Support to manage my sons meltdowns and his demanding behaviour

Hi @Gemma82  

I am sorry to hear that you are struggling with your son's demanding behaviour.
As you say, it is very often black and white and difficult to manage.

Have you spoken to his school?  They may already have an Individual Behaviour Plan/Reactive Plan in place which details the triggers of an episode, how to distract as soon as they begin to appear and what to do if the melt down occurs.
Ideally you should already know if they have one as you should have been asked for your input, but this is not always the case.

It can also be helpful to monitor the episodes using an ABC chart (Antecedent - what happened immediately prior to the episode including time of day, what was said, what he was doing, Behaviour - what the behaviour was, Consequence - what happened following the episode, such as how long it took to calm down, what he did and so on).  

By doing this you can sometimes (and I mean sometimes as some episodes do seem to occur out of the blue) see a pattern such as hunger, tiredness, the type of language used and such like.

I have attached a chart for you to see in case you want to try it.  It also has some examples.  Also please contact the National Autistic Society as @Chloe_Scope said.  They have a lot of information on managing behaviour.

I hope some of this helps.

Beverley