Effective punishment for aggressive child? Help please

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I am and was an EXTREMELY aggressive person when i get meltdowns, and i find Pressure helps a lot, during my meltdowns my dad holds down my arms and pins me down with immense pressure, i find that helps me, Pacing helps me as well, controlling my breathing, crying, screaming, but meltdowns STILL happen, and i still get aggressive, but now i know to leave the room, usually go outside and yell, throw things, hit my head (try to avoid that though) and eventually i calm down.

there shouldn't be punishment, just let him realize there can be BAD consequences to hurting someone or breaking something, i had to learn the hard way, i got arrested and broke some of my favourite belongings, i even hurt myself pretty bad a few times. eventually i learned i can't hit people, and i can't destroy my room, even if its hard to control it, i still try my best to eliminate myself from valuables and people when i'm in a Rumble stage.

I think there is a temptation to believe that the clinic staff and parents should, and can, punish enough to teach the child to control his meltdowns in order to protect from the kind of consequences ZombieBride is referring to. However, the take home point for me from the last two posts is that when the people who should take care of us are the ones to inflict the degree of terror necessary to control meltdowns, that isn't how human beings should treat each other. What I'm saying is that I do not believe mild and acceptable punishments of the type you seem to be looking for are going to be effective for a meltdown. It will be hard to stop once you start down the road of being punitive. This isn't obviously going to be like the parent swatting a 3 year old who grabs at the hot stove and the child learns never to do that again and is spared a world of pain and scarring. Carefully looking at what comes before and after meltdowns and changing what adults do after that may inadvertantly be rewarding (like the deep pressure of being held or perhaps the being left alone) is what should happen. And there's nothing wrong with taking things away.

I don't feel punishing him is the right answer given the behavior is triggered by a medical condition, it sounds more triggered by sensory related issues. How old is he and what else sets him off? I know it's difficult for some people to grasp because when you see someone acting out anger on others, we assume it's then misbehaving, and we feel discipline is the answer. I feel it sends the wrong message because I doubt he's acting on anger for any other reason than sensory overload, which is out of his control and in no way his fault. I think the best solution is to isolate him in a sensory-friendly room, especially with less noise because it sounds like noise could be a big trigger for him, this would give him time to calm down and wouldn't increase his anger. At the same time though, he needs to understand it's not okay to hit others for any reason, so it still needs to be addressed.

Never let him be around babies. Seems a pretty simple solution. Don't take him to places where there will be babies. Leave immediately if a baby arrives. I can't stand babies either and would probably be in danger of hurting them if I had to be near one for too long ( I can obviously control myself better than a child, but I wouldn't want to be with one for more than about 15 minutes without getting agitated). It isn't just the crying, it's the smell ( all new mothers know babies have a baby smell, usually emanating from the head, which most people find cute. I find it nauseating. There is also the smell of piss s**t and vomit frequently around babies, and the gurgle and laughing noises and the stupid voices of parents talking to babies are all things that make me very agitated.

You say you don't know what is precipitating this, but you do: it's babies in general. Just avoid them until he is older, when hopefully the sensory impact will be less intense or he will be able to find ways of managing his discomfort.

Actually I have a lot of sympathy with the boy who is doing the harming. Babies are an assault on the senses for a lot of autistic people, and to be honest I find it kind of antisocial that people bring them out in public. As a parent those people signed up to have a screaming s**tbag following with them the whole time. I didn't. When I say "keep him away from babies" I don't mean lock him up. I just mean don't take him to family type areas, and leave if there is a baby. If he was an adult he would probably be doing that himself already anyway.

I don't think it's really possible to "control" meltdowns, but autistic people can learn to avoid them. You should identify the situations where this happens and teach him an alternative, a way to remove himself from the stressful situation. If a meltdown starts, same thing, remove him from the situation, let him be alone for a while - not as a punishment, but to regain his equilibrium. They can punish him later by removing privileges if necessary, and talk to him about his behavior, but in my experience as an autistic mom of autistic kids, peace and quiet is the quickest cure (and best prevention) for a meltdown.

League_Girl I don't understand what you mean at the end of your message. I have Asperger's Syndrome.