ADULTS: Hand flapping, rocking ...q?

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Hi, my son is 15 years old and he jumps up and down and handflap (at the same time) or either he will will sometimes look upwards and start to mutter and be like totally detached & rocking side to side. I am completely fine with it at home but when he is outside he tends to draw unwanted attention & worried stares from people. Does anyone have any strategies to help him reduce this behaviour or an alternative eg instead of jumping in public, maybe he can substitute it with something more acceptable?

He also responds with verbally abusive language and swearing when being told off or wound up. It started with puberty and also recently he has been subjected to bullying in school and they keep telling us how bad he swears in school etc, not realizing he tend to only do it when he is agitated.

Appreciate any suggestions, thanks!

pretty much all the time.
I have just started incorporating diaphragmatic breathing into my day about 7 or 8 times a day to calm me down a bit.
I am always moving something.

tapping, rocking, facial tics, shoulder twists, body stretches, arm swinging.
i am not always aware of it. it is like breathing for me.

In my case there is a link between my stimming and my monologuing.
i have a choice - stim more and monologue at others less.
Monologue more and stim less.

i choose to stim more.

I have so much excess energy.

I only rock when nervous or stressed. I'm more of a side to side rocker. I don't hand flap but I sometimes arm swing. I turned it into a little dance one day in the supermarket and couldn't stop.
When I was a little kid I would leg shake, but teachers and parents saw that as disruptive behaviour.
My facial stims are hard to control. I also do teeth clicking which I can do until my teeth hurt.
Sometimes if people stare I stop, but if it's really calming me down I just go ahead with it.

Also, I find it cute that my little Jack Russell does something similar to arm flapping. She also stares off into space and snaps at the air.

It depends on my surroundings, for example if I am in a crowded supermarket I can't help the stimming, as it supresses the panicky feeling. I walk on my tiptoes, sway my arms and rock on my heels; and I haven't had any funny looks, but then again I don't look at other people to find out.
I tend to stim less in a relaxed environment as I don't feel the urge to, but sometimes I stim when I'm relaxedv but its usually gentle rocking so not that noticable I think.
When I'm out with my boyfriend he thinks its funny and he knows I can't stand light touches, so he will lightly brush my nose or something, so then I hand flap rather violently to shake the feeling off and he laughs. I don't mind though as long as he only does it occasionally

i'm insanely self aware, and have always been made to feel ashamed of my stims...so i stopped the hand flapping, i may tap my foot, or play air drums however, which is a little more socially acceptable x

You know, I have parents that have been in denial all my life and were sure that I was "normal." But, my aunt talked to a psychologist recently, as part of my functional assessment, and she said that as a child, I would throw myself down on my knees and hand-flap like crazy.

I saw Mozart and the Whale and the guy in the movie hand flaps. I thought that wasn't realistic because I don't know anyone with AS that hand flaps as an adult. But, I'm seeing here that people do.

I rock side-to-side more than back and forth. I twirl my hair. I trace letters on my leg with my hand. I do those sorts of things.

i always am either flapping or rocking/swaying back and forth while standing, well a good 90% of the time, or im running around doing spins haha. Sometimes i know im doing it, but i also know its keeping me calm and relaxed, most of the time i dont even know im doing that behavior. I also bite my hands a lot, especially if the smell of zest is on there lol, love the smell of zest. Or i'll bite/rub my rubber keyboard, of my phone. I honestly have no thought or care that i'm stimming, but if i do, it doesnt usually stop the behavior. If i'm upset or angry i headbang against anything in sight, will punch myself, or hit myself, and will bite until i bleed no matter where i am. Consciously sometimes i do know whats going on around me, but i dont usually always have the ability to control it, and a lot of the time i wouldnt care if i was on fire lol.

Recently I became aware that I wring my hand a lot, shift in my seat, and run my fingers through my hair a lot and nobody else in the room does it. I've become very embarrassed by this. The stimming gets worse with anxiety, which I have a lot of. EDIT: I just saw someone elses post about swaying. I sway whenever I'm standing. I usually have my hands on my hips, preferably on my skin.

