This Story Disturbs Me

JD_INCINERATOR

I attend a men's mental health peer support group called Andy's Man Club. I started attending in 2023 and I usually attend every week. Anyway, a fellow member and someone who I have a huge amount of admiration, love and respect for told us about a situation involving his visit to his sister in-law's home. His sister in-law has two boys, one is majorly autistic and the other has significant ADHD behavioural mannerisms. My friend brought his fiance and their six year-old son with him.

The autistic child and the ADHD child are both really lovely as my friend states, but the autistic boy intentionally assaulted my mate's son-and this happened three times during three separate occasions during their stay. The first was an intentional backwards headbutt, the second was a smack (I think I can't recall it specifically from what my mate said) which happened right in front of my mate, and the third was he threw him down a set of stairs-but thankfully his mum caught him to break the fall. All these instances happened unprovoked.

The reason this story disturbs me like it does besides the obvious, is that it reminds me of my behaviour towards my younger brother and his friend when we were in our single digits. I scratched my brother's face out of nowhere and I did attack his friend too when he came over. I've grown out of this and I think that retaliation from my brother curtailed my aggressiveness, especially when he was a teenager.

This all makes me wonder what is the best thing parents can do in this situation and how can this behaviour be stopped? My mate said they wanted his son to have a sleep over, but there's no chance of that happening due to the violent behaviour. I can only think there needs to be more advanced support and I wonder if the boy's parents are doing anything about it.

Mary_Scope

I hope you're okay @JD_INCINERATOR, it can be hard sometimes to hear things that remind us of our younger selves, especially if they're not nice memories or experiences.

Autistic children may behave like that for different reasons including sensory or communication challenges or frustrations. That's why it can be helpful for parents to see if there is a pattern for certain behaviours and work out if there is a trigger.

CAMHS and the children's school may be able to support the family. They can often do referrals to Early Help or other organisations to help support the family.