Hi everyone, I'm new here. Im the mother of a bright, vibrant, beautiful son, who's autistic - nearly 11 yrs old. I love him dearly,but am struggling terribly with behaviour/shouting issues.
This started about 2 tears ago - shouting/screaming out of the blue & other issues. At the moment it's happening about 3/4 times a day.
it's so difficult to know what to do to help him. It's killing me to see him so distressed & often it's over 'small' things, or completely out of the blue.
Many thanks
Unfortunately this is very difficult to deal with - because he can pick up on your distress at the situation and it will just add to the stress that is breaking through here.
What counts as a small thing is entirely different for different people - especially children, who have much larger emotions than they can deal with.
I'm sure you've heard the advice before, but here are a few things that might help:
Don't add to the situation. I know it's instinctive to check he's okay and try to calm him down, but adding the need to do a social interaction is unlikely to help.
Ideally, be available by a calm, easy, non verbal communication route - text chat (or assistive communication symbols) on a tablet or if he has the motor control writing on a whiteboard can both be easier and help calm him down to tell you what needs to be fixed.
Talk (again, ideally via a calm non verbal method) about it later when he's in a calmer and more communicative mode, not in the frame of 'that was bad, don't do it' - that adds frustration because not doing it once set off is not really an option, and might lead to worse outbursts as the stress of being bad adds up - but in the frame of 'what was upsetting and what can we do to make it less upsetting'.
I can’t help much with practical suggestions, but just to add my two pennies worth. Nothing is ever out of the blue: even with bright, high functioning kids there will be a trigger. It could be internal (hormones generally, hunger, thirst, general stress or anxiety level) or something external, including things we may not necessarily take as a demand or problematic, but there will definitely be something. It’s also worth considering age and that puberty generally starts a lot younger now. There’s no single comparative ‘sign’ in boys, but my daughter started her periods at just 10, and her behaviour had really started shifting in a similar way to what you’re describing about 18 months prior. It may just be a case of welcome to the teenage years: someone explained to me that neurotypical kids often have better impulse control and a fuller understanding of cause and effect, meaning consequences, so are less likely to indulge the urge to shout at parental figures compared to kids on the spectrum. They still quite often do it, but the frequency is less than the desire.
