it is not easy in a family of boys, but definately needed)

Therefore, if someone wants to give a hug, they simply ask "can i give you a hug?"
This way, things like head banging are a lot less likely to happen. Also general horseplay is not allowed. Horseplay is all fun and games until someone looses an eye or their temper! Just state to the children, "horseplay is fun, but sometimes things happen where people get hurt and that is a bad thing".

So if you find your son in a situation where physical contact is happening, there is a clear "rule" that has been broken, there is a line that can be drawn, he knows exactly where he went wrong. Then you can say something like "You know we are not allowed to touch people in this house without permission and never if it involves horseplay".

I agree that you where right to involve yourself in a physical situation like that. You have that right to keep all the children safe. (Are they all your step kids?) I would suggest physically breaking them up and saying calmly "you where hurting him, that may not have been your intention, but he was being hurt". If he explodes, revert to "you are not allowed to physically harm a member of this family, we all have the right to be safe in this house, furthermore, we are supposed to keep our hands to ourselves." Can you please go to your room for awhile? I think you need some time to calm down."

One other thing that I found helped with my son, was talking to him about being the bad guy. Basically it goes like this:

Sometimes people do things that are not nice, they are the bad guy.

However, if you react in a way that is not appropreate, you become the bad guy, because what you are doing is much worse. Here is an example:

A boy named ben decides to play a trick on a friend Bob, and trips him. He thought that it would be funny, but Bob gets a little hurt and it isn't funny at all. Ben is the bad guy and should appologise to his friend. However, his friend gets really mad, gets up and gets a baseball bat and smashes Ben a few times in the head. Now, who is the bad guy?

I did this a lot with my son, where I would agree with him that the action he was upset about was indeed, wrong and upsetting. However I would then show him how his over reaction made him the bad guy! I worked with him showing that when he became the bad guy, there was little you could do to punish the person who started it all. We also worked a lot to get him to understand that if he could walk away and tell an adult, then he would be the good guy, and appropreate action could be taken against the real "bad guy".

In this case with the head banging. I would have tried to talk to your son, tell him that you understand he wanted to give his brother a hug and that was a good thing. Tell him that his brother hit his head by accident, and that was not a very nice thing to have happen. However his brother did not mean to hurt him, but more importantly, when he started carrying on and hurting his brother, he became the bad guy! And this is why it is important to not horseplay and ask permission before hugging someone, because a good thing that is supposed to be nice does not always turn out that way...

It may be easier to have some of these talks after the fact, not during the meltdown. I know it sounds like I am simplifying things, it won't work all the time, but if you can make use of this a lot, he will come to see that he is not always viewed as the bad guy. I think that a lot of people with AS feel missunderstood, by taking their side but setting firm rules, you can get better cooperation from them.

I am glad to hear about all the councelling!

People with AS tend to have a problem with authority to start with. Telling them that "You should respect so-and-so because he has such-and-such title or works in this profession" is not sufficient.

Respect has to be earned on an individual basis most of the time you cant demand it based on accomplishments or claims that the AS individual didn't witness or that they don't feel are extraordinary.

As another has stated.. rules without explanations, double standards, and unfair punishments dished out due to misunderstandings are not the best way to earn it.

I always had trouble with those three things.. I would be given a rule to follow I would ask why they would say "Because I said so".. it obviously didn't fly. On the other hand if I understood the purpose for the rule and agreed with it being necessary (and was treated as an intelligent human being for a change with an opinion worth listening to) I would follow them religiously and *dootdootdooo* a little bit of respect earned.

If you set a rule then fail to follow it yourself *dundundunnnn* respect lost.

If I broke a rule (such as curfew) for a good reason (such as an emergency because a friend was injured) but aren't given the chance to explain or the parent doesn't understand and doesn't seem to want to *dundundunnn* again respect lost.

People tend to focus too much on how people with AS can be childlike and overlook the ways in which they are extraordinarily mature for their age. As another has stated.. appeal to their logic not their emotions and you'll sometimes find someone wiser than yourself.

