5 year-old autistic rage

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Hi all.

My 5 year-old son is diagnosed with Autism. High-functioning, or whatever. I don't know how to say that without offending someone, since I'm not real up on the latest politically-correct terminology.

He has a temper not to be believed. We use the same discipline method (time-out corner) with him as our daughter (also on the spectrum), but he handles his frustration very poorly. He hits and punches the wall when he is in time-out, and often hits and punches himself in the head repeatedly. Very distressing to witness.

Since his communication capacity lags far behind his intellect (he's been reading well since shortly after his 4th birthday, does 1st grade math/spelling, but cannot hold a typical conversation for his age), I have always assumed his tantrums and meltdowns were primarily due to that disparity. However, it has become apparent that his anger and temper are something apart. My daughter has a similar ASD diagnosis (without communication issues), and she has none of this rage and does not harm herself.

I am beginning to worry for my son's safety. He hits his head against walls, the floor. On the one hand, I don't want him to injure himself, but on the other hand, if I give him the attention of standing there and making sure he doesn't hurt himself, does this just encourage the behavior? Somehow, I don't think he is seeking attention, though. Honestly, I think it is just a total meltdown and a complete incapability of being able to handle his emotions and feelings.

I've tried books (for him and for me), talking to him, encouraging big sister's assistance in modeling behavior, social stories, rewarding good behavior with behavior charts, but none of this is really effective once the anger sets in - and it can be instant. He absolutely cannot handle any kind of glitch in his plans; if he loses a game of Go Fish, if he writes something incorrectly on his Magna Doodle, if he can't get his shirt on easily - he totally loses it. And if he is sent to time-out, he screams all the way to the corner, punches the wall, then beats himself in the head. We do not encourage this. I say that because I used to look at kids acting like my son does and immediately judge the parents as lazy and incompetent. Truth be told, sometimes I still do - even with two autistic children! It is easy for people to judge, and that is why I hesitate to write this. I guess I am hoping that other parents in similar situations will understand and maybe have some advice or knowledge that I lack.

Thanks in advance...

As someone who hit his head when I was your sons age I can tell you what set me off was the overwhelming lack of control I felt in a situation.

He's well aware of the fact that he's different and in lieu of those things he can't change, he tries to compensate in others. Go Fish? He wins the game and he feels a sense of accomplishment and normality. Lose the game and it's just one more facet of life he feels is beyond his reach, hence the out burst. The same thing would have happened with me.

Hopefully as he gets older he'll grow out of it.

If he gets upset over losing a game of Go-Fish, I just wouldn't play Go-Fish with him until he can handle losing.

Or maybe you could play with him a few times and intentionally lose so you can show him it's nothing to get upset about. You can so "Oh no, I lost! But that's ok," and basically just try to teach him that it's ok to lose.

Also, when you send him to a time out, is it under the pretense that he is being bad? If so, that probably just upsets him more because it sounds to me like what is upsetting him is that he isn't perfect and does the wrong thing sometimes.

I wouldn't send him to the corner, I'd just have him sit on the couch and tell him he can go back to doing what he was doing when he feels ready. I'd also watch him carefully when he's doing something that has the potential to send him into a tantrum and remind him it might not go the way he wants. For example, if he wants to play Go Fish I'll tell him "We can play Go-Fish but you might not win, and if you don't, I don't want you to have a temper tantrum ok?"

With the magnadoodle, if he spells a word wrong I'd probably says "Good try, but that's a hard one, let's try again!" And kind of coach him. And then I'd tell him good job if he can make it through the second try without going into a rage.

Maybe give him an escape from the overload?

An "escape tunnel" or "secret escape room" oposit of
a "timeout room"

Scoots, that actually makes me sad.

Chronos, we've tried all of that - except sending him to sit on the couch instead of going to the corner when he flips out for losing a game. Maybe this different approach will yield more positive results. I'm going to try it.

LittleTigger, I like your idea. A lot.

Have you read Tracker's book? It's free for download, and he does a nice job of breaking down meltdowns: http://www.ASDstuff.com

I don't think it's rage so much as a meltdown, and putting it into a different category will encourage you to handle it differently.

I found with my son that eliminating the language of discipline seemed to help him. We started talking about, "we'll do this until you are in control of yourself again," etc., instead of saying "time out." Time out is for rule breaking; it's a consequence. A child isn't doing something "wrong" by getting angry or having a meltdown; emotions happen, and should be OK; what the child needs are tools. Time out is actually a great tool when upset, but the child isn't seeing it that way because it's associated with a consequence for inappropriate behavior. Create a space that you will call the escape or quiet place, and encourage him to make the choice to go there BEFORE he loses it.

Your son is a little young to take full control of his meltdowns, but you can start to tune him into the situations that upset him, and start to help him self-mitigate. Walk with him to the quiet place, and stay with him, saying, "we're going to sit here nice and quiet until you've had a chance to gain control of yourself again." At age 5 I found it helpful to stay with my son during meltdowns, and actually physically restrain him with my arms (we sat with him facing outward on my lap, and I held his arms straight jacket style; he hated it, but fighting my restraint released his anger a lot faster, and got him to the calmer space faster, but that isn't going to be true for kids on the spectrum so play it by ear). I would talk calmly similar to what I suggested above, and eventually I could feel the anger release from him. Then we would go backwards into the situation and figure out what had caused the build up, and what had finally tripped the meltdown.

Over time, I started to suggest that he tell me when he was experiencing certain steps we had identified as leading into the meltdowns, and start a calming ritual earlier. One key there is that you promise to drop whatever you are doing and help him with the calming steps: that is the contract. You tell me, and I'll stop everything to help you. You learn to see the progression in your child, and they learn to recognize the steps themselves. We've left full baskets of groceries to step outside a store and sit in a quiet place. It needs to be done for a while; eventually they can identify things enough in advance to complete transactions and then take respite, but not at first. At first you're just sighing with relief that he can see it coming at all, even if it's only 2 seconds to blast off and the timing is most inconvenient. And you want to reward that step, that he's learned to see it and say something. It is so key to self-regulating in the future.

