I Am My Son's Punching Bag

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Locking a child in a room or restraining him are things that sometimes you do have to do for safety reasons, however neither of those things are good long term solutions. Be very careful trying to physically restrain a child, even a 4 yo, I quit trying to do this when DS almost broke my nose (he was 4 yo at the time).

The first step in a long term solution is to help him become aware of his emotions. He needs to be able to detect when he is getting angry/frustrated (assuming he is being aggressive due to anger or frustration). Once he is able to recognize his feelings and label them, then he can start working on steps he can take to calm down so he can control those behaviors. We use a 5-pt scale but there are many programs for emotional awareness/regulation, a common one is called How Does Your Engine Run?. As Mr. Xxx suggests, having some professional help is critical. Our OT worked with us (my DH and me) and DS to help implement the 5-pt scale. It is takes time and persistence, but most kids can learn how to regulate their emotions and get their aggressive behaviors under control.

Bomba- my dd5 seems to know she's angry. She'll yell "IM ANGRY EEEEEERRRRRGGGGHHHHH"

But maybe she doesn't really know what it means.

I don't have much experience with this but when my son misbehaves/yells and screams and rolls on the floor, I turn my back and walk away and ignore him for a decent period of time....he learnt pretty quickly how to get my attention in other ways.

Looks to me you need a two pronged approach. One is -- find a sure-fire way to let him really relax when he arrives home. For my 11yo son, this would be 1/2 hr of computer time. Computer time is my son's currency... it may not be yours. He NEEDS it to relax.

Two, continue to firmly but gently (ha!) work with him that agressive behavior is unacceptable. You said your son will not hurt your husband, so he does have some control. Gotta figure out why he thinks it is okay for you and not your husband. I used to give my son a whole list of things he could do rather than hurt his sister or destroy property. He refused to use the alternatives but did diminish his violence over time. The alternatives didn't work b/c they weren't his idea. He also wouldn't come up with his own, but, as I said, he did realize he had to stop the violence.

If she does know what it means, that is good. When she is calm you can work with her on alternative things she can do when she feels that way. It is hard because you are asking them to remember to do something different than what they normally would do at a point in time when their emotions are running really high, but we have kept at it and seen progress.

I agree that if your son knows that he is angry and sad and is correctly identifying his emotions that is an important first step. We are also dealing with controlling subsequent behavior. With my son, as of late, I notice that it gets worse when he feels we are not validating his emotions. He acts more extreme to get out attention and to make sure we know how mad he is, if that makes sense. He wants us to feel empathy and outrage over whatever the particular issue is.

If that is the case with your son, maybe if you tell him you understand how is is feeling and if he has a legitimate gripe (even if it is a "little deal") let him know it is unfair or whatever. I noticed that this seems to get us less severe responses in cases where that is what he is looking for. It does not work when that is not what he is after.

Keep in mind that one of our hurdles was that DS confused sad and scared with angry - and he was sad and scared a LOT. Took a much longer time to address that one than I'd imagine (along with some natural development on his part) but that really helped, too.

The issue is that you need a viable short-term approach to address this specific behavior before you get into the long-term solutions and reasons why, because it's just not safe. I have friends whose 5 year olds sent them to the hospital with broken bones; I am not sure how I was lucky enough to avoid that, but it was luck, I assure you.

The long-term issues are very important, too - don't ignore them either - but figure out what works for YOUR kid and do that. There's a reason why there are several different approaches listed in this thread - all kids are different.

This is true for us too! It often seems to diffuse some of the strong emotions when we tell him that we understand he is angry or frustrated or sad or disappointed... and that it is OK that he feels that way. Our OT encourages us to share with him times when we've felt those feelings too.

I had a particularly bad bout of violence from my daughter this afternoon. She was building up to a meltdown at an optician's appointment for my other daughter. She screamed her head off in the shop (which was open plan so was awful for the other patients/customers) and then tried repeatedly to escape for the whole appointment so I couldn't be in the room with my other daughter while she had her eyes checked. She then resorted to punching my arm, pinching me as hard as she could, throwing things at me in the car afterwards and by the time we got home she was kicking me in the leg.

And just to make me feel even better, she said she hoped I'd die, everyone hates me, they will all have a party when I die and she has never loved me.

And I have no idea what set off her meltdown, she couldn't even explain herself.

Kids are great aren't they.

Sorry to hear about all that. I hope mine doesn't need glasses anytime soon. I can't imagine him actually agreeing to wear them. They'd last 2 minutes, then be thrown at the ceiling fan, dropped down a floor vent, or flushed down the toilet.

I tried taking him out to play in the back yard after we got home yesterday, even though it was already dark. He was much calmer and even ate most of his supper.

I don't believe in hitting children, however my non-verbal son will hit us sometimes, and that includes powerful headbutts. Its due to frustration, however it is a bit of a safety issue, and both my wife and I have had bleeding lips and close to loosened teeth. What I have done on a couple of occasions is used a cocked middle finger and flicked his ear or nose hard - painful but entirely harmless, I do this as I tell him sternly that it is not OK to hit.
Its helped in that he now knows he cannot have carte blanche to hit us, as there will be a consequence to doing that.

