I Am My Son's Punching Bag

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Fortunately, he's only 4, so he doesn't hit very hard yet. But I'm tired of having things thrown at me, having my arms bitten and clawed at, getting socked in the abdomen. We are not a hitting family (spankings are extremely rare--I think he's had two spankings in his entire life). He will not often try the violent tactics on my husband, just on me. It's gotten worse since he started back to preschool, because he's being good all day, then lets it all hang out when he gets home. I have tried to help him find other outlets for his frustration, such as biting a pillow or stuff like that, but I'm still his favorite target. Positive reinforcement when he expresses himself appropriately and time-outs/not giving in when he misbehaves are having no discernable effect. I am in the midst of a major depressive episode and am not sure how much more of the violence I can take. I think he's depressed too, in addition to PDD. How can I help him?

I really sympathise. My 7 year old daughter has recently started throwing things at me and pinching me. It's clearly an expression of their frustration but this doesn't meant it's acceptable. I also told me daughter to punch her pillow if she felt aggressive. She didn't take to that. If you find a solution let me know!

Oh gosh, I wish I had an answer instead of just empathy for you. After my daughter graduated from high school the assaults got worse and I wore long sleeved shirts so people wouldn't think it was my husband pinching me. We finally got her her own home with her own things in them so we could stop yelling at her for destroying our stuff, and now she's violent maybe once or twice a year, and not with me. She just needed to live somewhere where people weren't telling her what to do all the time. I'm happy. She's happy. We no longer make her go to school or work or volunteer or groups of other disabled people.
Obviously, that is not practical with your son at such a young age. Somehow you will get through this. You will find the training that will be most helpful. Life will get better. Please believe me, Life will get better.

I don't suppose you could line a room with gym mats so he could have a hitting room in which to decompress? Also, tight pressure helps some kids calm down.

Thankfully my son isn't prone to being violent, but my oldest niece (who is 5) certainly is. Kicking, punching, clawing, and blow-out-your-eardrum screaming. Usually only when her father (my brother) isn't around. Her mother cannot contain it - it's like a meltdown.

What I do (and I'm saying this not knowing your situation at all) is I put her on the couch and make her sit there. If she tries to get up, I put her back, if she tries to lash out, I hold her wrists, if she tries to kick, I use my knees to keep her legs still. If necessary, I will keep her there until she has calmed down enough to not try to assault me. I keep my voice very steady and firm, never yelling, but I make sure that she knows I mean business. When she is calmed down enough, I give her a hug and thank her for calming down, and usually at this point she is physically and emotionally spent. The more I've done it, the shorter her "meltdowns" are, and honestly, the closer she and I have become.

I know this isn't going to be popular with some folks, but this is extreme behavior requiring extreme measures. It's a safety issue. He's GOT to learn to quit this and quick.

For a time, we put a heavy double hook lock on their bedroom door. Yes, I would escort the offender to his room, and lock him in if he refused to stay.

Before anyone jumps all over me for this, I never wanted to do this, because I hated it as a child and always thought it was cruel. And it is for the reasons it was done to me (not violence or anything dangerous, just for not wanting to take a nap, and I do think that is wrong). But when a couple of our kids started to get a little violent, and it was clearly a safety issue, we started doing it.

They would pound on that door hard and scream. Yes they would. But we stuck to our guns and refused to let them out until they calmed down and were no longer a danger.

Hitting to that extreme is dangerous behavior that needs to be stopped very quickly. Don't mess around with it.

P.S. This IS recommended in a government distributed video, believe it or not. And it works, but you really have to be determined and strong.

when my nephew started hitting, his parents told him he couldn't play baseball until he stopped. so find something he likes and take it away when he hits.

Yikes. Are you saying he won't even wear a pull up, or will take it off and do this? Never dealt with that before. Sorry.

Umm. Yeah, it's more serious than even I thought. Huh. Well....

To start, I hope you've got some serious professional help already. If you don't, you need to and quick. But you will want to be certain it's somebody with a lot of experience with autism, and if I were you, I would do whatever you can to find someone with a reputation. Don't just take the word of a doctor that they are an expert. They all are. But only some of them really know what they're doing.

I had a short spate of this with my DD5 but she seemed to grow out of it. I was heavily pregnant at the time and she would see me crouching to get somethign out of a cupboard and push me over or pull on my clothes until I fell over when I wasnt expecting it Even when I was crouching down to hug her or help her with her shoes she would do it. She also hit, kicked and bit me. Again it would always be me she did it to no one else. It would always be after she had been somewhere like school or the childminders for the day and she had been really good all day.

She seems to have stopped the violent behaviour now but she is still verbally abusive to me. I too have had depression and am currently on meds which has helped no end. At its worst I honestly felt bullied by her, which is ridiculous when Im a grown woman and she was only 4 at the time, but thats how it felt. I was physically and verbally attacked on a daily basis and nobody believed me, if she did that to a child at school she would be expelled! If she was an adult and did that at work she would be sacked!

Im afraid I dont have a solution either, but I hope you can feel better knowing you are not alone and maybe it will pass. Perhaps an actual punchbag might help, and some gloves or you hold a kick pad I wonder if a martial arts class might help him control his emotions and get some energy released? Some people Ive spoken to have said its worked for them.

I am not a parent, but just an idea:
There is the classic "eye-for-eye" thing. If your son bits you, you bit him back, if he hits you, you hit him back, etc.. The idea is to teach a child how it feels to be on the receiving end. They will make the connection and thus stop/learn their lesson. My mother did this with me, and it worked pretty well. In general it usually does as abusive as it may sound.

Just as a warning though. It is a lot better to find an outlet (lots of solo physical activity) that to just "make it stop." If it becomes internalized, he will probably start becoming physically abusive of himself of all things.

When DS would do this, we put him in his room and locked it like Mr. Xxx suggested, but eventually we had serious difficulty getting him there. When he was little, someone suggested that I hold him in a bear hug, but I couldn't do it without getting angry myself, so I would melt down and scream, and that backfired on us horribly.

Eventually, we found a counselor who suggested that we make a family contract (just so the rules were clear more for us than for him) that helped him differentiate between "good touch" and "bad touch" - any time he hit me, he lost the privilege of touching me or getting touch from me for 24 hours (he was allowed to touch his Dad for that time, if he hadn't hit him) I could read to him or talk to him, but not hug him or kiss him. It sounds extreme, and it was very, very hard for both of us - but it did sink in eventually. It still took a lot of time and repetition for him to get it, but I wish I'd had that technique sooner - it's very hard living with that kind of fear as a parent.

Nowadays, DS goes to his room when asked (sometimes under duress, but he goes) The only two times I used the lock on the door were when he got really upset and asked me to lock it for him.

Yeah. My dd5 does this. Just happened a few minutes ago. Mostly me, but occasionally not. She hits me, pinches me, pushes me. Honestly not sure what to do about it. I'm not sure she's in control or not when she does it, she is usually quite upset. It's upsetting. We tried getting her to go to her quiet spot after the first offense, you know to calm down. Instead she grabbed me and pinched me. Right or wrong, my husband spanked her (lightly with the pants on) for it. This has an effect I don't like, but it does stop her hitting. She usually starts shrieking that she hates us and just really starts crying which causes issues because she hates water on her face, tears included. It at least gets her to a point where we can apply pressure to her torso which gets her to calm down. When she is hitting and pinching she is usually very resistant to me grabbing her to calm her down.

I really hate this.