I stim by flicking my fingertips together - it isn't a hugely obvious one and probably wouldn't draw much attention if I did it in public. It gives me an odd sort of... adrenaline rush? Some kind of rush of energy at the base of my brain stem or something - sometimes it gives me a full-body shudder. Odd. Anyway - I suppose I must have noticed as a child that no one else did it - I remember trying very hard to stop. Until I found out about Asperger's I thought I had stopped - but upon being conscious of it I realised I still do it.... Hehe - this is kind of funny. I seem to have unconsciously programmed myself to only stim in places where I am alone - I do it EVERY TIME I sit down on the damn loo, and almost always before I step into the shower. When I catch myself I just laugh - it's so silly. I suppose I would still be a little embarrassed about it if anyone "caught" me - in a way it kind of feels like a non-sexual form of masturbation.

I flap my hands a little bit if I'm stressed out.

I've noticed I sometimes do it in crowded situations, like in a busy shopping mall when everyone is doing their Christmas shopping, and it just gets to me.

Sometimes the same thing happens to me. Very weird.. But most of the times it feels great. However I don't feel good if someone see me while I'm stimming.
Then I get a crazy adrenaline rush, so I feel very uncomfortable.
I know this thread is a bit old, but I would like to bring it up again, cause I think it very interesting.
I've limited myself to mostly do stims at home. But sometimes, in public, I can't do anything about it. Then I would mostly do my "toe-flapping" or hand-flapping...
When at home, I do many stims including rocking. My favorite rock is side-to-side.

I also do this alot, I can't explain it, but I know a youtube video with one doing the same stim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owJxaRLCJpk&feature=channel_page

I don't really flap my hands, although I'll do some things with my legs / feet. I'm aware of that part, but most other people would assume that's just ADD. The slight rocking / head shaking I do, I'm generally not even aware of at all. I took a video of myself recently, just sitting at the computer, and was honestly a little surprised at some of the stuff I do and don't even realize it.

I do this and it is not a problem because my closes friends do this to. But when people do stare I stop if I can. I have learned to use my feet when I can not rock.

I notice certain cliques (computer and science based), teenage and beyond, I've visited do sometimes flap a lot.

I innocently thought that this was just a "geeky" thing to do and I honestly wasn't bothered by it.
I just thought it was some kind of subculture thing, you know.
There was even an in-group term for hand flapping a lot. I also noticed that the girls tended to do it more than the boys for some reason. This was done when excited or panicky often with several people doing it at once.

Whether this behaviour originated for one person or not, I'm not sure, but people in the same classes as these cliques began behaving in a similar way. Whether this was mimicry or not, I'm not sure. It's kind of interesting how a micro-culture/mini tradition thing like that could have happened due to some kind of underlying biological thing. I'd never really thought about it that way before.

I don't flap so much now I'm an adult, though I used to pretend that I was a bird when I was little. Self consciousness probably stops me.
I tend to pace and rock more (though the rocking is barely perceptible now).
And worry beads, staring at objects that sort of thing when I'm stressed really.
The usual normal fiddling with clothing and pens that lots of other people do too.

Most of the flapping probably was brought under control by me and adapted into gestures by me (sort of like pantomime). I used to use these gestures when doing class presentations a lot.

Last edited by AmberEyes on 15 May 2009, 4:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

sorry to "steal" someone's words, but this pretty much sums it up for me.

OK I'm not an "Adult" but I am physically, does that count??

Anyway, my stims are socially appropriate (I think) so I don't really care where I am, they usually involve fiddling or chewing on something which is what alot of people tend to do anyway. I am usually aware of it, especially recently, but I don't make an effort to hide it because it's not exactly rocking or anything hardcore like that. Although on my own I tend to shake my head about if there's a thought I want to get rid of.