Our son Nathan is four, turning five next month and has ASD. We have placed him in a mainstream school, grade RR and it has been a hectic week for him, us, his teachers at school. He is having meltdown after meltdown and is lashing out at the other kids by punching them, scratching them, or biting them severely. The parents are not happy and neither are the teachers. Please give us advice on how to deal with these abusive and often violent meltdowns as he refuses to go to timeout and threatens to punch the teachers. They don't know what to do or where to start to assist him.
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5 comments:
my husband has a grandson,age 16,who has aspbergers and he needs help with getting his attention and also helping with his attention span.my husband thinks,if he is on him like stink on poo,this kids wont have the aspberger as bad as everyone thinks and he will be a full productive adult in real society and wont have a welfare mentalitty and go on and be a full productive adult who doesnt get yelled at,screamed at or told what to do 24 hours a day.I do him he has to guide him,tell him in steps,mu hubby told me i am wrong,he says you have to get in their face or they will be a drain on society and live in a insatution for the rest of their lives.I need help on what steps to take to help his grandson and get him to understand better and also help my hubby by not contributing to the grandsons melt down.
You've just described my son's Kindergarten year! My son is now 6 years old and just recently diagnosed. We had no idea what was going on last year - we spent most of our time just trying to get him to "fit in". Needless to say, that never happened. My son is now in a Charter School (I'm not sure where you're located - but this is a public school that's quite different than a typical one). It obviously helps to know what's going on with your child but, this school has changed a lot for my son. They have more structure inside the classroom and throughout the school than other schools have. We've had less meltdowns (to be fair - he has severe ADHD in addition to Aspergers and we do medicate for that) than last year. I'm not suggesting you medicate your child by any means. For us, we had to look at the whole picture and the combination of these has made a world of difference in how many meltdowns he has in school.
We have same problem. The most important thing is to avoid letting it get to that point, easier said than done, I know. If you can work closely with the teachers to figure out what starts the cycle and set systems in place to redirect at the earliest possible stage -- proactive, take a break, get a drink, walk, ask him a question (completely unrelated) or give him a small task or job to redirect before the slippery slope. Once the child is in full meltdown, there is no reasoning or talking them out of it and it can be dangerous, for self and others -- like a cornered animal. Focus on prevention and talking to your child about it when he is calm.
OH-MY-GOSH, we have had the worst two/three weeks dealing with meltdowns at home but about school. Seriously we are at a loss for what do to, so I would LOVE to hear what other people have to say! Middle School is not kind in any circumstance, but with Asperger's it is just so much more that unkind! We are at our whit's end! Praying for SOMETHING to help make things better and trying to work with school and Psych.
I have 5 children, 3 of whom have aspergers. My two boys would have such violent meltdowns that our home literally looked like a warzone. From my experience this is what I found best. Firstly you need to be proactive when you can.... not reactive. Once they reach about 7 you can teach them cognitive behaviour therapies that will prevent and assist in decreasing the severity of meltdowns. You also need to find what is the trigger for them. Avoid situations or places where you know it will ignite a meltdown. EG: I do not take my 6 year old son to a shopping centre after a day of school. I know it will result in him having a massive meltdown. Tiredness - all you mums will know that this increases the severity of a meltdown. If they are over tired just keep them at home. Don't try and be a perfect mum. If they can only handle 4 days of school a week - then so be it. Make a "meltdown box". Cover a shoe box in something they are fixated with eg; star wars, pokemon etc. Place inside sensory objects that could distratct them like a kaleidoscope, mushy balls, soft thick pieces of material, lego - if they like to use it. Something that will assist them in calming down. Give the box to them if you feel one is about to come on. In school - have an area, a room, a small cubby house even - somewhere where they can escape to - place books or objects there that they can play with to calm them down. One of my boys had a small tent in his classroom. It had large soft satin pillows. It worked wonderfully. And last but not least - I know some parents will disagree with me but this is what worked for us. With our eldest son it took years of violent meltdowns to get to the point of placing him on medication. LITERALLY after 24 hours of being on Lovan and Risperdal he has not had ONE meltdown since. He concentrates better. His anxiety levels are about a 2 out of 10. He goes to school everyday. The week after taking the meds he drew me a picture with him smiling and "thankyou" written next it. He wanted to thank me for making him "happy" - finally. Now my other son whose meltdowns are usually anxiety based was put on the same med's. The risperdal was horrid and actually increased the severity of his meltdowns. So we placed him on just Lovan. He has not had a violent meltdown in about 3 weeks now. The only regret we have is that we were too busy about worrying what other people thought if we were to put our boys on meds and not taking the professionals advice. So my advice is do what works for you. Seek out as much professional help as you can. And remembere there are things that you can do to decrease the severity and amount of meltdowns a child has.
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