New here.. 8 yo with AS and suicide talk...please help

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We went through the same here. He hated the gown (really hated the gown) the time we wasted there and has never done that again. Thank God.

LOL...I fear that if I took him to the hospital to teach him a lesson he would find a nurse who thinks he's cute and funny and think it wasn't too bad. He's rather smooth with the ladies.

Thanks everyone for your advise! We had the OT apt yesterday, he LOVED the squeeze machine (and the OT doctor). I think that will help him alot.

He had a GREAT week! No problems at school. He has only been off one day, and already misses his teachers. HOWEVER, if he does have problems, I will take him to a doctor ASAP!

Happy Holiday's everyone! Wishing you the best for a happy new year!

you know, if he is just making empty threats, you need to talk to him about that~ teachers and social workers, and other concerned people will not take him so lightly...he'll find himself hospitalized whether he wants to be or not.............as far as my son's hospitalization, we just didn't know any better at the time~ we really thought that the hospitalization would help him...that he'd come out feeling better. instead, he came out VERY angry with us, and doped up on Depakote.i'm sure that some people have had better experiences with hospitalization.......

You know this can key in with the reflective listening I mentioned in another post. Sometimes when someone says "I wish I were dead," that's not exactly what they mean. You might try reflecting a suicidal statement back and seeing where it goes. A lot of times we have found if we said back, "let me make sure I understand...you're saying you are planning to kill yourself?" What we often get back is the child going something like "I hate the way you make me clean my room!" Which leads us to what they were REALLY trying to articulate - the desire to escape from something they didn't like. Then we can reflectively listen back on the real topic, get to some roots and come up with a good plan together for dealing with it.

Your son should get an acount. He needs to realize there are lots of aspies.

Hello,

I have 2 sons with Asperger's - aged 9 and 7 - who during meltdowns have screamed they aer going to kill themselves. They both started at age 6. (They haven't done it lately thank goodness).

I discussed this with Tony Attwood at a seminar. He said that it is quite common for kids with Asperger's to say this during a meltdown. This is because kids with Asperger's are all or nothing with their emotions, and having trouble expressing their feelings. eg Instead of saying, 'I am finding my homework difficult and feel frustrated'. They might say, 'I'M STUPID! I'M DUMB! I'M GOING TO KILL MYSELF!'

When they say it in the heat a meltdown they don't mean and will not remember they said it after they have calmed down.

Tony Attwood said that they talk about suicide in a when they are calm, this must be taken seriously.

Gamer1 gave a great suggestion - Your son should get an account.

My sons have accounts - they post as AussieBoy and UbbyUbbyUbby. Joining WrongPlanet was life changing for them both. They know they're not alone and have had lots of mentoring from older members, and have made heaps of friends.

Helen

My son became extremely depressed in first grade. I considered getting him meds for it. He would make suicide gestures. He would take a butter knife out of the drawer and say he was going to kill himself or stand on top of the stairs and say he was going to throw himself down the stairs.

He told me he liked school and he had friends. It turned out that he didn't have friends and there were bullies. I started homeschooling him in October of 2nd grade and the depression went completely away. He still has high anxiety, but no depression and no meds.

He did make a few geniune friends through homeschooling and no one bullies him. I did have a problem recently of some popular older girls ganging up on him (homeschool group), but I talked to their moms and they put an end to that immediately.

As an aspie, and remembering childhood, I'd like to third the suggestion to check for bullies. Remember, asking your son may not render accurate information - he may not quite "get" the difference between rough play and bullying - and asking the other kids will generally get you even less info. Best I can suggest for that is to see if you can find some way to observe the playground at your child's school during recess, without being seen yourself - bullies generally won't do their thing if they know an adult can see them.

Other than that, just a few practical suggestions. If/when your son wants a hug, hug hard. It feels better that way. And don't ever tell him, "I don't believe you want to kill yourself - you're just looking for attention." (Believe it or not, I heard a woman say that to her child once. The next day, he sure showed her! Good thing the paramedics got there in time...)

