Hi, my name is JamesD_987!

JamesD_987

My 4 years old autistic son has been expressing frustrating behaviour with lots of screaming and falling on the floor at home, stores, road etc. He does this so often and myself and wife always fill overwhelmed. At this moment my wife keeps crying that she feels her life is taking away with his behaviour. We have no SEND professional to help and hiring private has been so expensive. Please we need some advice on this. It is too challenging especially as he gets older and stronger. He also has no danger awareness. So many challenges! We would appreciate any kind of help that will make us have some life, especially my wife who complained the most. Thank you

Jodie_Scope

Hi @JamesD_987

Welcome to the community, I’m really glad you have reached out for support.

It can be tough having a child with any condition and life can sometimes feel all too consuming by the challenges it brings, however please be assured that you and your wife aren’t alone.

The behaviour you have described from your son is not uncommon in children with autism, it can sometimes be caused through struggles with sensory processing or pure frustration due to not knowing how to express themselves.

@MissMel has given some great advice that is well worth looking in to.

Here are some links that you and your wife may also find helpful.

Proven Tips: How to Stop an Autistic Meltdown Effectively (ourworldandautism.com)

Parent to Parent Emotional Support Helpline (autism.org.uk)

Family relationships - a guide for parents and carers (autism.org.uk)

Information and support - Mind

Take care of each other and don’t forget how important it is to look after your own wellbeing too.

I hope you find these things helpful.

Best wishes

Jodie 💗

Doris_Scope

Hi @JamesD_987

A warm welcome to the community.

Struggling with this kind of difficult behaviour is so common but can be incredibly difficult. This is because as not only is your child very young, his condition may make it harder for him to understand what he is feeling at any given time.

The most best thing to do is to try and identify what these outbursts mean. With a child, it is easier to do by identifying his physical actions and reactions and linking them to his possible emotions. Examples would be if he is starting to jump on the spot does he mean he is excited or getting anxious. Another example would be if he started to grind his teeth is that a sensory seeking need or if he getting angry. Every child is different in how they show their emotions.

Once you know what his actions mean, including his actions when he is calm and in a good place, then you can start to look at his actions leading up to the outbursts and try to put things in place before they escalate. This means as soon as you notice that he is not calm anymore. Don't worry or expect to know straight away, it can sometimes take some working out.

https://www.theottoolbox.com/zones-of-regulation-activities/ is a great site that talks about emotional regulation and how to go about it.

If you were thinking of trying to gain a better insight into your son's emotional actions and needs, you could start off observing him and noting when he is calm, worked up, upset, angry, and note down all of the physical actions he displays. Put the emotion that you think it links to next to it and so on. These will probably change the more you do it until you settle on a final answer. It may also change with age. Also ask anyone else involved with him to do this so you have a rounded view.

As I said, once you have a clearer view of what he does when he is calm and what he does when he is in other emotional states, you will be able to see the escalation at the beginning as you will see when he comes out of the regulated emotion. You can then start to put things into place that you know calm him or settle him at an earlier stage.

https://zonesofregulation.com/ is the official site for this, but talks mainly about the curriculum for it. It might give you some thoughts though.

You could also complete a basic trigger sheet. These are often called ABC charts (Antecedent, behaviour and consequence). the first column would have the day, time, what your son was doing prior to the behaviour. The 2nd column would have the actual behaviour that happened. The final column would have what happened afterwards. How long did it take for him to calm, what was he like afterwards). Doing this for a period of time sometimes gives you an insight to any triggers or patterns.

If you want any further information on this I am happy to answer any questions.

I hope that this helps in some way and don't hesitate to ask anything else.

@Doris_Scope