Love Daughter but Hate the Anger She Has Often

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My high-functioning autistic/intellectually-disabled daughter, now eighteen, is causing life for her stepmother and I to be very difficult almost everyday.

She gets angry so easily and has broken things in the house and will physically fight us if we argue with her.

Last year, she was going to go a residential treatment center but the school system in which we live recommended that she go instead to a nearby respite home where she was able to stay there only for a few months until she turned eighteen (they were only licensed for those up to eighteen). They were very strict with her there and although she did better there, she still had anger issues. But it was good as we could often see her.

I don't know what to do as I still love her (she can be good at times) but yet another part of me hates being around her because of her argumentative nature. I am not a confrontational person however her stepmother is and will argue with her. We've been taught by ABA therapists as well as the respite home to just leave her alone when she's getting angry but yet when we hear something like the treadmill being knocked over, we can't help but to go and see what is she's doing. And she knows that is a way to get us to come to her when we've left her.

We would like for her to go a group home but it seems unaffordable as she doesn't yet have a Disability Waiver here that would subsidize the costs of her being at one. Been told that it may take a few years for her to get that Disability Waiver in our state. One group home wants $3250 USD a week plus, if she stays there for six months, then you have to fork over a $60,000 one-time payment. I don't have that kind of money. Guess only kids from rich families stay at these places. Are there any that just take what she's going to get in Social Security Income for being disabled -- that's about $750 a month. I could probably pay some more on top of that too of course but not the tune of $2,500 like the place I just mentioned.

The residential treatment center, on the other hand, would be covered by Medicaid but this is a place where she would be behind barbed fences and every door is controlled by security keypads and no one shows any love there and she would cut off from friends she has here as well as activities (special needs baseball/bowling/dances, etc.). I fear that if she goes to one of these residential treatment centers, two things will happen. One is that she will become more distant as we will only see her at most once a week or once every two weeks. Two is that she will have a difficult time getting into a group home later on as her past will show a long-term stay at a residential treatment center which will give the impression that she must have had real behavioral issues.

It just doesn't seem that she is willing to change her behaviors in the home nor will "grow" out of it. Just this morning she had a screaming fit because she came late to breakfast and wanted for us to stay at the table after we had long since finished. In other words, she wants to control and we are not at her beck and call. Her reason for being late? She was reading and didn't want to stop until she was ready.

Most of the time we can't go out on the weekends as it's dependent on her earning behavior points during the week. If she hasn't earned enough, then no weekend activities. My wife and I can't go out on our own as we fear she may break something while we are out or attempt to break into rooms we have locked (as she's prone to snooping and taking things).

Her real mother isn't in the picture as she has mental health issues and rarely makes the one-hour drive to see her daughter too. So I know some of my daughter's issues are with not having had her real mother in her life growing up. My wife has tried to do things with her (arts and crafts) but it seems my daughter just can't seem to understand that when we are trying to teach her something that it's to help her, not dictate to her. She got upset also this morning as she wrote a note to a boy she likes and is inviting to her upcoming birthday party and the note is telling him what he has to buy her for her birthday -- a gift card. We told her it wasn't good to do that and refuses to believe that it's a bad thing to do. Fine, I said, go ahead but we are only trying to help you -- he may not come to your birthday party if all he feels is that you want a gift card from him.

Thank you for reading this and for any thoughts or recommendations you may have.

- Alyssa's Dad

Not sure how much good this will do, since your daughter is basically an adult. But tantrums have always been the easiest thing for me to handle with my children. I've never failed once to remove bad feelings from my children, permanently. Take a look at this article.

http://www.eikonabridge.com/fun_and_facts.pdf

So, a few things:
(1) I've always accepted that throwing tantrums is part of basic human rights.
(2) I take my children out, one-on-one, often, to have fun together.
(3) The first time a tantrum of a type happens, I don't do much, I just take record (in pictures when they were non-verbal, and nowadays I just ask them: "Is life tough, now?"). That's all.
(4) I solve their tantrum problems when they are happy, laughing and doing something fun. I would remind them about their mad/sad moments, and then ask them: "Is life fun, now?" Then, I would tell them: "See, sometimes life is tough, but sometimes life is fun!"
(5) Next time the same tantrum strikes, I would remind them about their happy moments.

I've never failed once to remove my children's tantrums and bad feelings this way, permanently. I call this "space-time wormhole tunnel." See, the mistake of most parents/educators is that they want to solve tantrum issues at the moment of the tantrum. So of course they get nowhere. And when their children are happy, the adults don't remember whatsoever about their children's mad/sad moments.

