Anger issues

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Hi! First I thought I would introduce myself as I am new to the site! I am mom to 3 boys! The youngest who is 9 (Julian) was diagnosed with Aspergers at 4 years old. During that time he was uncontrollable and after trying two meds, we finally allowed the neurologist to put Julian on Risperdal. It was our saving grace for many years. Julian was finally happy! During the time before the medication, he was extremely violent (breaking toys, household items, even my nose). He used to scream and scream for hours!! ! Ok so you get it all.... it was awful. Fast forward to last fall. His doctor said that he would like to take him off the medication as he had not had an increase in dosage in 3 years. He felt that Julian's body had created a tolerance and we should just see what happened after the medication was discontinued. Since I am a nurse, I spent HOURS talking to medical professionals about this and everyone agreed with our doctor.

Julian just turned 9 in July. For the past 6 months he has been a HANDFUL. If he wants something he will NOT let it go. For an example. This morning he wanted to ride his bike before the bus came. Unfortunately there was only 2 minutes before the bus would be here and I told him NO and explained why. He would NOT let it go and asked me over and over... I would have to say he literally asked me 15 times. Finally he went off and kicked my glass solar light outside and broke it. He has a short fuse!

What I guess I am asking is..... is this something norm for asperger children? Do they have anger issues? I have two older boys (one is 22 and one is 17) and they were both "mouthy" at this age, but they didnt throw tantrums anymore. Which is basically what Julian is doing when he doesnt get his way.

And has anyone heard of the "unpunishable child?" This is Julian. He could care less about punishments. Right now whenever he does something wrong, he has to sit down and write sentences about what he did. He is a visual learner so we have had to incorporate "SEEING" what he did wrong with writing. ?????

I am hoping there is someone on here that could atleast give me some advice because they have been there done that.

Thank you all for reading!! !!

Yep...he sounds like a handful!

No, it's not necessarily "normal" for Asperger's kids to have such a conduct problem.

I don't really have any advice to offer---except to try to appeal to your son's desire to be liked.

This is more of a "bump"---because I believe you have valid concerns which other parents on WP can address.

WOW! I am surprised that out of 102 people that have read this - no one has the same issue? Short fuses, frustration, anxiety?

Remember, Aspie kids act about 2 to 4 years younger than their chronological age. So view a pretty stubborn 5 to 7 year old, and they can have glorious tantrums.

How much is the kid being a punk (tantrum) vs Aspie meltdown is something you and the doctor have to figure out. The Risperdal was tamping down the impulse control issues. If he didn't learn anymore skills than what he had before, that is the reason for the increase acting out.

You are going to have to do a postmortem on the event. What lead up to it? This includes everything that happened up to that point. Crappy school day? Tired? Overstimulated? Hungry? Thirsty? Itchy? Headache? Aspies love routines, did that change before the screaming?

You can try when I don't get w I feel like x, and do y because of z.

When I don't get a cookie, I feel angry and yell because I don't understand why I can't have one now.

For when it's full bore meltdown mode, many parents around here will move the kid into his bedroom or a more quiet/safe spot. Don't engage with him. It's worthless. The kid is in sensory overload. If it is a tantrum instead of a meltdown, you can't have a one sided argument. Say he blows up over no cookie. He isn't getting the cookie (for whatever the reason), then there is no reason for you to comment further. If it's a tantrum-you aren't playing the game. If it's a meltdown-you aren't add more sensory overload to his problems.

9 is a crap age because all his peers are making huge leaps with social skills. Where I live, kids had a PDD-NOS up until age 9. Depending how terrible 2nd or 3rd grade went the diagnosis was changed to Aspergers.

Hopefully something I wrote helped.

About lack of comments.

Remember this is a board for people with Autism. Maybe they can't relate. Maybe they feel they have nothing useful to say. Maybe that they have an opinion that is better kept to themselves. This board is not a busy as the general forum.

Have you tried searching to see if a similar thread was posted before?

Depending on where people live, a lot of us are dealing with the beginning of school right now, which is a big production for many of us. Many of us home school or have to deal with new teachers not getting our kids or not following IEPs---bullying issues etc. So, we aren't going to be at the ready with immediate comments, even if we have the time to read something, we may not have enough time to respond, or at least respond thoughtfully.

Anger issues can often be correlated with rigidity, and so depending on what a specific Aspie kid's issues are-- some can have some anger issues.