Our 6 year old son used to say that he felt like walking out in front of a car to kill himself when he became really upset about things. Home life has always been fine for him. However, earlier this year he did have lots of problems at school, one of which was being bullied. As soon as anything would go wrong at home (even a little thing), it was just too much for him to bear. We had problems with him escaping from school, so the threat to walk out in front of a car and kill himself was a nightmare! We've managed to work through a lot of his problems at school, and we have been extremely fortunate as the bully left the school a few months ago! Since the bully has left school he has been a lot calmer and the suicide threats have stopped.

It might be just everything combined going on, the stress of new medication, his dad coming home etc...
It could be the medication as well, from my own experience dosages are quite important you shouldn't just give him whatever dosage the doctor proscribes try different levels and she it it helps.
These sorts of medications will actually increase suicidal/homicidal tendencies in children, I've had it happen to myself. If you and he feels ther'e helping him that's fine, but I wouldn't and most doctors I've been to wouldn't recommend them untill he's 18 or untill you feel he's old enough and let him make the decision.

The problem with this approach is that they might stop sharing their feelings with you when they really are suicidal.

I had suicidal ideations from the time I was 7 and my son started around age 9. I take them very seriously and try to determine what is making him suicidal. If it is something I can help with or change I'll do it (within reason of course). So far this has worked, he knows he is being listened to and cared about, and he hasn't used suicide as an empty threat (yet). The things that made him suicidal were really tormenting him.

Unfortunately a person being suicidal is one of those things that is, by definition, out of your control. Hopefully no one's child here will get to the point that they are so determined to follow through that they won't even talk about it or open up to look for help.

It's true that some SSRIs can trigger suicidal and homicidal urges, especially in the first few months of their use. Some have argued that SSRIs played a role in school shootings and other violent rampages by young people.

Agreed...

I've been suicidal myself since 8th grade (I'm 21 now). I was perfectly ok until they put me on Paxil.

Want to know how many in people I've told in real life?

None.

I just can't do it. I want to, but I don't know how.

This is very important. If a child is "punished" for mentioning suicide, he'll know that it's best not to discuss it with anyone. By "punished", but could be anything: getting yelled at, getting grounded, losing video game privileges, being forcefully restrained, being taken to the doctor, or even being confined to a mental institution (my parents once threatened to do this). If a child learns that the consequences of talking about suicide are unpleasant, guess what will happen? He simply won't talk about it. In the end, he'll either suffer alone in misery, or worse: actually go through with it.

In a nutshell, think twice before doing anything unpleasant to the child when he talks about suicide. I'm not saying the child should get rewarded in any way, but the consequences should be neutral and objective, and should not involve intense unpleasantness for the child. A 1-hour visit to a psychiatrist is OK, grounding is borderline, unpleasant medical treatments are not OK.

I agree with Aspie1. I was punished by my parents (more than once with forced hospitalization) not only for suicidal ideation but also for self-injury. It was counter-productive and really just added to the trauma. Honestly I think they best thing you can do is try to maintain a nurturing relationship with your child and let him know the lines of communication are always open. Once you start punishing, the lines of communication shut down quickly.

I understand that it's a conundrum for parents, but I always err on the side of compassion and gentleness if at all humanly possible. I was accused so many times of "looking for attention" when I acted suicidal or self-injured. This was my mother's mantra every time they hauled me to a new doctor, hospital, or psychiatrist. No one seemed to understand that I was truly suffering.

Ah, we have not had to deal with suicidal ideation or threats yet. However, I do remember my own weak actions that were suicidal in nature. (Like taking 3 Tylenol instead of the recommended 2.) As for the law enforcement thing, I graduated with a degree in Justice Studies and thought for a while about becoming a police officer. My black-and-white nature of viewing situations and natural love of the law has been a guide and comfort.

Why didn't I become a cop? I knew from the get-go (before the aha moment of AS), that I could be too gullible to handle a criminal's stories.