Ideas please, son constantly annoying kids.

Post Reply New Topic

hi all, this is my first posting for help.
my son is nearly 8, and has been having help from CAHMS due to aggression in school & home, deliberatly annoying other kids at school, refusal to accept his part in what hes doing,disrupting class etc.
the behaviour at school has improved heaps,and he can now own up when hes wrong, but as a result homelife has got worse.
at the moment if he is not occupied on playstation or playing football indoors or sorting his footy cards, he cant leave his 3 yr old sister alone.
hes constantly in her face, deliberatly annoying her, teasing, hitting, pushing etc till she reacts. sometimes hes particularly nasty to her so she screams and crys, he then in turn can't tollerate the noise so gets angry and screams at her, making the situation even worse.
ive tried talking to him about it but he says its all her fault " she annoys me" but he seems to get alot of pleasure out of it, quite often hes smiling while hurting her & will push or hit me when i intervene, then get angry.

any suggestions on how to deal with or punish the behaviour?
hes not really motivated by reward charts, removal of privilages just makes him annoy more because hes bored -which happens very quickly.
i dont know if this is a common aspie thing or not, hes not been diagnosed yet, were on a long waiting list to be assessed.
thanks for reading.

Reward charts aren't going to help relieve stress, and I think your child is working very hard at behaving at school and is really stressed by it. He is deferring stress release for at home and taking it out on the family. I am not sure how to fix it, other than by reducing the overall stress level (if that is indeed the cause.) Is there anything at school that can be modified to make life less stressful for him?

I wanted you to know, I read your post and my heart goes out to you. I do not have any advice now other than do some sleuthing.

To get to the bottom of a behavior like this, you have to figure out the reason behind or instigation of the behavior and or the result or what he gets out of the behavior.

I.E. When I read Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robinson, He made me see that many of the things that looked as if he was torturing his brother and other children from the adult point of view, was just cause-effect experiments or reactions to things not perceived by the adults around him. They were totally logical and made sense.

On the other hand, if he knows what he is doing is hurting/annoying the person (and realize he may not know even though its so obvious to the NT), and he is choosing to do it anyway to gain power over that person then it may be defiant/oppositional/maladjusted behavior.

Also read this book written by someone on the spectrum, it may help you see things from your child's eyes.

http://asdstuff.com/Strange%20Kid.pdf

Different rooms.

And lots of conversations.

It seems that my son can find his sister's existence annoying, her doing nothing in particular to bother him, and at those times he mostly needs to have a break from her. So, I tell him to hang out in another room. Or her. Whoever is doing something that moves easily.

The thing is, the stress he feels when he says he is annoyed is real, but he also has to learn all family members have rights, and they need to get balanced. And, well, sometimes my daughter DOES push it with my son, seeming to be innocent and minding her own business, but totally aware of how something she is doing can rattle him.

BOTH kids need to learn how to respect each others needs,and how to take breaks from each other.

Also ... can't say if this is the way it is, but be very careful of always blaming your son, because he may start to feel disfavored and as if he can never win, and those feelings will just accelerate the bad behavior. I'm afraid we were slipping in that direction until my son finally accurately vocalized some of the ways his sister really was provoking him, and I watched carefully enough to discover he was right.

But my daughter really perfected that at 9 or 10 ... yours is younger.

Just got through a work deadline so I'm not sure I've explained that well ...

Also, don't assume that because your son is smiling that he is finding pleasure in what he is doing. My son gets this unique smile on his face when he is super close to melting down, and randomly trying to make his world feel back in control. He's most definitely not happy when he gets that smile; smiles in AS kids can be deceiving.

Don't give up on removal of privileges just because he becomes bored. Boredom is a natural result of him losing his privilege. Sometimes, for my daughter, being bored is the worst consequence of all. Perhaps you could create a rule that if he gets through the day without the behaviors (that you should define in advance very specifically-not just state do not annoy your sister) he will have use of the Xbox or computer or whatever he enjoys after his homework is done the next day. If he doesn't get through the day without the behaviors then he will have access to books, drawing, or anything non-electronic. The first few times will be difficult and he will likely meltdown or the behavior could intensify but I have found if you stick to the consequence and do not let up, when he discovers the rule is rigid and absolute, his behavior will get better. A chart to track the days would allow you to identify and congratulate him for days mastered.

My aspies daughter is as good as gold at school but is a complete monster as soon as she walks in the door some days. She has to keep it all together at school and pretend to be normal and pretend not to be scared, worried, upset, confused, lonely, etc. As soon as she feels safe at home, it errupts.

On days like that, I just leave her alone in her room to play computer games. Trying to get her to do other, more normal, stuff just isn't worth the battle.