The Explosive Child by Dr Ross Green is the usual recommendation for parents of kids with issues with standard discipline. It involves a collaborative approach designed for kids who can't seem to be able to comply either globally or situationally. The idea is to have the child act as a participant in the process, but does require a certain amount of communication ability to implement.

Welcome--and will to try to check in later, but I am in school, now.

My daughter is currently 11. She was diagnosed with Aspergers/High Functioning Autism over the summer. She had massive anger issues toward me every night at bed time around the 7-8 age range, but those had tapered off until recently. She is much more grown that she was back then, so the anger issues are much more challenging as she can cause quite a bit of damage to me or her little brother now. I just set up a safe-haven with a neighbor for my son if it becomes needed.

I feel her anger (and depression) got worse when we were weaning her off Zoloft to see if that was causing her sleep issues (ironically, the anxiety didn't increase which is what she was on Zoloft for). From what I am told, there are negative effects of discontinuation of SSRIs when not done VERY VERY slowly (think months not days), however our doctor did the weaning over 12 days. We finally had to put her back on a medication, as her anger was quite out of control (but only at home). She is now on Prozac and I am told that the first 5-7 days are the most critical as one drug is still leaving her system and the other is just starting to get into her system, so it can be rough. We are on day 5 of the Prozac and she seems to be able to control her anger flares to some level and we actually saw a smile out her in the morning, which is really rare these days. Yesterday we had a full day without a fit/tantrum/full blown anger flare.

I feel your pain -- the anger issues are horrible and how to fix them is a complete mystery to everyone we talk to -- the standard coping methods don't seem to help (breathing, yoga, etc). She gets so angry that she flat out states she doesn't care about the consequences as long as she gets to inflict the physical violence. I obviously didn't test that theory -- I don't believe she would be okay losing her screens, but I also wasn't going to allow her to inflict physical violence on her brother just to see. And taking screens away when it is a spot I can, she goes into serious depression then as her "friends" are on the screens.

We are trying daily to get through, keep everyone safe, and find a way to help our daughter to get our daughter "back" -- we all miss the smiling, happy girl that was once a part of our family. We love her regardless, but we truly miss the happy girl. My heart breaks every day for her, as I can see she is not happy at all.

As someone who works with children on the autism spectrum, it really depends on the child. It is especially common for angry outbursts to occur in children who also have ADHD but not necessarily.

People meltdown/shutdown in different ways and for some that involves becoming "violent" (in the field we try to steer away from the negative terminology).

Typically, where these are meltdowns the child will be seen as 'unpunishable' because when a meltdown occurs they can't control their behaviour. Those with insight will often refer to themselves as 'bad' or feel guilty and frequently have low self-esteem or anxiety.

It will depend on the child but often we look for what situations trigger meltdowns (this may not be straight forward because often it will build up over and then the thing that directly precedes the meltdown is simply the last straw). We would then work on removing the child from the situation (even if they shout/swear/throw things in the 'safe' area) and exploring calming strategies (it may simply be that waiting it out works best). Ideally the child will eventually learn to remove themselves from situations.

We would emphasise the child working to 'fix' what they've done but only once they have calmed down otherwise the situation WILL escalate. For example, if they've thrown toys then they should pick them up and put them back - it may seem a mammoth task for them so it can help to be very specific (show exactly which portion they should tidy) and doing is a good way to manage anxiety, rather than being too 'soft willed'.

It's important to empathise with your child and to praise them for trying, even if they aren't successful. If you see that they've tried to contain their temper but then snapped - tell them. If they try to remove themselves from a situation but someone stops them and they meltdown - stress that they did the right thing and that the other person didn't understand that they find x difficult and this is how we're working to manage it.

Of course, this is all dependent on the developmental stage of the child (bearing in mind that children with ASD often have 'spiky' profiles, so a child who is very verbal and academically able may not be developmentally ready to regulate their emotions).

While it's reasonable to have rules like 'no hitting', there's as much point in punishing a child for a meltdown as there is a toddler for having a toilet training accident. Time outs should be time to unwind rather than a punishment as you WANT your child to take themselves there.

We would also look at whether the child has variable tolerances to sensory stimuli or is particularly over or under stimulated by things. Often overlooked are vestibular and proprioception.

I worked with a child who needed deep sensory input every half an hour to reduce metldowns