My son is autistic. Not classified as aspbergers, but maybe I can get some insight as I’m at a loss of what to do. My son is 8 years old and we have been at the biggest battle of wills it seems. I’m a single mother and raise him 100% myself. Father is in his life but 2 states away, and visits 2x a year. He is homeschooled. He can speak and has a receptive/expressive speech delay. We have had a major battle of wills and control for a long while now. My son is disregulated a lot causing anger/violence. I am not allowed to do many things like coughing/sneezing/leave the room to use the bathroom (or leave the room in general) as it triggers him. We cannot play competitive games as he gets triggered by losing, so I stick to collaborative games. Even with collaborating games, he gets triggered if the game is not going his way. He has been a bowler for years and we would go weekly on top of his bowling league pre covid. He now gets triggered when he doesn’t get a strike or a spare. Though he insisted he still wants to bowl, I’ve made the decision to take a break from bowling because no matter how much I would try to prep him before hand and practice our coping skills, he ends up melting down in the middle of the game every time. He also refuses any guidance and will talk over me when giving him any instruction, or when trying to talk to him about a situation, trying to talk about our feelings, or explain a boundary that’s been crossed. This includes any instruction. Even as little as “wash up and put on your pajamas” is met with him yelling over me to drown me out. I have read uniquely human by Dr. Barry Prizant which helped me dig a little more for the “why” behind some of these things, and I also read the explosive child by Dr. Ross Greene. Sadly using the CPS method is hard because my son will not let me talk to him about anything. I reached out to 2 “ask an autistic” groups about this. One group basically told me I was a garbage mother, and another group gave great advice. They told me to keep things “short and sweet”. Later on I spoke with a child psychologist said the same. So I’ve been doing that, but still get drowned out. I pick my battles a lot and he has a lot of control here. he crosses boundaries A LOT with myself and others. I notice many kids I bring him around end up not wanting to play with him due to boundaries not being respected. Anytime someone says “please stop” he will laugh and continue. He refuses to be taught otherwise no matter how short I make it. It’s come to the point where if a boundary is crossed (for instance: yelling in my ear for fun) I tell him “please stop, that hurts”. He laughs and will usually does it again, to which I say “okay second time, please stop that hurts”. If he does it a third time, he loses a privilege (he has caught onto this and typically stops after the second time). The threat of losing something is the only way he will listen. I hate being this kind of mom. I wake up every morning promising to be more patient, and by the end of the day I’m beyond burnt out and exhausted. Please help

Posted by hbombzikins at 2022-09-11 06:09:35 UTC