I think punishing symptoms by only allowing the child to do activities they enjoy if they make it through the entire day without slipping up even once.......that just seems like it would increase the stress and make it even more difficult for the child to manage negative behaviors. Also it's important behavior gets better because understanding is created about why certain behaviors are wrong even if they are hard not to do. I mean it is good to have a set of rules and stick to them........but say like one of the negative behaviors is a meltdown(as an example of something that is not necessarily possible for an individual with autism to not meltdown if a meltdown is triggered.

So punishing a kid for having a meltdown, in my mind would make things worse.........however say an autistic kid knowingly does something to hurt someone well they should not be free from punishment because they have autism just like everyone else they would need to know it's wrong to do that possibly by having priveleges revoked I guess I just think it is important to seperate actual mis-behavior and behavior brought about more or less by the autism.

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear...I would never endorse punishing a meltown. However, since he has learned not to do the behaviors at school it seems to me this behavior can be changed. For my daughter, what she enjoys is highly limited, therefore so are the choices for removal of privileges. Removing something she enjoys, even if it leads initially to more negative behaviors including a meltdown, if the end result is modification of the unwanted behavior then I will do it. At first it is hard, but now she knows I will not hesitate to restrict her usage of TV (watching videos is what she enjoys a lot) and we have had success modifying controllable behaviors. If it is a provoked behavior (which this doesn't seem initially to be) then this would not work-but we had the same issue with my daughter being intentionally mean to our cat and this worked for us.

By the way, this has been one of the most difficult concepts to master for my daughter-when she is agitated, or frustrated, or angry, or bored or ________(fill in the blank) she acts angrily or aggressively towards others. It has been a HARD, HARD ongoing struggle to teach her that you simply cannot lash out at others when you feel this way. She is getting better, she is learning to self-isolate to prevent these interactions, which if you ask her she doesn't WANT to act angrily towards others, but the angry feelings inside just cannot be contained and they will erupt and end up causing her to do/say things without thinking. It is a very difficult lesson and might be one of those lifelong struggles...but it can improve.

Hes jealous....try spending some alone time with him but also explain to him that his sister is smaller than him, he is supposed to be her big brother and watch out for her, teach her and help her (this will make him feel more important) and she needs her privacy just like he needs his. If that does work, demonstrate.....I know, sounds childish but our kids understand things better when they are tangible. So if he continues to mess with his sister. Next time he is doing something, go mess with him and when he gets angry say "now you know how other people feel". I call this empathy 101. I also have my son do things for my daughter sometimes (I only have two little ones at home now). My oldest son was terrible with this and he had two younger sisters (he had early onset BP). We lost him in August at age 24 after he had kept himself clean for nearly 2 years....there were none of his meds in his system so we think he had a depression episode and decided to use but forgot he did not have the same tolerance as he did before.

I wish I knew all this stuff when my son was little, I wish things had been different when he was young but they just were not and there is nothing that can be done about that. I try to teach my 4 kids even though two of them are adults, my younger of the two eldest has Aspergers, body dismorphia, paranoia of being left as her Dad left and then we left and she had to stay with her Grandparents, and she has panic attacks like me and she also has Elhers-Danlos syndrome type III (we all do, its also called hypermobility syndrome). We are afraid she has POTS syndrome (you will have to look that one up if interested, too much typing), as she has all the symptoms and it is common when you have EDS. Sometimes we dont realize that we give more attention to one that the other or that once one starts acting up then the other becomes, in their eyes, the good one. Its also a power thing, they find that they can cause someone else to react or maybe its been done to him at school so he thinks it is the thing to do. So like DW says, it takes a lot of talking and talking really helps with Aspies because we are very logical, if your logic can beat his then you have the upper hand....come prepared .

Really dig to find out what the issue is, dont jump into punishment, that is not the way to handle a child with Autism. This may be what people tell you that you need to do or it is the way that we may have been taught to react....obviously it doesnt work if you notice there are parents on this board who say......"Ive tried everything, taking things away, sending to his room, grounding, spanking". Punishment does not work on certain types of children, these are highly intelligent children who have sensory processing issues. If you hit them (not saying you do that) it triggers the sensory system, you may see it immediately or maybe somewhere down the line and dont understand where it came from. Sometimes empathy 101 can work and positive reinforcement always works. Whenever someone mentions punishment (not saying that letting your child go to their rooms to chill or loosing a token is not something I have never done, however I stopped taking tokens away as it is actually real punishment because they did earn those tokens and I dont want them to feel that I have the power to take away the hard work that they have done) however, it reminds me of that movie Matilda where the Dad and the Principal say to her "I'm smart, you're dumb; I'm big, you're little; I'm right, you're wrong, and there's nothing you can do about it."

