My aspie 13 year old son is becoming violent---need advice

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My 13 year old son, diagnosed aspie, is a great kid most of the time and I love him a lot. He has always been easily frustrated, but seems very irritable lately and the slightest thing sets him off. Tonight he was talking to his sister in a friendly tone, then tried to help her with something that she was doing on a computer game. She told him to leave her alone and he punched her in the back. Then he lied about it to me.

A few minutes later he calms down and refuses to talk about it to me. He refuses to accept consequences. He tells me that he wants to punch me too. This kind of thing is starting to happen every single day, and almost always when his dad is not at home. My son is 180 pounds while his sister is 8 years old and 70 pounds at the most. I will not allow him to harm her and I am very worried. Is this aspie behavior or something else? Any advice at all would be great.

I don't have any answers, but I can offer a suggestion, based on my own rage-based behaviour. I've been experimenting with sensory overload and ways to reduce it. It's made wonderful changes in my life. There's a world of difference between my 59yo and your son's teenage years, but I hope you might find my experience useful.

Before I go on to that, I should mention that I've been exploding a lot lately, and I can tell it comes from having to pretend that nothing is wrong, because I will be blamed, I'll be called a troublemaker. Credibility is a big problem.

But sensory reduction can help across the board.

My first big break was a weighted blanket. They make them out of cotton with polyester pellets for weight, so heat is not a problem. I find that salt lamps help me a lot, and a strong air purifier with ionizing action. Aim at hypoallergenic everything, especially his bed - I vacuum my mattress weekly with the big power nozzle on the vacuum. I wash the sheets on super hot. I've got hypoallergenic pillows and mattress cover. Reduce noise - get a large supply of earplugs, or industrial earphones, or the headphones for music that reduce background noise.

The book that I would recommend is
Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight: What to Do If You Are Sensory Defensive in an Overstimulating World

I'm sorry to ramble so long!

Thank you so much Claradoon. I will do all of the things you suggested. Just to know that other people have found ways to reduce the rage gives me some hope. Its great to be on a board with so many helpful people.

I think everything Claradoon said was valid but I want to add another perspective. I can remember my feelings from childhood very well. It's hard when you struggle with human interaction and you make an effort and someone dismisses you casually. The rage comes from frustration at feeling invalidated. My son is also very sensitive and I am careful about how I phrase things. That doesn't cover how to deal with the violence I know but maybe an understanding of where the rage comes from would help.

Reminds me of me. Anyway, sure he's not smokin or anythin? People get annoyed and wound up all the time when they aint had one for a while. Either that or he's like me and hasnt been angry for a LONG time, let it build up inside, and lettin it all out in one go. Either way, itll be over soon.

You might want to buy a punching bag, and let your son use it. In one Indian tribe, parents teach their children to hit a tree with a stick when they feel angry. You can apply the same principle. Tell your son that it's perfectly acceptable to hit a punching bag, but it never acceptable to hit a person or an animal. (Make sure to explain situations like self-defense or organized sports, so he doesn't end up standing still when attacked; hey, aspies take everything literally.) If nothing else, your son might build up some muscle strength and endurance from hitting a punching bag.

As an ultimate catharsis for violence, you can recommend your son to try paintballing, as long as he can tolerate the pain that comes from getting struck from a marker (the term used to refer to the paintball gun). Paintball arenas usually accommodate teens during certain times. The sport requires a great deal of energy, with the constant running, hiding, and shooting. Getting hit with a paintball hurts, but participants are required to wear a lot of protective gear, arenas are very strict about rules, and sports etiquette is almost universally followed. If you follow all the safety rules, injuries are generally limited to bruises. But afterwards, you feel great, and violence is the last thing on your mind.

Then again, I'm speaking from personal experience. I tried paintballing this year (I'm 26), and loved it, but at age 13, I know I wouldn't even think of trying it. Come to think of it, I didn't start appreciating the experience of playing sports until about two years ago. Given the aversion most aspies have toward sports (my AS is pretty mild), your son's experience may vary. For a much milder variant of the same sport, you can try laser tag. There is still a component of running, hiding, and shooting, but the risk of injury is minimal. It might even help your son develop some basic athletic skills, which NT teens seem to value more than anything.

