Son with AS has rages
He is 13 and has a twin brother with ADD. How do you make them
Understand anything from why nobody likes him ( it's always their
Fault) you say black he says blue. He has wrecked my car, threw
His brother over a couch, cusses very loud, runs away often, hits
Me and pretty much destroys everything in his path. He does take
Medicine but sometimes it just doesn't help. What can I do?
Hi, Threerobbin! Welcome to the forum.
Many of us have struggled with the same sorts of things with our kids. It happens for all kinds of reasons, though - so you'll need to do some research and a bit of detective work to help figure it out. As you get more specific ideas of what might be going on, keep posting back - I've found crowdsourcing specific problems here to be incredibly valuable. A phrase many of us find helpful "behavior is communication."
There are lots of posts stickied at the top of this board - one of them is a "Parenting Index" where there are a lot of posts listed by topic: there's a topic on violent behavior there and the posts may be useful to you.
Many of us recommend the e-book available at ASDStuff.com, written by one of our adult members: it's a great look at what's going on inside.
Good luck, and take care! I know it's incredibly frustrating, scary, and difficult - but many of us are doing much better than we were when we first posted.
SanityTheorist
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Clearly there was failure to bond. otherwise he'd feel safer. Maybe spend more time doing his special interest with him?
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I gradually was able to teach my son to go away to another room when he started screaming and shouting and throwing things - just until he finished melting. He wasn't in control, it wasn't his fault, I knew that. It was only when he was calm that I could explain to him. Try to find a time when your son is calm to explain that, let him know you are not upset or angry with him when HE is being angry. That you just want him and others to be safe, and that he needs to remove himself to another place until he is calm again.
It is impossible to explain "why does no-one like me". My son always wanted to know why he didn;t have any friends, and now at 19 wants to know why he can;t talk to girls. There is no answer. You just have to keep on reassuring him that he's different, but so are lots of other ppl for all sorts of reasons. Find what it is that makes him special and celebrate that, there will be something.
Keep talking to him.
magicmum
I'm not sure how far along you are in your research process of understanding how to help your son. The first thing is to figure out triggers, if there are any, and then to understand the signs of stress build up that lead into those triggers. Then you teach your son to see those patterns and teach him protocols for mitigating his stress before it spirals out of control. That is the very short summary, anyway. Obviously it is all more complicated than a few sentences can describe.
Have your read the book written by one of our members, free for download at ASDStuff.com ?
Most of us have had a lot of success reducing rages by controlling our children's environment. Make the environment suitable to their needs, sensory - anxiety - stress - communication, and then they can learn the skills they need to learn to self-manage. The world tends to move too loud and too fast and in far too confusing ways for our kids, and they never have the mental space they need to learn and figure it all out. So, they react. In the ways a much younger child might ... just that it is far more difficult to deal with in a teen.
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Mom to an amazing young adult AS son, plus an also amazing non-AS daughter. Most likely part of the "Broader Autism Phenotype" (some traits).
Understand anything from why nobody likes him ( it's always their
Fault) you say black he says blue. He has wrecked my car, threw
His brother over a couch, cusses very loud, runs away often, hits
Me and pretty much destroys everything in his path. He does take
Medicine but sometimes it just doesn't help. What can I do?
How to address this depends highly on the context in which it occurs. Concerning placing the blame on others, this isn't uncommon in people who can't handle their own anger towards themselves.
There are two keys to being able to accept responsibility for one's actions in life.
1. The ability to forgive one's self.
2. The realization that accepting responsibility gives one more control over their lives because it allows one to say "I messed up, what actions can I take to avoid this in the future?"
Seem the most important thing is to understand the "rages" that affect people;
Also, realize that, like you said, to him it IS THE other person's fault!!
Consider this: To his mind, HES RIGHT.
You need to, instead of standing there saying "but it isn't the other's fault"
Stand there and ask "Okay, I'm willing to listen. Why is it (my) fault that you hit me?"
* Chances are his explination will be useless and disjointed, but if so, then just tell him to go to his room and think of what made him so mad he hit you - is hitting a parent or sibling right? NO> not in any circumstance BUT....
I once hit my mother. I have often snapped at her. These things I do honestly regret to this day; she often called me immature or etc for those moments, accused me of having a childish trantrum etc etc. I would always blame her - she was (for example)pushing me to get up off the couch where i had fallen asleep, and to go to bed. WHY?!?!?!?! I was perfectly safe, comfortable, and asleep right there. So I resisted. I grumped. I fought. WHY? Because there was no reason for me to move gdamnit.
Now I see that there was a reason to move - a couch is not a bed. it is impeding other peoples' life actions, it is not hygenic, it is not socially correct, etc. I see (many years later) that my mother was correct that I had to move. I also see that I was not at fault because I didnt understand her logic/reasoning because it wasn't inherent in my mind & was not explained to me. In fact I doubt she would have been able to put into words why I needed to move.
I also see - and this is where I have advice - that she could have (had she been able to talk to me about it today) handled the situation differently. AS SOON as she noticed that somethign she was asking me to do/or stop doing/or improve (or whatever) was upsetting me / was getting me defensive or grumpy, she should have STOPPED. She should have asked me "Do you know WHY I am asking you to do this thing?" and BOTH of us sit down and discuss our reasons / explore / negotiate... rather than her grabbing my arm and forcing me to stand up and walk up a flight of stairs and brush my teeth and change and F* leave me on the couch.... See what I mean?
It's not her fault because it IS wrong to sleep all night on the couch.
It's not my fault because it IS easier to just sleep there tonight.
But we were both blaming the other for being a JERK.
IT is always everyone else's fault. I hope you understand?
