How do you survive this?

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I see all kinds of great tips for dealing with autistic kids, but none of them seem to apply to really young children (like 2 or 3 years old) who still can't grasp concepts outside the immediate here and now.

And I'm going CRAZY trying to figure out how to deal with some of the worst problems I've encountered with my son, who turns 3 in late August. He freaks out over the smallest disappointment, and it doesn't matter if we're at home or in the middle of the grocery store, he'll scream at the top of his lungs and kick and hit until he gets his way. When I say "scream," I don't mean the kind you hear from other toddlers, I mean screams that sound like he's being burned alive in the fires of hell. The kind where every person within a half-mile radius turns toward us with wide eyes and says "what the f....?"

He also refuses to hold my hand when we're crossing the street or in a busy parking lot. He freaks out if I make him. He won't listen to me if I tell him things like "Don't touch that, it's hot" or "Don't pull the cat's tail" or "You can't get in that car, it's not ours." I know he hears me, he just refuses to comply. And if I make him do it anyway (either in a kind and coaxing manner or being gruff and putting my foot down) he freaks out.

It's getting to the point where I don't want to take him out anymore, which means that we don't go anywhere as a family, which means we're stuck in the house all the time. And that's not the way I want to live. I love going out and doing things, and I want to show Lucas the world. But he's just so .... inappropriate. And so hard to handle.

I don't know what to do anymore. And it makes me really sad. Depressed is more accurate. And I'm starting to feel hopeless about our situation.

Any advice on how you all deal/dealt with kids this age would be greatly appreciated. I'm stumped.

Thanks.

Love
Care
Compassion

Nothing could hurt him more than you being depressed about his condition. You are his loving mother. Remember this is YOUR child. Coaxing is not the way to go. Sometimes you need to get burned before you figure out the kettle is hot.

There are a few things you need to understand..he will cry, shout, scream, and throw tantrums no matter what you do. The point is to keep him safe. Learning is a thrilling aspect to most children. Even if he seems like he's not listening or doesn't understand you keep trying to reiterate your points of WHY you do/don't do things.

You need to take your kid outside. Learning through experience is crucial right now. The more he is exposed to it as a toddler the more he will come to understand his world from your perspective.

DO NOT BE ASHAMED of your kid. Ever. From what I've seen this is regrettably the breaking point for parents. You need to be strong for him right now. The mere fact that you are working with him on these things shows love and attentiveness that you can confide in.

This will NOT be easy. You will cry, you will get angry, you will feel hopeless...but feeling hopeless and doing nothing is the worst thing you can do right now. Remember he is still very young and has a lot to learn.

Fare thee well.

Ah, it's one of YOU again.

Here's a good article about managing public tantrums written by the mom of an autistic kid:

I would agree with the advice posted by Chizpurfle52595, and I would say also that this is the usual advice given for dealing with all toddler tantrums. Basically, stay in control and make sure that no one is going to be physically harmed, ignore bad behaviour and reward good behaviour.

This is also, incidentally, the approach taken in the puppy class I'm taking my dog to!

Remember that for a toddler, behaviour is "rewarded" by any kind of attention from you. Small children don't distinguish between kind words and shouts of frustration - both represent a reward and will encourage the behaviour which earns that reward.

I notice that you say that he screams and hits and kicks until he gets his way. Don't, don't, give in to that behaviour, or he will learn that it gets results and will keep repeating it.

I'd also recommend getting reins - that way you can control him more easily and prevent him running into danger.

Good luck, I know it's horrible, but hopefully this phase will pass quickly.

i had the extact same problems with my kids, the tantrums in the store and really everyway we went. My one son would try and run off and wouldnt hold my hand wouldnt sit in the cart. I was at the point where I didnt want to go anywhere either. Three years ago when my sons where 9 and 6 I took the Love and Logic courses by Dr. Fay. The school hosted them for free, but you can ask your school to host the course or you can buy the books and/or cd's.

He is awesome and he tells you in very entertaining way how to communicate with your kids so that they will understand you. My kids hated that I was taking the course because suddenly once I used the words he told me to say and the actions he told me to take in every situation my kids didnt have the power any more. I did; even with my kids and their autistic traits. And he tells you for all ages groups.

