When we become a punching bag....

[Guest guest]

Hi Amy,

We have a similar situation with , age 10, who can be so sweet one minute

than completely beat the pucky out of you in the next minute with no warning.

We all stand there dumb-founded like, what the heck just happened?

The first thing I do when behaviors become new and numerous is check the health.

Could it be his ears, throat, fever, sinuses? For us, has a lot of GI

issues and it's usually related to some abdominal discomfort. Right now that is

our problem of the week. Yesterday I was dipping pretzels for teacher

appreciation week and I made the mistake of leaving the bag of pretzel rods out

on the kitchen island. I got distracted doing nine things at once. His case

worker was here and his community support worker. He saw the bag of pretzels

and tried to take one. I felt awful once I knew that it was something I could

have totally prevented. He went ballistic. Had a huge meltdown, hitting,

kicking, head butting, biting, screaming. We were trying to offer his GF

pretzels and he did not want that. Once he gets on a roll like that it goes

from bad to worse. He got over the pretzels but then starts screaming for

" green guys " which are his army men. This then becomes a pattern of us fetching

the request with him then screaming for something else. It's a pattern of him

trying to get us to soothe him in some way instead of him being able to

self-soothe himself. He was throwing toys everywhere. Nice for the case worker

to finally witness as the CSW and I have described the situation before but he's

always an angel when she comes by.

can be so sweet to little babies or kids, just perfect, then without any

warning, BAM! For no reason! It's awful. I feel for you with your fears for

the new baby. I think it's great that you are trying to acclimate Asher with

the baby doll. Hopefully that is registering in there and when the REAL baby

gets here, he'll make a connection. Do you have any friends with babies that

could come by and visit occasionally. It would be nice if he could witness the

crying and everyday real things that babies do.

As far as the behaviors, it's hard. We are now dealing with a strong boy who

becomes an octopus in the midst of the meltdown, limbs everywhere, using that

low muscle tone for everything it's worth. It takes two of us to hold him and

get him calmed down - usually with one of us getting a good beating in the

process. Eventually he calms down and we all get the very sweet round of

apologies.

Maybe a social story that was very simple for him to understand? Ideas of what

he can do when he's mad. A big pillow he can hit. Do you have a mini tramp or

ball pit or something to give him that input? The Rainy Day Indoor Playground

has saved my life. It's an indoor swing that sets up in a doorway - I don't

know what we'd do if we didn't have that. We used to have a sensory room in our

old (much bigger) house and he had a jumpoline filled with balls and a big gym

mat he could crash into. Here in this house it's tough, had to get creative.

Big ball, mini-tramp, swing. For , if he doesn't get outside to play, we

know it's going to be a bad afternoon and evening for us. He gets a lot of his

sensory needs met by playing outside. Yesterday it was indoor recess and it

rained in the afternoon - sure enough, it was a tough night.

I know this is miles long, sorry. It's just that we are in the same place with

the random beatings!

Take care,

Jayne