But really the proper solution is to work out whatever is causing the behaviour, which is easier said than done, but I find is possible.

Sorry to hear about that. It certainly seems familiar. Around that age my daughter was usually a model student at school and then would unleash her accumulated discomfort through violence as soon as she left.

It got very uncomfortable at one point and we discovered that she was being harassed by another kid at school. I observed the class from a distance at recess and saw this kid would never leave my daughter alone. The school refused to do anything about the situation (due to some concern about the other kid's special situation) so we withdrew my daughter. Your son is probably just suffering from stress in a normal environment, but it's still worth doing whatever you can to check whether he's being mistreated in some way that he can't communicate.

Being hit by a 2 year old is cute. Being hit by a 4 year old hurts your feelings. Being hit by a 12 year old hurts. I'm a guy who will always be bigger than my daughter. What happens to Moms who are smaller than their AS sons?



That's a great idea. Kids need some time to let their rage burn out. But "escort the offender to his room" can be like trying to bathe a cat.



That's a bad idea. I'm glad it worked out pretty well for you. When my daughter is in a rage or meltdown then she's not thinking rationally about the consequences of her actions. As a parent, my goal should be to never hurt my child so this threat is a promise to do something I would hate. Why would I promise such a thing? Nevertheless I did use this threat several times after being repeatedly whacked. A few times I said, "if you hit me one more time then I will hit you back" and I was never tested.

In hindsight, I'm proudest of the times when I was hit, and I was hurt emotionally and physically, and I did nothing in response.

Good for you; you should be proud! That requires a gargantuan effort. I am not sure I have many, even unsure if I could think of any of those times for myself. It is very, very hard to forgive one's self for reacting naturally to a threat in this situation - even though I don't think I ever crossed the line into abusive behavior, I wish I could take back the yelling and the times I physically pulled, pushed and dragged my son to his room (yes, that was our big problem. I think it was finally solved with written family contracts and some maturity on my son's part. For a while, I went to MY room.)

I was talking to another Mom today and she likened her feelings to PTSD. I don't think I've fully gone there, but it's not far off the mark, and Mom-NOS has this post about it: http://momnos.blogspot.com/2011/02/asd-and-ptsd.html

How true!! ! Our son is so strong now, and he's only 8- that I can have a hard time sometimes...

We got him one of those Franklin stand up punching bags, like this:




It does really good for his anger and aggression issues. Pillows and stuff didn't work, but this did. Since we keep it in the house, I filled the base with small gravel instead of water or sand- both of which are a pain to pick up inside if something happened. It's got a spring on the bottom, so it will 'punch back' and it gets his mind off his anger, and usually in a couple of minutes he's laughing and calm again.

1. Whatever you do, stay to the good plan you have. Consequences of bad behavior should become more stringent when he repeats/fails to respond to first consequence. As example if he gets time out, but then hits again upon time out being over, have hime lose a privledge (like TV, whatever). Always follow thru on disciplinary action. Fight the fight now and it will be a lot simpler then when he is older and can hurt someone.

2. Try to establish more respect in him for his mom. You don't necessarily have to spank (Though that is appropriate for the worse offenses in my opinion) but simply be firm in physically handling him, to show him you are the boss. In schools, the special ed teachers are taught how to hold the kids so they can not harm anyone (including the teacher). But the kid is locked in the hold and is not released until they calm down and agree to behave.

You aren't going to like my answer, but you probably already know what I'm going to say anyway. At 4 he is old enough for you to spank when he does that. That is not abuse nor is it teaching him to hit to get his way. He already knows to hit. You have to give him a reason not to hit. You have tried everything else, so my suggestion is to get a hickory and use it when he does that! You can pop him on the back of the leg with your hand, or use a hickory if he's not wearing jeans, or whatever, but I honestly don't think he's going to stop until you do that.

One other major reason you need to do that (IMO) is that although he doesn't do that to your husband, what if he does that to another kid? That other kid sure isn't going to hold back, and that other kid probably won't just pop him on the leg.

I know you don't want to spank, and I'm not saying that it should be your first line of defense or anything. What I am saying is that he already knows how to hit, he obviously senses that you are safe to hit because you won't hit back, and unless you do hit back, he won't stop.

It is not abuse. It truly is not. Our generation has had this whole "spanking is abuse" thrown at us from every direction and it's simply not true. I believed it at first, until my pediatrician told me that I better shape up and take control or I'd be visiting my son in prison. She was right. I won't say her name, but she's in with Dawkins over there in Mayfair (I believe). There are several that believe spanking is fine when needed. Dell Ware definately does too. Even Reynolds is ok with it and he's one of those really Montossori school types.

I honestly think that the first time you pop him back, right on the back of the thigh hard enough for him to feel it, put him down and say "Don't you ever do that again! You hear me?" and walk away, he will be surprised as can be, and thats a good thing. Repeat that the next few times and I bet you he will stop it alltogether.