My 13-year-old grandson came to live with us last November. He has ADHD, DMDD, ODD and 3 different Psychiatrists and the therapist thinks he has Aspergers. We're waiting for testing. Initially, I made every parenting mistake as I slowly learned why “normal” parenting techniques don’t work with neurodiverse children. I finally began “getting it” this summer and he and I have been getting along famously since. We’d been roughhousing some the last few months, good naturedly, and I saw that as a way to further cement our relationship and move him further away from defense mode. But for the last few weeks he’s been pinching and slapping me pretty hard and I’ve repeatedly asked him to stop. He just counters by saying it doesn’t hurt. So he starts again and while I participate for awhile he starts to pinch too hard and I tell him he’s hurting me and to please stop. Of course he doesn’t so I tell him I’m going to show him what it feels like. So I pinch him and he says “ that doesn’t hurt”, so I pinch him harder and instead of the expected, “ok, I get it, I’ll stop” I get a rage monster. He explodes with “why could you not tell me another way” and F you, F this family, I can’t wait until I can leave” and this went on for about 10 minutes until he stomped upstairs and slammed his door. I share the blame or maybe all of it for participating and also because I know he’s neurodiverse but I honestly didn’t know what to do to get him to stop. My attempts to communicate verbally failed and the demonstration I made just put him deep into defense mode. From experience and backed up by the AE article I’ve learned punishment and reward don’t work but I’m trying to find a way where I don’t have to go through another 6 months to get him out of defense mode. I’ve thought I’ll give him a few days to see if he comes around but based on past experiences I doubt it. Any ideas or suggestions the group has would be much appreciated!

Posted by ttpratt at 2022-09-29 00:39:49 UTC