Aa
Please help with his rages.
Well, my son is almost 7 and was diagnosed a few months ago with Autism, ADHD, ODD, severe anxiety, and a possible mood disorder. He is high functioning and hit all his milestones on time and that's why it took a long time to get diagnosed. We have tried Staterra, Vyvanse, Adderall, Concerta, Tenex, Zyprexa, Abilify, and Clonidine, and they all seemed to increase his anxiety and anger. The Zprexa and Abilify gave him weird scary dreams and wasn't helping his anger. I'm a little frustruated with they fact that nothing seems to help him and his anger and rages are getting worse. He is always "on" and never can calm down even when he is excited and happy. We are going to work with a behavorist and hopefully that will work. Is there anything else left to do or try? I am at the end of my rope and need more ideas on how to help.
Firstly you've got alot of diagnosis thrown in there for good measure. They may all be relevant and a true diagnosis. But, for example, if your child has autism and you have NOT got him into structures and routines so that he can understand and anticipate his daily timetable and what is going to happen next etc, then when you try to get him to do anything eg. turn off the TV, get ready to go to the supermarket, put your toys away etc he will defy you and get into an angry temper tantrum about it. That is not ODD that is autism.
It would help to have a daily schedule with pictures or symbols that will show what is happening on a daily basis. Eg pictures for 'getting up in the morning', 'going to school', 'watching TV', 'eating tea', 'doing homework', 'doing chores' etc etc. Start by keeping it very simple and if your son is understanding it and can start to put the schedule together himself etc then you can start making it more complex if it is needed. When you need to leave the house you need to give lots of warnings eg. 1 hour before, 30 mins, 10 mins, 5 mins, 1 min etc. It is useful to use a traffic light symbols ie. green is okay to continue doing what you are doing, amber is a warning to start getting ready to stop eg. put toys away etc, and red means stop and move onto the next activity.
When you do go out write a list (or get him to do it if he can) of what you are doing and in what order. He can then tick off each thing as it is completed to help him see he is getting to the end and will soon be going back home. If you change the route or order of things on the list then you can expect a tantrum because you have changed the order and have caused him upset and anxiety. He won't be able to predict why that happened or what will happen next. He will be thrown into chaos. Through using structure you can also start to teach 'change' or something 'unexpected' by introducing those symbols into the timetable and explaining exactly what they mean.
But I think that by getting the structures into place at home and even more importantly in school that will reduce some of his anxiety, avoidance and defiance behaviours, and may improve his mood.
As MJ said there is always a reason, it is just that we don't always see what it is because we don't experience things as they do.
Does your son have any sensory differences ie. covers ears at noise, appears deaf, clothes have to have tags removed, fussy eater etc?
Please post back
It would help to have a daily schedule with pictures or symbols that will show what is happening on a daily basis. Eg pictures for 'getting up in the morning', 'going to school', 'watching TV', 'eating tea', 'doing homework', 'doing chores' etc etc. Start by keeping it very simple and if your son is understanding it and can start to put the schedule together himself etc then you can start making it more complex if it is needed. When you need to leave the house you need to give lots of warnings eg. 1 hour before, 30 mins, 10 mins, 5 mins, 1 min etc. It is useful to use a traffic light symbols ie. green is okay to continue doing what you are doing, amber is a warning to start getting ready to stop eg. put toys away etc, and red means stop and move onto the next activity.
When you do go out write a list (or get him to do it if he can) of what you are doing and in what order. He can then tick off each thing as it is completed to help him see he is getting to the end and will soon be going back home. If you change the route or order of things on the list then you can expect a tantrum because you have changed the order and have caused him upset and anxiety. He won't be able to predict why that happened or what will happen next. He will be thrown into chaos. Through using structure you can also start to teach 'change' or something 'unexpected' by introducing those symbols into the timetable and explaining exactly what they mean.
But I think that by getting the structures into place at home and even more importantly in school that will reduce some of his anxiety, avoidance and defiance behaviours, and may improve his mood.
As MJ said there is always a reason, it is just that we don't always see what it is because we don't experience things as they do.
