Aspies For Freedom

I'm one of those Aspies who used to act out, although I never hit anyone, but I broke stuff. I also had a child who used to be aggressive--hit, bit, spit (hey, that rhymes :lol: ), threw his time out chair, etc. I have found, both for me and him, conventional methods of discipline don't work well. For me, if I'd gotten hit, I would have not only hit back, but had a horrible tantrum that I couldn't stop. It would have wound me up even more with my sensory issues and already bad feelings about myself. I got wound up anyways, even without being hit. I would not hit my son. It wouldn't have done squat. I used to carry him to his room, kicking and screaming all the way (him, not me  :lol: ) because I remembered that the best way for me to clear my head and calm down was to be alone. I held the doorknob so he couldn't get out because at first he would kick the door and scream and bang, etc. Now we had taken everything out of his room except his bed and some soft toys he could throw so he really couldn't damage anything. Sure enough, he would stop pretty fast. By age five, this child was he most easygoing child on earth, PDD-NOS or not. He is 13 and still my best natured, sweetest child, and I have.......FIVE!!!! I don't spank. Won't spank. Don't approve of spanking. Still, my son is doing really well in the behavior department, and in other areas too. He is much higher functioning than the "experts" told me he'd be. To those who seem to apply animal's methods to children, our human brain is more complex than an animal's, and I don't believe that there is relevance in comparing what a bear does to his cub vs. what a human being does to her offspring.

I think it depends a lot on the child and the people best placed to know the child are their parents and then their teachers/aides.

Time-out works with some kids and is worth a try but a quick swat on the bum sometimes says a lot more than 1000 words of reasoning would.

Bopkasen, lots of kids have premarital sex because they see on TV shows that it is okay and they get all the advertising saying it is okay. Plus, people are often getting married later in life so it is harder to wait that long.

As a parent of an autie boy I have found that options are great tools but alot of work can be done to work on relaxation technics when your son isn't in a melt down mode.  Have you tried brushing or touch therapy during quite room times?  Your energy and your sons need to be calm and relaxed when you do this.  Quite time is hard to transition to when you are already pissed off.  Try learning to calm down in a non-melt down situation 1st.  I have tried Reiki with my son too.  You can find out more on line about message therapy that you can do.  Start before bedtime or during storytime by giving a light touch foot message through socks or back rub.  Sometimes my son likes to be touched and some times its a no go so keep tring.  We all need help calming down when we are upset.  If you can't even voice your opions and needs and wants your frustration levels are much higher than a N.T. cut off in traffic.   Sometimes Anger promotes change and he is letting you know that he is not satisfied with what is happening.  Hitting is not acceptable.  Hurting others is not acceptable.  Letting someone make choices as to their own life is acceptable.  Love is always the answer.

I'm sorry but I find making excuses for kids is unacceptable.

Why is it the kids's decision on the punishment?

I think it the parent lack of judgement or wisdom for letting a child see pre-mar sex. News media has already proven it. Parent need to supervise their own kids.

The problem is what you are saying that more people that living together without marriage is more right than people who does. 50% of the people who married are in divorced and we giving them more option on whether they shouldn't be married?

I don't have any advice as my son has a very mild temper, but when you figure it out tell me.

I got kicked in the stomach at work today by a fairly HFA boy. Not sure how to make things better.

Abuse is not acceptable. If you find out who the parent of the child, please let them know of this unexcuseable behavior. If the parent failed to correct their child, they they got a parenting problem.

It was as the bus stopped and tha boy's father was there. He is a good dad and does not put up with the behavior, but on occation the boy is out of control.

I know the boy got a severe talking to and privledges taken. I just wonder how I can defuse the situatio in the future.
Be meaner I guess. I don't like that part.

Obviously, he not giving him a better punishment. Worse if he grow bigger and get thrown into a child juvenille prison. Isn't the father divorced and have child custody?

It is rather sad but the mother has been ill with Cancer for over a year.  Most days the boy is fine, but dealing with him when he isn't is tough. I'm working the morning run and have to go in a couple minutes. Wish me luck!

It is rather sad but the mother has been ill with Cancer for over a year.  Most days the boy is fine, but dealing with him when he isn't is tough. I'm working the morning run and have to go in a couple minutes. Wish me luck!

P.S. sorry for highjacking the thread.

Still, he should be restrained from kicking people in the stomach. That is just not on!

Bopkasen, parents can't be everywhere all the time. Plus, smacking their kids if talking to doesn't work can get the parents in big trouble!
The same thing is the case in the schools as corporal punishment is ruled out.

I think it's better not to hit children but some children won't take any notice of other things like time out, withdrawal of privileges, getting grounded, reprimanded.

Plus, there are too many families where the dad isn't much involved in disciplining the kids. If they won't listen to their mum, they will often listen to their dad.

Are you saying that we can let kids run wild while we don't control them on where they goes? Heaven forbid.

School has banned corporal punishment because they lost the grips and the parent becoming anti-corporal. Ask any elderly grandfather and they would tell you that corporal punishment did exist in their time. Parents by tradition was using corporal punishment until the near 1960's. Those were the time when kids were rebelling and want to do their own things. After that, corporal punishment become obsoletes in the school system. If I remember correctly, there not a single constitution in US Amendent that states that corporal punishment is illegal. The only law that would prohibits corporal punishment would be the state law. I don't know how many states contain that prohibitation.

