I'm a little scared

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so you guys are probably tired of hearing things like this, but I'm just not sure what to do.
My 5 year old, Dorian, (AS) and my two year old, Gabriel, share a room, and we don't have a choice about it, because we live in a 900 square foot house with 2 tiny bedrooms.

Anyway, the other night we had put the boys to bed, and they were doing there usual "trying to keep eachother awake" stuff, which includes running around and jumping on eachothers beds. and suddenly we hear a blood curdling scream coming from their room, we ran in to see Dorian sitting on Gabriel's chest with his hands around his throat. as soon as the door was open he jumped up and ran away laughing. My husband calmed Gabriel down, and I went to talk to Dorian. He was still laughing. I asked him Why he had done that, and he giggled and said "I wanted to make Gabriel cry". I told him that that's what bad people do, and asked him if he wanted to be a bad person. I tried to make him understand that was a really bad thing to do, (I never told him that HE was bad though, just that IT was a bad thing to do) Anyway, he started crying, and said he was really sorry. He went back to bed, and we kept Gabriel up with us until he fell asleep. The next day, he punched his brother in the face, and again, giggling, told me that he wanted to make Gabriel cry. Anyway, I tried to explain to him that it's not okay to try to make people cry. again, he apologized. I don't know if he understands though. This terrifies me. It's one thing when he will lash out and hit his brother when he gets frustrated, still unacceptable behavior, but thats different. this was just plain wanting to hurt his brother, he wasn't upset for frustrated or anything. Is this typical AS behavior, and if so, what do I do about it?

No, this is not AS behavior. However, it is attention seeeking behavior and needs to be dealt with appropriately, especially before
your other son is seriously hurt.

You need to establish a punishment/reward system with your son... take away a priviledge (like watching television, playing video games or whatever it is that he enjoys doing) when he "misbehaves" and also, "reward" him for those other times when he
is behaving appropriately...like telling him how much it pleases you when he is behaving nicely or some other small gesture.

Also, try to notice the postive behavior he displays more often than the negative. Many times a kid "acts out" in malicious
ways because too many parents oftentimes only recognize the "bad" behavior and are less encouraging and supportive of the
"good" behavior.

It sounds like what my brother did to me when we were young.

In case you are wondering, my brother is completely nuerotypical (poor guy), so I dont think this is anything AS related.

I am going to share a little secret with you. You see, all human beings have this thing called human nature. It is what makes us hurt other people for our own entertainment, to bully others and make others cry because we enjoy it. It is what makes us lazy, selfish, and violent. You dont need to teach your son this, nor is it something he picks up from his surroundings. Human nature is something hard wired into every human being from birth.

Your son is not naturally a sweet and kind person, because those people do not exist. Or if they do, I have yet to meet one. Kind people are not born, they are made by the individual person making the choice to suppress their darker instincts, and act in a way which goes counter to their nature. Your son simply hasn't yet made this choice, and learned to control his inner demons.

If I were you, I would show him the value of making the choice to control his impulses by showing him how the other person feels when he does this. One of the only times I would recommend physical pain as a training tool when dealing with young children is in situations like this. Show them what it feels like when they intentionally hurt others, and they will probably learn to stop doing it.

My son (who has AS) has done similar, but not so extreme things to his younger sister. He occasionally trips her, pokes her, pushes her, etc. If she gets hurt, he does feel really bad and will cry. We do punish him for each instance and discuss why it's wrong, but in about an hour or so, he sometimes does it again. He has a very disturbing smile on his face when he does it. He knows it's wrong, but it almost seems as though sometimes he can't help it. I do believe this is a struggle with impulse control, which can often be related to AS. It's not the typical sibling rivalry thing. He loves his sister dearly. He has never once shown any signs of jealousy and wants to be around her all of the time. He is also not a violent child by any stretch. He never hits, kicks, bites, etc., not even as a baby or toddler. He is normally a very sweet child.

Maybe your son doesn't necessarily want to hurt his brother, but rather can't find an appropriate outlet for aggression. He sounds like a very physical boy, which I have very limited experience with since my boy has, at times, been mistaken for a rock. Maybe more physical activity during the day, either structured or unstructured, and perhaps a near-ban on sweets might help. I would, of course, remain close at all times and watch him like a hawk. Remain consistent with consequences (negative and positive). Sorry if that's not much help, but it's all I can think of.

I have twin sons. We have had to lay really strong ground rules, with really swift and serious punishments regarding violence towards each other...if we hadn't have they would probably have seriously injured each other by now. You need to explain to your son that it is never OK to lay hands on his brother in anything other than a gentle way, and tell him what the punishment will be for doing so in future (and make it a big one!). Then watch him like a hawk. If he experiments with making his brother cry again, zero tolerance, huge punishment every time, no exceptions. He will learn not to do it.