My children are always happy and smiling, every day. Anybody that has met my children can tell you that.

First off, I am sorry you are having so many difficulties. There are really not a lot of good resources out there for adults.

I don't know to what extent your daughter's intellectual disability is, but it sounds like there really is no point in your wife continuing to argue with her. This sounds like if anything, it would only exacerbate any anger problems.

I am going to recommend you check out Dr. Ross Green and his collaborative problem solving style. You don't have to buy his book as they have a lot of free information on his web site. If you are interested in the book, it is called "The Explosive Child." I am not sure how well it will work on someone with both communication issues an an intellectual disability, but I would at least check it out. it involves getting buy in from the child on the rules that affect her to improve compliance. This will work better than an authoritarian model with some children.

I don't have any knowledge about residency but I applaud you and your wife for trying so hard to keep her at home or at least in a friendly facility.

The only other advice I have at this point is maybe to a more thorough job of child-proofing the home. It sounds like you are doing a lot of this already, but if she knocks over things like the treadmill, you need to secure that too. The advice about giving your daughter calming time-outs is valid if no other calming system is working, but you do have to follow through and control your urge to check out what she is doing. If she comes to get you, you have to tell her she has to wait until she calms down or honestly you can try reframing it to telling her that when she is that upset it makes you upset and it is your time out and you need to calm down and that her calming down will help you. Beyond that, I would continue excusing yourself until she calms down unless you can find some better alternative. When she is calm, if you haven't already tried this you can ask her what calms her and try to see if you can find something to calm her. I am guessing at this point you have tried this numerous times though.

Some kids' brains get a feedback loop where a part of their brain craves negative emotion and they will feed it in a loop where they will actually try to make themselves more upset. This is not a conscious thing -- it is on a subconscious level. The only way to get this to change is to disrupt the loop. This is not very easy and I suspect the longer it has gone on, and the longer a habit it is for them the more stable the neuropathways in the brain are for this behavior. I remember reading something about this in a book on emotional intelligence, but I can't remember the name.

We had similar issues, with anger, though not as severe, when our son was little, and we solved it through reason; but I don't know how you solve it with someone who may not understand. I used to tell my son what his brain was doing and that I was not going to do anything to complete the loop. Whatever it was that his brain was trying to get me to do to make it worse --I refused to do, and did the opposite. He wanted attention. I would not give it to him while in that state. He wanted me to get upset. I acted super calm and rational. Eventually the oxygen would be out and the fire would stop. After many repetitions, the behavior basically stopped. His brain might still revert under repeat, extreme stress, but we have arranged things to avoid that kind of stress, and I haven't seen it for years.

ASDMommyASD kid, this quote really resonates with me.

We had similar issues, with anger, though not as severe, when our son was little, and we solved it through reason; but I don't know how you solve it with someone who may not understand. I used to tell my son what his brain was doing and that I was not going to do anything to complete the loop. Whatever it was that his brain was trying to get me to do to make it worse --I refused to do, and did the opposite. He wanted attention. I would not give it to him while in that state. He wanted me to get upset. I acted super calm and rational. Eventually the oxygen would be out and the fire would stop. After many repetitions, the behavior basically stopped. His brain might still revert under repeat, extreme stress, but we have arranged things to avoid that kind of stress, and I haven't seen it for years.

^^

This is where I want to be. At roughly what age did you experience this with your son and when did it work? I have tried doing this with my daughter but I realise when I see what you wrote that I need to persevere and just keep at it. My problem is I most often have a second younger child in tow who I have to keep safe and out of harm's way and also when in these frantic states my daughter chooses to hound me and often won't go to a calm space to calm down. In fact she won't separate herself from me at all at these junctures but just keeps coming at me.

And... I totally get the bit about not closing the loop but when the behaviour escalates to violence and aggression how do you just keep ignoring it with a small sibling in tow. If I move her to her room, she leaves and continues to hound us and escalate the behaviour. I don't quite get how I can get out of the situation without engaging with her?

Hi, thank you so much for taking the time to write and let me know about Eikonabridge. I wish that it might work but believe she may be too "old" for it. I don't accept that "throwing tantrums is part of basic human rights" unless you mean just to get angry but to me tantrums, in adults, are what nowadays turns up as a viral video on the internet. I've been trying to get that across to my daughter as I don't want one of her blow-ups to end up as one of those!