Am I making sense? I feel like I'm rambling quite a bit, but hopefully something in there gives you some ideas.

I hope you took no offense to what I wrote. If so then I apologize, your post was a near spot on description of me when I was five. I'm just trying to provide some insight.

I should point out that I did stop hitting my head by the time I got to third grade. I'm now in my 30's and a fairly well adjusted and independent adult.

I can attest that the type of approach DW suggests works. After almost a year of working on it, our 4 yo has learned to recognize when he is starting to get overwhelmed and he often chooses on his own to go to his "space place" at school, his room at home or to a quiet place where there are no other kids when he is at a friends house. You and he can both learn the triggers, avoid them when possible but when avoidance isn't possible deal with them before the meltdown is in full swing.

This is hard to deal with. For a brief time my daughter would self calm with a squeezing machine we made out of a sleeping bag, blow-up mattresses, and an air compressor. For a while we used a straight jacket made out of soft shirts. We had to sit on her a lot. Once she graduated school and we stopped trying to get her jobs, and she got her own house where I stopped screaming "No!" at her destruction, she stopped having tantrums or meltdowns or rages.
I wonder if I would do a better job now and try to teach her how to see when she was becoming overwhelmed. I don't know. She is non-verbal and did not understand what we said until she had auditory therapy at age 14. The problem was, she didn't punch the walls, she pinched and bit us. We always felt depressed after one of her meltdowns. I'm feeling depressed right now. I still have scars, physical and mental.
The other people gave such good advice and I'm just blubbering here. But I wanted to mention that if your child finds pressure reassuring, there are several companies that sell weighted vests and blankets.

I posted a number of resources on meltdowns here (including the book mentioned by DW) http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp3255700.html#3255700

My son would also get violent, has difficulty with winning/losing, and I think five was the height of meltdowns in terms of frequency (they decreased in frequency from there, but increased in intensity if you can believe it - however, we had no idea how to help him until recently, so you may have a better time.) A safe place to calm down is important.

Chronos is also right - we just gave up on games with winners/losers entirely. He plays them sometimes at school or in therapy, and with us out of the picture I think he does better and is able to take things less personally.

correct me if i am wrong, but what it sounds like is happening is that he is getting upset and expressing himself in the only way he is able given his communication issues, and then is punished for expressing himself with a time out. i think that would make a lot of us get even more upset, regardless of how old we are.

i completely agree with the others about teaching him to recognize when his meltdowns are coming, but i'd also highly suggest trying to help him with the expression of his emotions. my youngest has had similar issues with being unable to express himself when frustrated, usually becoming non-verbal when upset. his verbal ability also lags well behind his intellect, and he has a profound intelligibility impairment to boot. frustrations are always going to happen, but ive found that having the ability to express himself has reduced the intensity of my sons frustrations. mostly its been talking about emotions, how his body feels when hes getting upset, teaching him the words to express himself even if just scripted phrases, and a lot of prompting when he is visibly getting upset. it requires that an adult recognize when the emotions are building, and heading him off before he reaches the point of no return, which can be difficult, but its worked great for my son.

i think it can sometimes be important with issues like this to recognize the differences between classic autism and AS, specifically if the child has a language impairment. most AS children, by definition, have typical or above average language skills, whereas those with classic autism often have language delays. this creates an inability to communicate which can really intensify the emotions leading up to a meltdown (you see this also in some with AS who lose verbal ability when in emotionally intense situations), or even escalate a situation into a meltdown. teaching communication skills, in whatever way the child is able to communicate, can be vital to the child learning self regulation and reducing those meltdowns.

ive seen this intensifying effect in two of my children, my youngest with an asd and a language delay, and my oldest who is not asd but who had an even more severe language impairment which made communication virtually impossible with those outside our family until he was around 6/7. unfortunately for my oldest, we had no idea at the time how to help him beyond basic speech therapy, so he went through a lot of years of meltdowns and frustration from not being able to communicate and express himself.

I remember once when my violent child had a computer communicater and she did not have a meltdown but punched "I am mad!" repeatedly.

Scoots, goodness no, I did not take offense. It made me sad to think what my son is going through and how I totally missed the mark in helping him work through it.

I want to thank everyone for your input.

Today I had the opportunity to try out the non-punishment approach. I almost slipped. When my son totally went off because his sister wanted a barn facing one direction and he wanted it another, he hit the floor knees-first and turned to a sobbing heap. My knee-jerk reaction was to say, "Time-out!" and he dragged himself halfway to the wall before I stopped him and said, "No, come here." He dragged himself over to me. I said, "You're not in trouble, but you are handling being upset in way that isn't helping anyone. You sit here on the couch until you can talk without your yelling words."

His reaction was incredible. He lifted his little head and looked at me, with the faintest smile and something in his eyes that I could only read as 'thank you'. He wasn't ready to talk yet, but his relief was palpable. He sat for about a minute or two, took a deep breath and said, "I'm ready to talk in my nice words, mommy."

Wow.

Calmly, he explained that he had wanted to try something with the barn, and his sister refused him. We talked about ways to problem-solve when someone you are playing with wants to do A and you'd prefer to do B. It worked. And I got one of the most heartfelt hugs ever, without even asking. What happened here today was incredible.

He is suffering from stress in those moments. He's overwhelmed. And I feel like an idiot for not recognizing it as such.

I am sooooo glad I posted this, and so thankful for your responses!

Yay for StatMama!