We are not at all "strict", and most rules in our house are flexible, BUT when it comes to any sort of violence, we punish with no exceptions. And by "punish" I do not mean spankings (you can't teach non violence by using violence), I mean taking away what is dear to them (toys, video games, desserts, whatever will motivate your child).

This could be a sibling thing. And I have had no qualms about telling my kids the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and what kind of damage they can inflict doing the sort of thing your son did. They can kill their brother or sister; the child can die. Yes, it is frightening for a child to hear that, but it works. They will understand why it wasn't funny at all to you. And if they really want to be rid of the sibling, well, you've now got an important conversation going.
I am an incredibly easy mom, except when it comes to safety. Then I hold nothing back, and my kids know that how serious I am because its the only time they see me like that.

When my son is laughing doing something dangerous, I know he isn't in his right mind. First I have to get him out of it. Then we can talk. Its like a meltdown that dissolved to laughter instead of tears, but the effect is the same: he isn't in control, and he is trying to cover it. There are patterns that lead up to such behavior in my son, and we've worked on indentifying the patterns and mitigating the situation, just as we do for standard meltdowns.

The second time, when he punched his brother, he was doing a different thing than what he was doing the first time. He might not have generalized those instructions well enough to apply them to the second offense!

Mom: "Didn't I tell you it wasn't right to steal cookies yesterday?"
Aspie kid: "But I wasn't stealing a cookie! I was stealing a candy bar!"

See what I mean?

It can be hard for an AS child to generalize rules. At five, controlling impulses is still hard. Combine that, and you get a child whose human nature allows him to bully his brother...

You might have to tell him that it is not okay to make your brother cry in ANY way. Not pinching or punching or hair-pulling or... whatever. (Well, actually, if you give him the list he will probably think of something that's not on the list...) It may take a while for him to make the leap. Little kids fight, and Aspie kids are no exception. Heck, I bit my sister when I was a kid, though she gave as good as she got, and she's still alive.

To obey a rule, a kid has to understand the rule fully, and be able to control himself well enough to strongly influence whether or not his actions follow the rule. Either one could be the culprit here. He seems to want to obey, in any case, because he was sad when he found out that you were displeased with him for hurting his brother. You are his partner in any case. Have you tried maybe offering some reward for playing nicely instead of hurting? I think maybe your boy might be the type to respond nicely to simply being told when he is doing well, since he seemed to respond so strongly to being reprimanded. If he wants to please you, then telling him when he is pleasing you may be just the trick you need to teach him how to inhibit that bullying behavior... When your parents tell you they're proud of you, that is a very strong motivator.

Similar things happen in our household.

My DS likes to see DD cry and he finds it very amusing. He has this thing about poking her in the eyes at the moment.

I have explained to him that "we do not touch our eyes, and by poking someone in the eye can make them very hurt and maybe even go blind... which means not being able to see anything ever again.. Now wouldnt that be horrible not to be able to see ever again"?

But despite this he still wants to do it... He has been told of the dangers but he doesnt seem to care...It is very amusing to him!! However the behaviour cant be accepted.! ! Each time he does it now, I remove a match box car from his toy collection and he does not get it back... It seem's to work with him.

I do recall the child psychologist ask me during the assessement interview whether DS would hurt anyone then laugh... so possibly it is a common thing for ASD?

It makes sense that it would be attention seeking behavior, and Callista, I think you were right about the inability to generalize, because the second time I explained to him that it's not okay to try to make people cry ever, rather than focusing on the specific behavior, and he hasn't intentionally tried to make his brother cry since (though he still hits,or kicks, or even bites out of anger and/or frustration, but it's a little less disturbing that he hasn't laughed about it, so far). It has only been a couple of days, but I want to be optimistic.

I have also been trying to make a point to notice his good behavior since I read the earlier post from zsazsa, so that's probably helped too.

Thank you all of you who have posted. They help, and lord knows, I need all the help I can get!

I think that's just a sibling rivalry thing, I used to torment my little sister a lot too. (And it's also sort of maybe like a passive-aggressive thing.. although I don't know if that's the right term. But I recognize the laughing thing, I used to laugh too and sort of pretend it wasn't a bad thing to do and pretend my sister was wrong to get so upset. I don't know what that means, but it feels the same as being passive-aggressive.) So far, what has happened doesn't sound too serious, so just keep an eye on it but don't be too scared. Lots of kids do stuff like that, ,maybe to push boundaries, but if it's not actually done in anger or frustration, I think they get bored with it because it's sort of pointless.

Not usually into corporal punishment, but you have to slap that kid upside his head and see if he still thinks it's funny.