In today society, father and mother switched hand on responsibilty of disciplining. Mostly the father, however we forgot who the real responsible person. The reason why we forgot is the reason why there numberous wedlocks.

Apparently he handled it. Punishment? Children act out for different reasons - if they cannot communicate to others or do not understand their world adequately their actions may be aggressive or look irrational. As I stated in another post my daughter does respite for a child who was behaving agressively (nonverbal, about 5 or 6 yrs old). It ended up that his teacher was being very abusive and is now charged. Specialists say that behaviour always has a reason. I say you cannot change what you do not get to the root of. Punishment or fear to do something again might suppress a behaviour but you had better believe it is not positive and will come bursting out somehow. Direction and discipline/guidance should be firm but caring. "You do not kick!" (without negative inflection - calm, matter of fact, no nonsense) then back up with social stories and/or 1-5 point behaviour sales for understanding emotions and actions concretely. But one must also understand where the child is coming from - heaven forbid that the child my daughter sometimes has in her care was punished for his reactions to abuse. (Everyone thought it was because his parents were having difficulty in their relationship at home - that was not the case) - I think if the child is agressive we should be most concerned about THEM while keeping others safe - but more agression will not stop agression - and don't call agression discipline because it is not. Sometimes things can work in spite of this but most often it would only make things worse. Tools and strategies to set limits while being supportive of the individual and making sure they have a system to communicate their needs is what I think is called for.
     Also I love the choice posts. Who wants everything decided for them. It isn't even healthy to want them to be subservient just to make it easier for us.

On spanking...

When we were planning our family, we were resolved never to spank.  However, we did not plan on having an aspie son, and that resolution flew out the window when he got to be around four and was doing things like running out into the street and obsessively unfastening his seat belt when riding in the car.

The rule we follow now is to spank, but only in situations where there is a) physical danger to the child or to someone else as a result of his actions, and b) a need for immediacy.  Taking his toys away for 30 days or even more is not going to allow you to finish the drive home safely right now, for example.  

I think part of our societal prejudice against spanking lies in a failure to distinguish between a proper disciplinary spanking and an abusive beating.  What we do is simple:  calmly lay him across the lap of the person doing the disciplining and hold him there firmly, pull down his britches just to the bottom of the buttocks, and administer 3-5 smacks, not with the full force of your hand but with enough force to sting, right on the fleshiest part.  (I recommend practicing on your own thigh to get an idea of how much force is appropriate.)  Then we stand him up, give him a comforting hug, remind him that we love him and are trying to ensure his safety, and that we hope the spanking will help him understand that whatever he was doing was dangerous and must not be repeated.  Sure this is painful, and causes feelings of embarassment, shame, and "trauma", but I would rather have him experience a few memorable moments of this mild trauma than end up seriously injured or, heaven forbid, dead.

(Or, for that matter, facing the emotional and legal consequences of having seriously injured someone else.)

We will always clearly warn the child in advance "if you do X again you will get a spanking".  We've also found that it is important not to threaten to spank unless you are prepared to follow through, and to do so immediately, with absolutely no additional warnings after the first.  I think it really helps to verbalize that this small pain is meant to help fix it in their head that what they are doing could cause a big pain;  since my son has been to the ER several times now for various accidents caused by reckless behavior this is really starting to sink in for him.  (I also remind him of the pain of these past accidents when spank-worthy behavior occurs.)  We have only had to actually spank our kids a handful of times in the past two years, although it's been threatened a lot more than that.

Philosophically, for those who object that hitting a child only teaches that "hitting is ok", I can only say that in real life the use of force IS sometimes necessary, and that our children are going to have to learn the rules of this eventually too.  Otherwise why do we have soldiers and armies and wars?  (Not to mention firefighters, police, and rescue workers, who call on exactly the same instincts and skills as soldiers.)  If we didn't somehow learn that those in authority are allowed to dictate the use of force, then why aren't we all running around demanding acces to our own WMD's?  Make YOUR authority, the nature of authority as a whole, and the times when it's acceptable to respond with force, part of the lesson of spanking too.

To the original poster:

Crystal, your vivid description of your child's behavior could be a mirror for how my son behaves sometimes.  It has gotten better with age and our attempts at preventive strategies, but the main thing that has worked for us those times when he's seriously "out of control" is sending him to his bedroom, which is our equivalent of your quiet closet.  We have found that often we have to actually lock him in to enable him to get mentally settled, otherwise he persists almost obsessively in the oppositional behavior.  Sometimes in fact it seems as if he's asking to have that door locked.  I'm not sure if this is because it's a familiar pattern by now, or something about having the door physically locked always "clicked" for him mentally.  Whatever it is, it seems like that locked door flips some kind of switch inside him that allows him to calm down.

{btw, the door lock in question is a simple hook-and-eye latch attached to the outside of the door frame, which he easily has enough strength to pull out of the wall in case of an emergency.  And although we frequently wind up locking it at bedtime we never go to sleep with him locked in.}