Now my boys are 12 and 9 and I need to go back and revisit the information again, because they are hitting the preteen years and the communication changes a little some of the things are no longer effective. But he has series for each age group.

He said to have a basic list of general rules or expectations that you recite to them when you go somewhere and if they are old enough they repeat back and you do this everytime you go somewhere.

Such as:

Stay by me
no running
no touching
no yellling/ inside voice
and whatever else you expect of them

and keep it simple no lectures

Use rewards for good behavior and take away privelages for bad behavior.

He tells you what to say and do with toddlers to but I forget now that mine are older. He is very entertaing and the informations WORKS!

I partially disagree with everything being stated here. I had the same issue with my now 5 yr old when he was 3. I always put him in the cart, I did not care if he kicked and screamed. I would go in for what we needed. I did not give him attention, even physical attention while he was in the tantrum. I always went with my husband to the store. (We still go to the store together. It's actually a nice practice so we agree on what we want.)

If at some point we could not handle D any more, we would put everything in the others cart. Either I or he would take D out to the car. He did not get rewarded in any way. Sure, it sucked to not finish shopping. Also, we had the luxury of having S who is just a year younger. S always got a treat for being good all the way through the store. D wanted the treat, but could not have it because he didn't get through the store.

It worked. Now D walks in the store with us and will even help us find what we need.

Keep at it! It will work out, but you have to be firm.

It's frustrating, and challenging. But you CAN do this.

A very good friend of mine, who is coincidentally a counselor and a former educator, has a child who is moderate-to-severe autistic. When we met, her son was 1.5 years old, and he wasn't yet diagnosed. the behavior you are describing sounds very much like what her son would do at your son's age. Even now, he is almost nonverbal (at age 9), but instead he does a lot of communicating through typing or texting. He is very well-behaved and has a great sense of humor.

It's sometimes hard for me to remember that this is the same kid who would go into grocery stores and scream and tantrum so loudly that his mother would leave a full shopping cart and go home in defeat. It seemed that no amount of cajoling, promising or threatening him would make him stop the behavior. On at least one occasion, I saw the kid tantrum until he lost his breath. It was very, very distressing to his parents.

Being "autistic" does not mean "unable to be taught" or "unable to listen". It just means that it sometimes takes the child a bit longer to learn, or you have to use what may seem to be unconventional methods. And at other times, it means understanding that the stages of "normal" kids are sometimes delayed or amplified in autistic kids.

The method described by chizpurfle is the one my friend used. You HAVE to be patient with this and use it over, and over, and over...Even when it feels like you haven't seen results in weeks. You're taking prior conditioning and changing it. This is going to be as frustrating as herding cats with barbed wire and foaming-at-the-mouth pit bulls. Since tantrums are already an aspect of your son's age group, the autism often amplifies it. But they DO grow out of it eventually. You just have to stand firm and not deviate your "new" behavior. Remember, kids on the spectrum respond to consistency and hate change. Make this your new consistency, your new mantra, and stick to it.

Good luck, and I pray that you find your peace soon. Yes, it really happens.

Thanks for the good advice, everybody. I am going to apply these techniques to Lucas the next time we go out (or the next time he tantrums at home). My husband and I were doing some of this earlier, and Lucas responded really well to it, but we slacked off. Then, in the past 6 weeks or so, he amped it up so that his tantrums were so explosive I honestly thought if spontaneous combustion was possible, it'd happen to him at that moment.

I'm going to have to get strong. My will must be stronger than his. And I must ignore the stares in public - that will be the hardest part, probably.

Thorny_Rose, you say what my mom says about Lucas: He's going through the same things as all other kids his age, it's just way more intense.

And Snowy_Owl, you are correct in your statements, too. Sometimes I feel like my own emotions are just as detrimental to Lucas's development as his struggles with autism. I need to keep myself in check, but every now and then I just fall apart. The pressures of raising an autistic child are more intense than any challenge I've faced thus far in life.

Thanks to everyone for your advice and support. It's nice to know I'm not alone.