The adults I grew up with (I wouldn't really call them parents) constantly ignored me when talking amongst themselves and would punish me for interrupting their "grown up" conversations so on the rare occasion I would meet someone who actually took me seriously the most common reaction was "Wow you sound like your 40" because I would suddenly pipe up and say something profound.

Of course they also found it kinda creepy so I tried to keep it to myself unless it was important. Of course not everyone is like that but its a possibility.

How frustrating would it be for you as an adult to be surrounded by children that they call your "peers" and being treated like a child?

Hes probably not ready to take care of himself but he should be more than capable of understanding and appreciating the logic behind your rules (if there isn't any and they are just for your own convenience though or he assumes that to be the case because it was never properly explained then its no wonder he isn't happy).

As Earthcalling said this was a good example and you were right to restrain him. Z is pitching a fit right now, not a meltdown, he doesn't want to take a shower, too bad....
He's taking it. As you have taken on the responsibility of your oldest you have taken on the welfare of all members of your household and you have my respect.

You speak of removing your other children from bad situations and making them feel asif they're being punished. Did I read it correctly? Here is something that I have had some success with. Your son needs to learn, and learn it now, that if he is to be treated as part of the group (in this cape the family) he must participate as part of the family. When he is disruptive or harmful he is removing himself from the family. You must therefore remove him from the family but keep him as part of the family. This won't be easy and you and your wife must be in perfect agreement or it will not work. Let's use dinner as an example. First the offender is removed from the group to a seperate area but in the same room. He eats the same meal but no one else should acknowledge his presence. The other children should not speak to him and try not to look at him. You and your wife as group leaders may speak to him only from necessity. He may return to participation with the family when he shows he is willing to act as a member of the family. A given time limit may also be set. If he act up during this removal, then literally take things away from him that he values, priveleges and personal posessions are fare game. It sounds as if he may be getting a later start learning self control, but it is something he must learn. I have leterally dealt with 100s of kids. I have only found two I had to give on, and it broke my heart. Be patient, kind, undrestanding, merciful and harder than steel when you need tobe so. good luck.

As I said this may work. Consider it, weigh it, judge it and decide if it is a good suggestion. This is for extreme cases, you may not have reached the point where it is needed. I hope not.

Sounds like a reward to me.

Don't forget for most of us when we want to be alone we'll go to great lengths to make people go away and give us privacy.. even if it means getting in trouble so we'll get sent to our room where our siblings wont be allowed to bother us.

For the majority of people on the spectrum the most effective punishment is to make them socialize with smalltalk for hours without rest

Sure, that would be punishment, but what if instead of participating in forced small talk" for hours without rest they decide to have a few rounds with physically assulting the people in the room?

I honestly think though you do bring up a good point, it should be evaluated if wanting to be alone or leave the room is a reason why the behavior is occuring. If it is, then perhaps asking "would you like a break and to leave the room?" would be appropreate? If they answer with a "yes" then ask them the next time to communicate that in a more appropreate manner, such as "all you had to do was ask".



I agree. At no point did I say that these things have to be devoid of explanation. Just that the rules need to be very firmly drawn up at a time that the child is not in a meltdown. "you are not allowed to horseplay because someone gets hurt, and then things can be really sad or get really nasty". Then, when in a meltdown, if it was the result of breaking said rule, you state the fact that a rule they know of was indeed, broken, and that is why the problem is occuring in the first place. "You know you are not supposed to horseplay, someone got hurt, I need you to go calm down".

In the book "the explosive child" they talk alot about coming up with solutions together. I really think it may help.

http://www.explosivechild.com/

It is important too to make sure that the authority figures are modeling the behavoirs too. There has to be a level of consistancy, do as I say, not as I do just does not fly. However we are all imperfect at times and do make mistakes. I know if I have a bad day with my son, and if I stepped over the line, I communicate that too him. I seek him out and tell him that I was wrong.