Ive said this a lot but we use a token method for my kids and we also use schedules and PECS for my daughter with classic autism. When they follow the rules, that are clearly posted in our kitchen, follow the schedule, then they get tokens, so many tokens and they can get what they want like my sons new thing is YuGiOh (sp?) card, used to be Pokemon. He also is into battle tops but it takes a lot of tokens to earn a battle top. My daughter likes little figurines and Lalaloopsy's......they have tiny ones as she still enjoys lining but she also makes videos of them that she has seen other girls do on her iPad.

Anyway, good luck, I know how frustrating it is to leave the room and two seconds later there is that high pitched screaming..."drives me up my wall" as my daughter says

Well I couldn't claim to have the answer for you, but I can at least offer you my point of view as an adult aspie who grew up without treatment or help. I worked hard at school and did very well, but by the time I got home I was so overstimulated that I couldn't handle anything. No one ever told me what was wrong with me or that it wasn't my fault, so I was constantly punished for not being able to act the same way as a normal child. The thing is, once I hit the overstimulated point, there's nothing anyone can say or do to force me to act normal. I'm simply not capable of it. It still happens even today - after a long day at work I practically have to run home from the metro just to avoid a meltdown.

The answer for me in these cases is time alone. The only way to stop overstimulation is to remove the troublesome stimulants. When I was a child I would hide in the closet (against the rules of my mother who didn't allow such abnormal behavior) because I never had my own space. These days I can just go home to my apartment. But maybe part of the problem with your son is he's too overstimulated from trying so hard at school, and every small thing that his sister does sets him off and he really is unable to control himself.

Tolerance to stimulation builds with time and age, but it's a long, slow process. Have you tried giving him his own space? It doesn't have to be a whole room. Just a corner, a closet, a bathroom, the garage if you have one, anywhere that's free that you can call his "chillout" space. He can go there when he's feeling overwhelmed instead of lashing out, and take his time to calm down. Not as a punishment, just as a place to calm down and be alone without any pressure or stimulation. He can have something to do there alone, and come out when he's ready. If he has an option like this, it could be easier to be stricter with him. If he's not able to act well, he can go to his space. Otherwise he has to agree to the rules.

Also, it's important to reward good behaviors as much as you punish bad ones. Negative reinforcement is stressful and overstimulating in itself, regardless of everything else going on. It takes a lot of patience, but as others have said, try your best to find the cause of the problem rather than just punishing him, and don't give up. Good luck!

Just because it looks deliberate to you, doesn't mean he doesn't have a good reason for doing it in the first place, no matter how silly that reason may sound to you.
(other people in this thread have given some ideas of what those reasons may be)



He is looking for attention / affection / love. Probably needs more interaction with PEOPLE. The activities you mentioned sounds to me like he spends time alone. If so, no wonder he is starving for interaction with other people.

Just because he sees friends at school, doesn't mean he's had enough interaction with people. Nowadays school is so busy, when you and I were growing up, we could have fun with friends in school, but that's no longer the case nowadays.



What I said above makes sense, he wants interaction with people, and if he has to annoy people to get some attention, then to him it's worth it.


Pay more attention to him. If you can't do that yourself, (and I don't mean to insult when saying that, I know life gets busy), then find ways to make sure he has someone to feel connected to. Can he go play at a friends place, to be 1 on 1? Can you have a less busy adult friend / family member take him out to do something fun?

When does he get home from school? Who interacts (do things together) with him when he gets home?


Play with him, go out with him, give him a nice big hug when he is acting friendly; ignore him when he is acting rude.
By ignoring, I mean: avoid eye contact by all means, keep your face emotionless, don't reply to what he says, if he hits you for attention after this, then calmly but firmly move him away from you while not saying anything / not showing emotion / avoiding eye contact.
He will get tired of bugging you when you don't react!

Make sure all caretakers do this too (partner, babysitter, grandma, whomever takes care of him).

BUT. Do not just punish him. Fix the root problem of his misbehaviour.



That's because YOU are missing the problem in the first place.
He's a human being. Everyone need companionship, love, affection. It's wrong to punish someone for wanting something so basic!

Would you punish a child for having a grumbly tummy, if you had not been feeding her? Of course not, that's just silly


No, lots of non-aspie children and adults do mean things to get attention.

Thing is, nowadays parents and teachers are so overwhelmed that they can't give each child the interaction s/he needs. So I am not judging you, believe me, I know we are too busy nowadays.

But I'm sure that the issue here is that he needs more DIRECT interaction with people.

Alright, that makes more sense.