new to Group

[Guest guest]

Hi

My name is Marilyn and I live in England. I'm a foster mom and at

present have a boy long term who is on the Autistic Spectrum. He is

diagnosed GDD but we all know he is aomewhere on the autistic

spectrum as well. He is gorgeous but hard work. he used to beat up

on his previopus foster mom which is why he is with me! He has only

tried that 3 time with me and got nowhere but it is part of his

pattern. I am not allowed to use restraint but this week my husband

had to hold his wrists firm but gently as he launced himself at me

and began pinching any fleshy bitn he could find and flailing his

arms--ouch!. What started it? who knows! He gets a pattern of

thought in his head --a loop and just goes into a behavioural

pattern. Most times I can spot it. He was very wild when he first

came to us (18 months ago)and used to growl and shout out a lot of

random swear words at random times for no apparant reason and I

thought he may have Tourettes. I just spent a lot of time

introducing and reinforcing firm boundaries and he responded but I

had no experience with this or training it was just learn on the job!

He is actually a lovely boy and we do love him Now the really wild

behaviours have subsided we see the loops of behaviour more

clearly. My main worry is the aggression towards me. His pattern is

aggression toward the female carer I guess becuase his birth mom can

be very mean with him. Or maybe it will be to do with whatever

special needs are undiagnosed. We brought this to the Social workers

attention and now the contacts with mom are supervised.I am worried

that as he gets older I will not have the strategies to deal with him

and someone may be seriously hurt. I am limmited in getting a

diagnoses as the Social Service only let me go as far as getting a

referral for speech and hearing. They are unwilling to fund any more

support then he already has. He gets 30 hours of support at school a

week. But Us and the school are all learning to deal with his

behavors together as we were all in the dark. I know this post

sounds bitty but if anything strikes a chord with any of you on the

list please post your 'pearls'

God Bless to everyone

Marilyn