My Autistic 4 Year Old Constantly Breaks Everything

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First hello. This is my first post.

My 4 year old son, who has autism, is walking around destroying everything he touches. He's not angry, just able. If left unattended for even a moment he will rip apart a laptop, pour any liquid out anywhere, including on a TV. He threw the XBOX and ruined it today and poured shredded cheese all over the leather couches.

My wife and I have 5 kids and one of us has to be with him every waking second of every day. What the hell can we do? My first idea is to build a half-wall in the dining room and lock him in there, where he can see the rest of us of course but cannot get out. He's honestly a danger to himself and I just don't know what to do. Any thoughts?

In the economy of a family of seven souls, that sounds fair to me.

It would keep in at home in his familiar environment, in his own safe space.

Welcome to Wrong Planet, Zach.

Is he in a school during the day? It sounds like you could really use some help in the house too. Some districts will allow a teacher after school, or parent trainer, ABA, whatever. Have you looked into any of that?

good luck!

I feel your pain brother.

My daughters room is like a scene out of a zombie Apocalypse movie. And the house proper is just a step up from that. We have not had success with yelling and such. It just causes more issues. I am afraid locks latches and gates is really not much of an option for you.

First the biggest failure mode of all those things is you and your family. You would have to lock and latch everything all the time. The second is that he will soon be able to defeat what you put in place. We do have a combination bicycle lock on the fridge/freezer door. But again it has to be locked in the first place for that to work. But that lock has proven successful when used. We also have audible (cheapo) alarms on the doors to the house and the closet that we keep meds and haz mat stuff. The alarms work extremely well. My daughter is extremely sound sensitive. Even if we fail to turn the alarm on at this point she wont try to open.

Most of it is protecting your self and your stuff. If we told Chloe's brother once we have told him a thousand times. If you value your stuff you wont leave it laying about. We also in the past have had some success leaving things that make noise in the path of harm or damage. That wont stop anything. It will just warn you when trouble is near.

Long term effective is just patience and calmly removing things again, again, again, ect ect ect.

Another thing that helps would be doing your best to get him to burn as much energy as possible. Its especially true this time of year.

Wish I had some better advice for you. Its kinda par for the course. Supervision constant is the best you can do I think. The good news is you will learn fairly quickly not to leave your phone laying around.

If he's not angry, do you think he's just figuring things out? My son used to dump his glue bottle - just to see what would happen.

His behaviours will escalate if you "lock him in there". I'd be more inclined to rearrange your furniture (for now) and keep the main living space free of material goods. Do you have a basement you can use for a "living room"? I'd also put a lock on all doors, cupboards, fridge/freezers, bathroom cabinets, etc.

Maybe he should have things of his own like safe toys, that he is allowed to take apart and destroy.

This sounds like my son. In the last month he has squeezed out two tubes of toothpaste, three bottles of dish soap, two cans of carpet powder, a box of cheerios. I'm not even sure that is a complete list but I feel you.

I volunteer in a second-hand store.
Someone came in once because they had a sensory-seeking AS kid who destroys everything, and we told them we'd give them anything that we couldn't sell (the manager is fussy with what she'll sell; it has to be in top-notch condition) to give to the child so that she could break it.
Could something like that be an option for you?

Woah that sounds like a nightmare My daughter went through a short distructive stage but has come out the other side of it. She wasnt wrecking expensive stuff though She would make mess everywhere she went, she liked mixing water, soap, food, spit anything she could get her hands on. As Im sure you know yelling doesnt help, taking her things away made no difference, all the usual things parents might do (this was before we knew, still no dx but we are getting one now).

One way we kept her occupied is setting up the kind of thing she would do but in a controlled way. For example give her a bowl, paper, glue, water, playdough, pasta etc, then put a sheet down and let her mess. Could you get some old vhs players or broken computers and let hum go wild with them? He might even like to try and fix them! He probably is just fascinated by the insides of things. My daughter likes the texture of water mixed with things, changing the textures by adding stuff and running it through her hands. He might appreciate a routine such as "breaking stuff time" where he knows his boundaires, you can break this old stuff but not that stuff, go outside, heres a hammer, some old roof tiles, blank cds and some cheese, have fun! y in this area at these times, maybe use little red stickers on things he cant touch? Try and keep as much out of reach as possible, although at 5 he can probably drag a chair over and reach it. I find with my daugher if she cant see it she forgets about it and doesnt bother trying to get it.

Hope you find an answer.

Good luck, keep us posted and welcome to the forum

Welcome! Is your son receiving any services, OT, PT, ABA, etc.? As someone else just suggested, he does sound like an intense sensory seeker. If you're not already doing this, a steady sensory diet may be in order. Give him as many sensory stimulating activities as you can and that may help keep his energies from being spent in such a destructive manner. A good OT could help a lot.

My son has the same issue, has since he was little, and he's now 7. He wants to destroy things... ripping up magazines, breaking objects, smashing empty boxes... it seems to be some kind of release for him. We sometimes give him old magazines and a space to work on ripping it up and then make him clean it up after and take it to the recycle bin. But the destroying things that we DON'T give him permission to destroy is quite a significant problem.

We're in the process of trying to find a psychologist who can offer behavioral counseling. We need to find another outlet for him but don't really know what that might be. We did join a gym last week and they have a kids gym, so we're trying to go after dinner a couple of nights a week so he can burn off some energy there while we exercise. (Win-Win!) We haven't been going long enough to see a difference yet.

Anyway, you are not alone, I understand what you're going through. I just wish there was an easy answer... I'd love to hear it, too!

Debbie

If he has motor skill issues you might be able to get away with some toddler proofing devices. I would be concerned about his frustration level if you trapped him in too enclosed a space and if he did not have enough things to explore---Kids need to explore things to learn. Maybe you could combine confinement options like gates with toddler proofing to enable him to wander a larger space? I also second the notion of getting him other outlets for expression--jumping on beds, ripping junk mail etc. I would try to teach him what is OK to trash (like junk mail) and regular things he should not trash, if he is able to understand that. Does he get occupational therapy in school? An OT can figure out what his sensory requirements are and suggest substitutions.

Last edited by ASDMommyASDKid on 07 Mar 2013, 9:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I totally get this. We keep our toothpaste hidden in the kitchen now.

Our guy likes to throw things. But only in the house, where they will make lots of noise and bounce off of things. When we go outside, he won't do it. Also, he enjoys coloring on the walls, but once again, only inside. I gave him some chalk and let him go to town on the side of the house and he just made a couple of halfhearted scribbles.

He also flushes things down the toilet and pulled up a floor vent in his room and dropped all his toy cars down it.

And he destroyed the popcorn ceiling in the bathtub by throwing water at it.

We have doorknob covers duct-taped on all the doors that don't lock.

if you haven't already, i would recommend removing the dairy from his diet. at the very least, move to organic products. give it a few weeks (probably won't take that long) and see if his behavior improves.
feel free to ask me for advice if you do decide to try this. my son was irrationally violent and had night terrors. i first switched to organic dairy, which eradicated the night terrors. once we switched completely away from dairy, his violent tendencies diminished greatly. hope this helps and best of luck to your family!

I went to the kitchen moments ago, heard an extremely loud crashing sound, upon my return to the room and found my flat screen on the floor along with an assortment of other stuff. ABA said that the cause is over stimulated, sensory seeking, and seeks attention with this behavior.