The only thing I'll add is that he is, most likely, experiencing hormonal changes that he may not understand and that constantly leave him feeling off balance. Try to be sensitive to that.

The sibling thing ... ugh, I SO know that one. Haven't solved it yet, however. Best thing is to keep your child as overall happy, calm, and unstressed as possible. The more centered he is feeling, the easier it will be for him to handle the stress from the sibling relationship.

My son, btw, feels that he is disproportionately blamed for things that are his sister's fault, or that share equal fault. And, well, I guess he has a point, given that as the older and larger one, in any tiff of equal anger on both sides he does the most damage and, thus, takes the brunt of the consequences or parental frustration. We've been discussing it a lot, and he's been expressing himself, and I am trying to find solutions that he will feel are more fair. It's tough.

I understand completely what you are saying about the sibling stuff, as it feels like my kids are competing for my attention. I have been totally freaked by my son's enormous growth spurt in the past year. He has grown nearly a foot taller and has gained nearly 60 pounds, and he is strong. He's a lot bigger than me. I'm a little afraid.

It wouldn't surprise me if all that growth change and the regression on controlling his outbursts were related.

Yes, it gets scary when they get larger.

Aspie children are frequent targets of bullying. Is it possible that he is being bullied at school? If so, then his outbursts at home are just him acting out and transferring the inner-rage that he feels. Picking on the little sister is "safer" for him than trying to deal with the thugs at school.

Obviously his passing the bullying onwards is still the wrong answer, but if you aren't yet aware of they bullying, then this will give you a possible place to start.

From my experience I was not heavily bullied until my peers entered their teenage years. Something about the hormones raging within tends to make males more aggressive. It might just be your son's hormones that is driving everything, but I would certainly want to talk to him about any potential conflicts that he has at school that he is transferring downwards when he gets home.

Just a thought, and I realize that I am biased based upon my experiences at that age.

Is there something that might be bothering him?Is he under alot of stress?

When I am stressed out, I usually feel very angry and want to hit something....luckily, it was only the gyproc (drywall) in the house that sufferred (I was 13 myself at the time)....afterwards, my dad handed me some tools and some wood and a piece of gyproc and had me fix the whole I made.I had to cut a square into the wall with a router, then screw some backing onto the 16 inch wall framing, then screw the patch onto the cut out area to fit in nicely.Basically, I patched up my own hole.I got to channal my anger without hurting anyone AND I learned something new.This was when I was 13.Could you give him some work to help channal his anger.Now that I am older, I find that working is one way for me to deal with my stress and anger in a non-violent manner.You could have him rake leaves, clean the garage, or something that involves heavy duty work.

When I was 16, I was abusing my family so my mother told me if I ever hit her again, she will send me away. I stopped. I was afraid of doing other things to my dad and my brothers and throwing things at my mother because I was afraid of being sent away. That would mean no computer or TV or being able to shower every day or shave, no video games. I didn't want that life so I had no choice but to stop trying to control my family.

Although my brother is NT, when he was 13, he was the same way as your son.Everytime he started to get rough and cause people to get upset, dad had him chop wood with the axe for the fire pit or fireplace.If there was no wood to be chopped, he had to either shovel the driveway in the winter or clean the garage and the gutters on the roof in the summer.There was always work to be done.

Do you know why that is? Does he get alot of attention from his dad, and with his dad away, he is not getting as much attention as he would like?
Or is his dad bigger and stronger than him, and therefore he is afraid to act up or face worse consequences whan when dad isn't home?

It might also be that his father acts as a calming influence. Does your husband interact with your son, and play with his children a lot? Do they enjoy each other's company? I know that my dad was always a very nice, calm, and kind person. And I felt safer, and happier whenever he was around to protect me from things, like my mother for example. As such, I was always much calmer around my father.