Violent and destructive behavior during meltdown

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pennywisezzz
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03 May 2011, 6:13 am

My (almost) 9 yr old daughter found a kitten outside the other day and she wanted to keep it. I was going to let her but the kitten was so small I decided it shouldn't be away from it's mother so I had her let it go back under the neighbors house to be with it's family again. About 2 seconds after she watched it run back under the house she went into meltdown mode and started crying and screaming. I tried to talk to her but she wouldn't listen so I told her I was going back inside the house and she said she was going to stay outside. About 10 minutes later she came inside and her grief had switched to rage. She stood in the living room screaming at me and I told her I wasn't going to talk to her while she was screaming and for her to go calm down somewhere. She refused and started switching the TV off and standing in front of it telling me she wasn't letting me watch TV. She screamed about loving the kitten more than me and that I was a horrible person for making her let it go, etc any attempt on my part to talk resulted in her screaming over me because she didn't want to hear anything. She ended up spitting on the floor and when I told her not to she just screamed that nothing mattered anymore. I let her go for a few minutes figuring she'd swing back into grief mode and would be easier to calm down but she just got angrier and angrier. She got on the couch and hit me and threatened to stab me in the face with a screwdriver. I sent her to her room for a time out so she could calm down but she just beat her desk and messed some things up in there. Then she came out and went to my room saying she was going to cut up my work uniforms and I told her she better not - I didn't follow her because I didn't believe she was going to do it. She got quiet in my room and came out about 15 minutes later and she'd calmed down. She had switched back into grief mode and I explained to her that the kitten was just too small to be away from it's mother and that if she truly loved the kitten she would want the best for it, even if that meant that she had to let it go. She was upset, but no longer angry. I got up to go get some dirty clothes from my master bathroom to wash and found that she had tore up toilet paper in tiny pieces and threw it all over my bedroom floor. :x I made her come back in and sweep it all up. Then I noticed the dirty clothes looked like they had been moved about in the hamper so I asked her what had she done (after confirming my uniforms were not cut up). She said she had done nothing but I knew she was lying. I told her she better tell me or the punishment would be worse for lying. Turned out she had got all my panties and had hid them from me! 8O I asked her why would she do that and she said "Because I was mad and I knew you would be bothered if you couldn't find any panties to wear so I hid them from you." OMG and WTF is all I could think at that moment. I told her after she was finished cleaning up the floor she was going to have a bath and go to bed early for her behavior.

8O I've given her a week without TV and she's grounded to the house & backyard and has to go to bed 30 mins early each night. I don't think that's a horrible punishment, but I think it's enough to make her think about what she did. Her grandma thinks a week is too long. What do you think?

She has apologized for her behavior after we had a talk. I explained that it's okay to get angry and upset, but that her behavior was not acceptable. She said she knew it was wrong, but she couldn't stop herself at the time. I told her I understood that, but that she was going to have a week long punishment so that maybe next time she got angry she would stop and think about how she was going to act and make a better decision next time. She said she didn't know what to do when she got that angry so I suggested next time that she could let it out by hitting her bed, screaming into her pillow, etc


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Single mom to 8 yr old Aspie / ADHD girl.


draelynn
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03 May 2011, 9:46 am

Absolutely not.

I think maybe the time to deal with the meltdown was before it got to that point. As soon as you said 'kitten', I could see where this story was heading. I try and diffuse any highly emotional situation before it can escalate. Our 8 year old daughter recently had a similar run in with a baby bunnie brought home by our cat. We spent alot of time sitting and talking plainly about it. We sit down and reassure her that her feelings of loss and disappointment are normal and that everyone feels that way sometimes. When I know she's emotional (not angry) I rarely leave her totally alone because I know she will perseverate on it until it grows into monsterous proportions. Even when she says leave me alone, I'll just sit with her and rub her back. We've gotten to the point where now, she'll let me hug her and rock her when she's upset which seems to calm her much more quickly than it ever did as a toddler.

After the blow up happens... maybe some preventative measures. A 'blow up' plan that you and she agree on during a calm moment. A place for her to go to when she's going to explode, a destructive activity - like ripping up phone books - or something similar to help drain the physical side of rage. And, during that calm moment, let her know that it is not ok to lash out, call names, or just be mean in general when you are angry. Our daughter is more prone to crying fits than tantrums although they do occassionally happen.
I beleive this is because we took a firm stance on this behavior since she was small. 'Absolutely not' was the term I used - I never said 'No'. Our daughter and any other kid that happens crossed our threshold know, in no uncertain terms, what is and isn't permitted in our home. I don't think it is ever too late to draw that line in the sand. It doesn't need to be a stern conversation but it does need to leave no questions. I think our daughter had the potential to blow up - she has a model for it in her bipolar father - but loads of emotional coaching since she was small (and still) is what I credit with her remarkably even temper now.

Basically, talk her through her emotions. Not just the bad ones but all of them. Help her recognise all of her emotions, and how to talk about them. Many times, AS kids have these strong overwhelming emotions and do not have the intuitive, internal understanding of what they are or how to handle them. Imagine sitting in the cockpit of a 747 - thousands of little buttons and levers and lights, none of it familiar. NT's are natural born pilots. They know what all those little dohickeys do. AS kids need the training course to make sense of them all.

My daughter, at 3 years old, was particularly interested in the emotions with big names - like frustrated. Now, at 8, we are working on apathy and ennui... :)

Good luck, mom!



ASDsmom
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03 May 2011, 7:22 pm

I think a 'blow up' plan will be helpful too. She said she didn't know what to do when she was angry and that's a very honest and obvious statement. It's also very helpful because you can now talk about what that plan can look like. A week to think about what she's done isn't going to amount to anything. If she doesn't have the skills to problem solve, what's a week thinking about all the things she did wrong, going to do? Lower her self-esteem. Also, a week is so far removed from the situation. I also hate the word "punishment". It sounds so negative and doesn't really teach anything. I use "consequence" .. and some of you may think it's no better. I like to remind my son that there are consequences for ALL behaviours - good and bad - and that consequences come with a choice. In this situation, the consequence for her behaviour(s) could have been:

1) cleaning up the toilet paper pieces
2) returning the panties
3) discuss a plan for the next time

Give her something to work with and learn from, rather than assume she's going to magically learn by thinking this to death. I agree with the response reply, she will only learn to understand all of those buttons if you label them yourself.. or else, next time, she is not going to know what they mean when she'll need them again.

A tip for you, (something I have to practice more myself): limit/avoid talk when she's angry. For example:

Quote:
any attempt on my part to talk resulted in her screaming over me because she didn't want to hear anything

It's not that she didn't WANT to, she simply COULDN'T. Think about an empty glass. The more water (words) you pour into the glass, the more anger escalates. If you keep pouring (talking), the glass will overflow. The end result is inevitable!! She's UNABLE to process/hold anymore information/logic when she's in that state of mind. When she's that angry, her glass is already overflowing.

Quote:
She ended up spitting on the floor and when I told her not to

This requires self-control and enough logic to know that spitting on the floor is not an appropriate thing to do. You inadvertantly escalated the situation. There's a few other examples in your story you should think about.

I'm not a saint. I have my own issues with my own son. I'm pointing it out so you can at least understand why she may have escalated as much as she did:

1) no plan was available for her
2) her glass was overflowing with information she couldn't process

I like the "tearing up the phone books" idea. I always have too many in my house that I NEVER use so it might be something my son could try.