The thing I would add is to try to be sensitive to situations that may be causing sensory overload and may be stressful in that way. For those situations, staying out of them really is the best answer. You aren't going to be able to get him "used" to them simply by forcing it. I remember once my son just froze as we were about to enter a restaurant. I was holding his hand and he just stopped. I felt the tug. It turned out the noise was completely overpowering to him; definitely a situation to avoid. So do be careful with that; no child - no person - should be dragged into a situation that is literally painful for them, and some noises are that way to my son - painful. It can be hard to figure out, but do it.

And don't ask too much of your child, beyond what he can handle. If you say you are going to a place for ice cream, then go in and get the ice cream, don't change your mind and decide to have a meal first (um, we made that mistake once). A 3 year old's patience and ability to behave is limited; don't push it.

Mom_of_lucas,

I'm not going to offer you any parenting tips because I can see that there are enough people here doing that - and probably better than I could. Instead, I'll level with you and let you in on a few secrets.

1. We all got to the point where we couldn't take our kids to the shops - when one partner stayed home with them while the other went shopping.
2. We all thought we were crazy at more than one point in those early days
3. None of us got proper sleep and we were depressed, stressed etc...

It all gets better.

I'm not sure if we get better at parenting or if the kids get better at being kids but somehow it all starts to settle. Unfortunately, it takes a while to do.

Some of the best things I did were to;
- Pick my battles... (most things just aren't worth fighting about).
- Set up as many routines and rules as possible
- Positive reinforcement (bribes... Sorry, but it works)

In fact, I used to buy my kids a donut or very small toy and tell them that it was theirs if we got home with less than three problems. I'd warn them after each issue. When it was time to give up and go home, I'd eat the donut (someone has to make the sacrifice). This meant that the reward was irretrievably gone - and it hurt worse than a smack.

Nowadays, the kids behave because they want to.

*Nods* Bribes work amazingly well because it's logical.

We get something for our effort. It makes sense.

And it get's us ready for working in a way. We behave and we get rewarded.

I know I've been bribed a crap-load and it works. As your kids grow older and their tastes vary you'll have to change the bribe to keep up with what they obsess over but it's worth it.

Wow. Bribes. I don't know why I didn't think of that. Lucas will do anything for fruit. I wonder if he'd understand the concept of "you can't have the apple now, but you can have it in a moment IF you hold mommy's hand without fighting." It's worth a try.

gbollard, thanks for sharing some of your secrets with me. I am relived to know I'm not the only parent who must shop solo, thinks I'm going crazy, and gets depressed. Sometimes I look around and only see happy parents with well-behaved children. Then I look at myself and my son and think "what the heck happened to us?" So nice to know I'm not an anomaly.

Does he like fruit salad? Could use that to get him to behave in a supermarket.

"If you behave and stay close to me, you can pick out the fruit for your fruit salad"

Could be a very considerably bribe if he likes fruit salad. Giving him the ability to choose would be very potent but you'd have to be careful and limit what fruits otherwise he could be overwhelmed.

I'll echo Gollard - all parents go through a version of this, and that includes parents of NT children. There just are years where certain outings don't work. Definitely, pick your battles.

Have cards printed up and close at hand for the "on lookers" it helps. Some of the worst times we've had taking jake out have to do with the reaction of others. One time when Jake was about four comes to mind when a old man yelled in his face because he was crying <they were cutting into the parking lot and something about that just sent him in to a full blow meltdown>. Bribs to help alot as does telling him what your going to do and doing just that. Today we are going to do A, B, C and not adding D after the fact. These kids are very smart and are gifts that just need more work then other childern. Hang in there stay on track and for the love of god get respeted care. YOU need time off now and then don't be ashamed to ask for help. Your not a bad mother if you just need a little time to yourself or to go on a date with your husband. It's good for your son to have a happy mother and father.

Hello there.

As I read through this thread, it reminded me of a thread I saw a while back:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt94897.html

It was about a 6 year old who had difficulty when going out in public, much like your son seems to have. I am not sure that all the advice given in that post will help your situation. There is a bit of a difference between being 3 and 6 in terms of what a child can handle, but it may offer you some insight. Anyways, if your read the thread, please read it through to completion. The marble idea that I suggested may work for your son, but it is hard to tell. I unfortunately do not have any memories before age 4, so it is hard to give advice on young children.

Best of luck in your endeavors.