Yes, taking children out to have fun is good -- if they have earned it. In the past, she would act up but the weekend would come and I used to take her out for some fun times and so what she learned, of course, was that her acting up had no effect on the fun times. Believe me, I want to do fun things with her! But I can't reward bad behavior with sought-after activities.

It sounds like your kids have temper tantrums but are more manageable.

Thank you,

Alyssas Dad

Alyssa's dad, sorry you are having such substantial difficulties. Wish I had something constructive to say to help. Sorry also for asking questions of my own on your thread, have started my own now.

Hi, thanks for your thoughts and long reply. Yes, you're right, there is no real point in arguing with her. We are not going to change her belief system -- e.g. she's eighteen and still believes in Santa. She believes all families fight like she does.

I've seen the Explosive Child book but it seems to be geared at very young children that are still impressionable and really see the parents as authority figures as they tower over them. My daughter is now the height of her stepmother and only a few inches shorter than me so looking more eye to eye these days.

Child-proofing we are doing -- recently had two cabinets in the kitchen have key locks on them as she would skip meals and then later head down to polish off a box of cereal without milk. That's about the only "junk food" we have so anything else I'm happy for her to eat if she's hungry. It's just tough as she has Avoidant / Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID) somewhat (Google it as the site says I'm a newbie and can't be trusted yet to link to a URL) as she has a limited food vocabulary of what she'll eat.

It's good what you've done has worked for your son. Perhaps I missed the boat when I could've changed things in my daughter but it was just me raising her from age five up to sixteen. I had ABA therapists involved since she was 12 but it hasn't really made a difference in what they've attempted to do with her. Frankly, the last batch of ABA therapists were fresh from college and were basically going by the textbook of what to do as they didn't really have much prior experience.

I believe you're right about having negative emotions in order to get attention. She does seem to love to argue as the more we argue with her, the angrier she gets. The respite home director has said we should just remain calm and silent even though she may continue to "spout off" for quite some time. However, I dislike giving her an audience so I just leave the room. She eventually calms down but can take quite some time -- even up to a half hour.

My trying to reason with her and explain why it's bad to get angry seems to go in one ear and out the other as I think, frankly, she just can't "get it" as much as I want to believe that she should.

Thanks for writing.

Alyssas Dad

My expirience with anger issues is all about adult, mentally developed males so it may be a poor match but the best approach I found was doing literally nothing.
Well, maybe not literally nothing... but consistently ignoring the agression while trying to understand what the person is trying to express. I don't even mention the agresive behavior. Like it didn't happen. Well, if it really hurts me, I ask about it after the person calms down. Never during the rage attack, it would only make it worse then.
I've been handling this way my uncle and then my spouse to the point where we forgot he had the issues for years.

And I listen. Try to understand. It helps with both adults and children. Even if I wouldn't agree to the tantrum-causing demand, I still try to name it and validate one's feelings. Because it is likely that the anger comes from some frustration or other issue that could be adressed if the anger didn't cloud it all.

What are your daughter's interests? Autistic people often have some strong interests. It may be a useful foundation to establish better communication, so the anger would not build up so dramatically.

Yes, I did (somewhat) the article you wrote. I have to admit it's the first autism-related article that involves mathematics as a way of explaining autistic behavior. However, in our case, punishment and reward is working for her, believe it or not. She loves working with a chore list and gets all her chores done and checks them off. That earns her a Chore Point for the day. Then she has a Behavior Point and a Homework Point she can earn. So, in a perfect day, she can earn three points (one for Chores, one for Behavior, and one for Homework). In a perfect week, she can earn 21 points. If she earns 18 to 21 points, we can do two activities over the weekend that she likes (e.g. movie or extra internet/TV time). If it's just 15 to 17 points, then just one activity over the weekend. If it's 14 or under, then she stays home over the weekend and she can talk with friends, read, do arts and crafts, etc. But the things she really wants -- movies, extra tv/internet time are OUT.

So she strives to earn her points when it comes to Chores and Homework. The Behavior one is the difficult one for her.

You're right when you say that autistic people want to be treated as equals. Yes, my daughter wants to see herself as my equal. But she cannot be. She is the child and I am the adult, her parent. It will always be that way. She has to accept and understand that she needs to take my direction as I have her best interests at heart and that sometimes she doesn't understand why I am forcing her to do something she doesn't want to do.

Thank you for following up.

Alyssas Dad

I don't think punishment and reward is the best for NT kids, either. But parents can only use the tools they have available.

Maybe Lists and Points are the more important part in her case than the Punishment and Reward part. Just a guess.