adolescent boy (12) with autism

Post Reply New Topic

My son is 12, diagnosed with high funcioning autism since he was 2. In the last year, his behaviour has really gone off the rails. He has become increasingly violent, hurting me, his Dad and his sister. We take him to weekly therapy with a psychologist. His school is very good, and he's taking Tenex and Ablify. We spend hours and hours every week trying to reason with him. Yesterday when he was told to get his shower, he flipped out, refused and ran into his room to get a knife (which he had taken from the kitchen earlier, we found out) and threatened to kill his Dad with it. We got the knife away from him together. We live in Europe, and work for the US govt, so we are scared of losing our jobs because of our son. His Dad told me yesterday to 'send him away' or he would leave. I feel trapped. If anyone wants to write back, maybe it would help. I don't have anyone else to talk to about this.

Sounds like more going on than just AS.

I don't have any practical advice to give, I'm afraid, but I'm sure there are others who will have constructive help to give and similar experiences to share.

You're in a very difficult situation, in so many ways, and it must be very hard and painful for you to see your son like this. I really feel for you, and can only offer you cyber hugs and all my good wishes for you all.

This is a great place for support and to be able to share our experiences. Hopefully, posting here will help you feel less isolated.

Take care and please stick around.

Sorry you're in such a terrible situation. I hope I can be of some help to you.

I take it the psychologist you take your son to knows about his increase in violent behaviour? If not, they should definitely know about it. If they don't, then they're not doing their job very well and I would recommend seeing another psychologist. Maybe a second opinion might be better for you and your son.

Also, what does he say when you ask him about his behaviour? Seeing as he has got worse in the past year, it seems like there is something that is bothering him. Has anything happened recently that may have affected him?

I'm glad to have found a place to sound off, there seemed to be no other. His psychologist says his problem is a combination of autism / adolescent behaviour, and that it will run it's course during the next year or two. It's only become like this in the past year. I think she's a good doc, so the problem is not with her. We are rather limited to who we can reach out to since our jobs are sensitive, and if you're seen as a "problem" it's very likely that you lose your job. Having no jobs and a family ... not good. So far today has been a calm day. I appreciate your words, all who responded. Thank you. Suzanne.

I went through this with my son from about age 8 - 10. He is 11 now. He was very violent. It wasn't safe in my house for his baby brother who was a year old or less. My son woke up at 2 am once crying and tried to pull a knife on me. He had thrown large things in the house, he would beat on himself and his room, tearing everything up. He threatened to kill himself. It was this behavior that landed us in the ER (I didn't know where else to go, that is what the psych suggested). The ER suspected ASD based on his violence and other symptoms. They pointed us in the right direction and I thank God for that day I brought him to the ER and their staff. Anyway...

My son is also on Abilify, just 2.5 mg. That immediately stopped the violence. He literally has not had a violent outburst since the day before he started taking Abilify. We had to play around w/ the dose to get it right, but the violence is gone.

It is very hard to deal with this. My son would go from 0 to 60 in a matter of literally 2 seconds. There was no time to intervene at all. After he was stable on Abilify and supplements, then things got better. It has been a very long process.

If your son's rages are anything like my son's were, I feel for you. There was no stopping it. The best I could do was restrain him or keep me and his little brother safe by locking ourselves in a room. Even the psychologist had tried everything and nothing worked. Play therapy didn't work. Corporal punishment didn't work. The behavior books I read didn't work. The advice people gave me didn't work. There was no stopping the violence. It wasn't him doing this, it was some kind of animal. He'd get this crazy wild animal look in his eyes when he raged. It was actually scary.

FYI, my son is dx with PDD-NOS, Mood Disorder-NOS, and Sensory Processing Disorder.

12 is a rough age, with all the hormones that have just kicked in. I would check the level and appropriateness of his meds, particularly in light of his biological changes, and look harder at his stress levels, and stress mitigation techniques. The violence is probably related to meltdowns, and probably needs to be handled similarly. PREVENT them by controlling his stress and environment, and realize there could be things he was handling before the hormonal changes, that he cannot handle with the hormonal changes. Watch for and log triggers, make note of the lead-up warning signs, etc.

We had a similar thread recently and there may be more specific suggestions in it.

I appreciate it very much.

My daughter went through a period of increasingly violent meltdowns where a few times I actually had to physically overpower her. What worked finally was when I called in a family friend. I am a single parent so there isn't much tag teaming going on. My daughter had a violent episode about a year ago, and I explained she'd have to leave for the night. She of course refused to leave...but I called a friend of ours. As soon as the friend got there (I should mention this friend is a good friend and is aware of my daughter's disability), my daughter calmed herself...I left the room, and my friend just told her to get her stuff together to go to her house. She didn't argue. Since then, while she still melts down...she doesn't want that to ever happen again. Something about someone on the outside being able to witness the mess she makes was a very big deal. She's high functioning and manages to hold things together "for the public,"--at least as often as she can. So the last two times she's melted down...well, once she scared me by leaving for an hour...but it turned out she went to what for her constituted a "safe spot." (she's very regimented about being in the house, not venturing out that much, so it worried me). She told me in the future if she left, I would know to find her at that place (a small cafe on the corner). Last time we got into it, she said she would leave, ("don't call Ms. Meg") but it was dark...so I said, "Madison, you be safe here...it's dark. I will leave and come back." So I went out for about an hour, and when I came back she was in control of herself and apologized.

The thing is, with her at least, the anger is big...but once it passes, she can reason. But she can't reason during the anger, so one of us walking away from the anger makes a HUGE difference until she can control it better. But what I've noticed about my own behavior is if I keep trying to reason once she's melting down, it gets more and more violent. But wait until it's over (sometimes I use silent treatment by going in my room if she's not holding herself together), and she will...in general...comply with requests.

Hope this helps....adolescence is hard on the most regular kids....

My son was violent for years and years, until we finally got an appropriate evaluation for him. We finally figured out that he had a pragmatic speech deficit that was causing him to feel frustrated, confused, depressed, and anxious and he was taking it out on everyone around him, but mostly the people who loved him most, where he felt "safest." He was being bullied at school because of his rigid behavior and communication issues, and he didn't know what to do.

It took a lot of therapy, social skills classes, pragmatic speech classes and an organized effort by the whole family to simultaneously help him and hold him accountable, but we've been violence-free (at least as far as physical violence goes, we're still working on violent and offensive language) for over a year.

All this is to say two things: it's not that uncommon, and it may be happening because there is an underlying issue that needs to be addressed. Every kid is different, so what helped my kid might not help your kid, but I'd do some detective work and see what is causing all this frustration.

First I would like to say, I think it's the father who needs counseling. Honestly, what type of man gives his wife that type of ultimatum?

I think the others are correct in that part of this is hormonal. But other factors might be his father's attitude. I will tell you what type of parent threatens leaving his family if his wife doesn't send his son a way. One who is selfish and does not love his family or son enough, and I wouldn't be surprised if your son picks up on that.

How much time quality time does he spend with his son? Or do they only interact in the context of adversity?

Another issue is, your son will continue to attempt to become more independent as he gets older, and this is normal. He pulled a knife over being told to take a shower but who was pressing the issue? Is it so important that he takes a shower when you tell him to? Can't he not have some say over his own life? Choose your battles with him, and focus on the more important ones.

And the father has to understand that people are not robots who should be expect to always obey commands.