Does your son have any sensory differences ie. covers ears at noise, appears deaf, clothes have to have tags removed, fussy eater etc?
Please post back
Stay away from any drugs with Tardive dyskinesia as a possible side effect. It causes permanent irreversible damage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardive_dyskinesia
About the rages and attacks, I highly doubt they are random. See if there is any trigger. Is he frustrated with something? Are people being mean to him? Are his teachers taking him seriously as an intelligent human being or are they treating him of lower status? These all play into emotion. I for one do not tolerate being talked down to... I may be autistic, but I'm not stupid. When people start talking in that kind of patronizing tone of voice, I start tuning them out and secretly may desire to give them a good strong punch... No I don't thanks to practice and learning to restrain some of my emotions.
It helps to know how to verbalize my frustration and say hey this bothers me and this is why...and this is what I'd like to see changed... Learning better ways of coping with negative emotions goes a long way. Also with autism when I feel upset, I may feel strongly upset... If I'm crying I will cry a lot... Trying to stop myself from feeling at an instant only shifts the anger from the original trigger to why can't I stop?
I've found in the heat of an abusive meltdown the "Why can't I stop feeling this **** emotion RIGHT NOW AT THIS INSTANT!!!!!?????" MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!" is what is going through my head right at that moment I'm tempted to bite my arm... The physical pain is an attempt to distract my mind... It does work... It also works if the thoughts racing through my head is "WHY is this person yelling at me, WHY WONT they STOP RIGHT NOW?!!!!" It shuts them up and shows them I've clearly had enough of them arguing with me, grabbing my arms or insisting I do something way past my frustration and burning point....
I intentionally capitalized and used the punctuation to express the intensity of the emotions...
-----------------
How can we prevent this from happening? First off your son will need to learn to spot it early with himself. You know when you're approaching your breaking point, right? He will need to learn where that braking point is, and do what he can to resolve it before it gets to be an intense emotion.
This is easier said than done... it's taken me several years to be able to cut down and not have such violent meltdowns... It's still sort of like a reflex, but I do have a choice... I've learned one key thing is, I have very little control of the emotions I feel, but I CAN control what I do when I feel those emotions.
Okay I may feel intensely angry... I can choose not to punch someone, rather I can slam the door, go up to my room and do something else until I "cool off", then I can approach the problem in a better mindset.
If I'm crying, I find rather than forcing myself to stop crying by trying to rationalize, I'm better off focusing on finding something else to do and just let myself cry however long it takes. Focusing on something else seems to resolve the crying spells a lot quicker than trying to realize the trigger is minor, etc... It also helps a LOT to write down what is upsetting me. Blogging/journaling is an excellent way to diffuse those pent up emotions.
Now if the conflict is with another person, both of you will have to work together to set a behavior that is less aggressive. On his end he will need to come up with a cue that is nonviolent that says, "I've had enough. Let's take a break." On your end to the teachers, they will need to accept that cue just as strongly as the violent one to mean that once he says he needs a break, he means it.
In turn that should also help him feel more confident that he doesn't have to resort to anger to get his voice heard. Sounds sort of animal like? Doesn't it?
If you have a cat, this is a good analogy: The cat gets vexed; it lays back its ears and twitches its tail. Let's say there is a small child teasing the cat. He/she ignores this. The cat gets angrier. It growls a little. If still ignored, it may bat a paw with its claws retracted. If still ignored, it may swat again, this time with its claws out. If still ignored, the cat may give a bite, potentially a very hard bite to show it means business...
One may react to the cat thinking it was violent for giving a child such a hard bite, when after all in the cat's mind it did everything right. It gave fair warning. The child failed to see it. In the autistic person's mind they may or may not feel they have given warning, or may feel like nobody pays attention to their warning and therefore they can't give a good warning... (This may be on a conscious level or not conscious level)
The goal here with the cat story is to teach the child to look for the tail twitching and the ears laying back. If the child heeds those warnings they likely won't get bit. For the people outside the autistic person, they need to learn what warning signs to look out for to let the person have a break and cool off. For the person his/herself, that should restore confidence that they don't have to go that far to communicate their desires. It really helps to be verbal about ones feelings. See if you can help your son to express his emotions verbally before they build up to stress mode.
