He hit me - Need help quick!

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My 11-year-old son was diagnosed 9 months ago with high functioning Asperger's. When he was younger, we had problems with him hitting and being destructive during meltdowns. We didn't know they were meltdowns at the time and we were able to effectively get him to become less destructive and violent through having him sign a behavior contract which gave him pretty serious consequences if he hit me or threw things at me. So we haven't had an incident where he has hit me in a very long time.

Today he stayed home from school with a 'bellyache'. He does this often on Mondays and he has a ton of school anxiety, so generally I know he's not sick, but a lot of the time I will give him the benefit of the doubt. His grades are not a problem, and we are working on the school anxiety. But it's beautiful out here, and when the neighbor kids got home from school and knocked for him to play, I told him, as is our house rule, that he could not play. They were calling and being very persistent and he started really arguing with me, etc. I was calm, etc, and I told him he could cry all night but I wasn't changing my mind. He was really starting to lose it and I walked by him and he punched me in the back. He was immediately hysterical and despondent over having done it and saying he was sorry. He got so upset, he went into a vocal cord dysfunction episode, which happens to him when he is very stressed.

So my question is, how do I handle this. It is different than the violence we saw when he was younger because he was immediately sorry and sick over it. But, he still hit me. I know the strong consensus is don't punish meltdown behavior, but it has worked in the past.

What do you think? Thanks.

So, was the house rule that when he is "sick" he cant suddenly be well in the afternoon and get to play and have fun?
My first thought was, kids call for your son to play, and you actually say NO ? Do you realise how wonderful that is that kids want to hang out with him and he has a social life? You said it was a beautiful day, he wanted to play and have fun, but you needed to make a point. Well, I can't help seeing his point of view and sympathising with it totally. I know he shouldnt have hit you,, but perhaps you need to ease up a bit on the house rules, especially on beautiful days.

Since AS kids are "rules" kids, you risk confusing him if you don't follow through with the expected consequence. I've gathered from many members here that they just prefer dealing with the consequence. But, you can always make adjustments if you think adjustments are in order and can be logically explained in a way that doesn't shoot you in the foot for next time.

FYI, I totally understand the house rule for a sick day. My NT daughter has a lot of anxiety sickness and some days that house rule is the only thing pushing her past it. That one is a "know your child" rule, so I would assume you have it because it works for your unique family, and I would assume your son knew the rule - - but his reaction does have me thinking he was expecting an exception. Explore that, you may have logical cause for leniency there.

I don't think your rule was at all unreasonable, I grew up with the same rule and it made sense to me (just because you were sick in the morning and feel well in the afternoon that doesn't mean you're not still contagious). It sounds like he may have created his own punishment when he broke down and cried, but I think I'd be clear that if it ever happened again there would be serious consequences. What those are depends on whatever would work for you.

I'll just put in my support for the house rule about being sick. If this kid regularly has people calling him up wanting to play, he's not lacking opportunities to socialize, so denying them this one day is not a big deal.

If they have never called before and just started calling this one day, I would be very suspicious that some kind of practical joke was planned, and would still not break the house rule.

Poor kid. He is sick with anxiety, and then on top of that you have to punish and shame him for not being able to cope with his anxiety. Even if you do not consciously mean it as punishment or shame that is what he experiences. That rule really does not make sense to me. Obviously you want to ease him into getting more comfortable with the things he is anxious about, so to do that just limit the number of days he gets to stay home. Not letting him play outside with friends (wow, I wish I could make any friends when I was a little kid...) does not accomplish anything but punish him for being different.

Thats the worst part about being an anxious kid, the feeling that everything you do and feel is wrong, and feeling like no one has any sympathy for you. Feeling like, not only do I have to cope with anxiety about various things, but cope with guilt about anxiety.

I don't really know how I'd react to that. Even if my daughter was home from school sick, if she wanted to go out and play with friends I would probably let her go because she does that so infrequently. I would be disinclined to discourage social time. For me, I would probably restrict computer or tv time instead.

It sounds like your son punished himself more than adequately over the hitting. I would definitely talk to him about it in a calm moment and reinforce his redirect strategies.

My mom actually had the same rule for me...and it kept me in school. As far as the hitting goes... he needs a punishment because if you are incosistant with him on this...he will learn he can get out of a punishment by being very apologetic. I know this seems kinda harsh, but consitantcy is very important with AS kids.