I hope this helps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardive_dyskinesia
About the rages and attacks, I highly doubt they are random. See if there is any trigger. Is he frustrated with something? Are people being mean to him? Are his teachers taking him seriously as an intelligent human being or are they treating him of lower status? These all play into emotion. I for one do not tolerate being talked down to... I may be autistic, but I'm not stupid. When people start talking in that kind of patronizing tone of voice, I start tuning them out and secretly may desire to give them a good strong punch... No I don't thanks to practice and learning to restrain some of my emotions.
It helps to know how to verbalize my frustration and say hey this bothers me and this is why...and this is what I'd like to see changed... Learning better ways of coping with negative emotions goes a long way. Also with autism when I feel upset, I may feel strongly upset... If I'm crying I will cry a lot... Trying to stop myself from feeling at an instant only shifts the anger from the original trigger to why can't I stop?
I've found in the heat of an abusive meltdown the "Why can't I stop feeling this **** emotion RIGHT NOW AT THIS INSTANT!!!!!?????" MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!" is what is going through my head right at that moment I'm tempted to bite my arm... The physical pain is an attempt to distract my mind... It does work... It also works if the thoughts racing through my head is "WHY is this person yelling at me, WHY WONT they STOP RIGHT NOW?!!!!" It shuts them up and shows them I've clearly had enough of them arguing with me, grabbing my arms or insisting I do something way past my frustration and burning point....
I intentionally capitalized and used the punctuation to express the intensity of the emotions...
-----------------
How can we prevent this from happening? First off your son will need to learn to spot it early with himself. You know when you're approaching your breaking point, right? He will need to learn where that braking point is, and do what he can to resolve it before it gets to be an intense emotion.
This is easier said than done... it's taken me several years to be able to cut down and not have such violent meltdowns... It's still sort of like a reflex, but I do have a choice... I've learned one key thing is, I have very little control of the emotions I feel, but I CAN control what I do when I feel those emotions.
Okay I may feel intensely angry... I can choose not to punch someone, rather I can slam the door, go up to my room and do something else until I "cool off", then I can approach the problem in a better mindset.
If I'm crying, I find rather than forcing myself to stop crying by trying to rationalize, I'm better off focusing on finding something else to do and just let myself cry however long it takes. Focusing on something else seems to resolve the crying spells a lot quicker than trying to realize the trigger is minor, etc... It also helps a LOT to write down what is upsetting me. Blogging/journaling is an excellent way to diffuse those pent up emotions.
Now if the conflict is with another person, both of you will have to work together to set a behavior that is less aggressive. On his end he will need to come up with a cue that is nonviolent that says, "I've had enough. Let's take a break." On your end to the teachers, they will need to accept that cue just as strongly as the violent one to mean that once he says he needs a break, he means it.
In turn that should also help him feel more confident that he doesn't have to resort to anger to get his voice heard. Sounds sort of animal like? Doesn't it?
If you have a cat, this is a good analogy: The cat gets vexed; it lays back its ears and twitches its tail. Let's say there is a small child teasing the cat. He/she ignores this. The cat gets angrier. It growls a little. If still ignored, it may bat a paw with its claws retracted. If still ignored, it may swat again, this time with its claws out. If still ignored, the cat may give a bite, potentially a very hard bite to show it means business...
One may react to the cat thinking it was violent for giving a child such a hard bite, when after all in the cat's mind it did everything right. It gave fair warning. The child failed to see it. In the autistic person's mind they may or may not feel they have given warning, or may feel like nobody pays attention to their warning and therefore they can't give a good warning... (This may be on a conscious level or not conscious level)
The goal here with the cat story is to teach the child to look for the tail twitching and the ears laying back. If the child heeds those warnings they likely won't get bit. For the people outside the autistic person, they need to learn what warning signs to look out for to let the person have a break and cool off. For the person his/herself, that should restore confidence that they don't have to go that far to communicate their desires. It really helps to be verbal about ones feelings. See if you can help your son to express his emotions verbally before they build up to stress mode.
I hope this helps.
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