My autistic son is out of control. What do I do
“I need some advice. My autistic son, is entirely out of control, no matter what we do, we cant get him to stop knocking his own teeth out, kicking his grandmother, whom has a lot of health issues, making himself throw up, hurting himself, hurting his brother and fighting with parents. My head is spinning, we have tried community mental health with no success, I have him enrolled with Easter seals but not for another 3 days.
Does anyone have any experiences with taking your child to an emergency room? If so, can you tell me, what all happens? Thanks in advance for any help and support.”
You have to get to the heart of the problem. Is your son in need of more stimulation than is currently in his environment? Some kids on the spectrum crave MORE stimulation and will do hurtful things to themselves and others to get that sense of pain or pressure. The opposite is also true–Gavin may need less stimulation than what is currently in his environment. Reduce noise, reduce visual stimulation (blank walls, no decorations, no color except maybe green, which has shown to be very calming even to people who are neurotypicals), reduce smells (does Grandma wear too much perfume?), etc.
Taking him to the E.R. will result in two things–either the doctors will ask to place your son on a 72-hour observation hold and then send him back home with you, or the police and CPS will be called to undermine your parental authority because a doctor thinks you can’t handle your kid and you don’t know what you are doing. Neither of these options resolves what is actually going on with your son, and you have to figure it out by either reducing or increasing his stimulation. It’s often best to reduce stim first, because increasing stim in an already overstimmed child could result in some very dangerous situations. Only after you have attempted to create a “padded, quiet room” at home should you attempt to increase stimulation, slowly, to see if that helps instead.
“How to make an autistic child respond to his name“
What I suggest is to do any natural responses that help your child calm down as the ER will checmially restraint your child if out of control .This is terrifying for the child and yourself and as the first answer says solves nothing for your child .
I wouldn’t take your son to the ER, they will admit him to the nearest mental health facility with a pediatric ward. It accomplishes nothing. All they do is try different medications and often tend to over medicate children. There is no environmental therapy, and does not observe children in the environment they have their outbursts in. Try a tablet or Ipad with different autism apps. The autistic child’s brain runs faster than a normal brain and makes it tough for an autistic child to communicate his/her feelings. Add some learning games to the tablet, this can help preoccupying him/her when a meltdown is about to happen. Also, Legos and Art are great diversion tactics as well. My son is on the Autism Spectrum and has frequent meltdowns, temper flairs and tends to destroy property and anything he can throw. This does help him along with some background music to create a brain diversion.
As the mother of a child who is recovered from ASD. If a child diagnosed with autism is having a difficult time with behaviors, lashing our, self-injuring or harming others, etc. it would be important to get to the root cause. Autism symptoms vary greatly, but they can be tampered down and even healed. I was told when my son was first diagnosed that there was no cure, no healing or help to be had. We were told to go home and get plans in place for our sons life with autism. Please don’t misunderstand me as saying that children with autism need to be fixed or changed. However, in the case where a child with autism truly doesn’t feel good physically or emotionally, it’s important to help them to heal in those areas. My son is healed, but he will always be a little “quirky.” 🙂 We love that about him. I have (5) children and all of them are a little goofy…even my neuro-typical kiddos. Ha!
Sensory Disorder can cause a child to feel very uncomfortable in their own body and out of control. The last thing the child needs is to be punished, medicated or taken away from their parents. Placing a weighted vest on the child (amazon.com) or find a used one from another autism parent on TACA.com, can help the child to feel more grounded and less “out there in space.” It worked very well for many of the kiddos with behaviors in my sons therapy groups. There are also weighted blankets for naps and night time sleeping. They aren’t heavy per say, but just enough solid weight to make the child feel safe and secure. When my son was a toddler we felt it was important to put a lock on his bedroom door, windows at night while he slept to keep him from wandering if he awakened before we did. I never kept anything in his room that he could get into or harm himself with. It was all for his safety and well being, and our peace of mind. Thank goodness those days are past, but I’m glad we took those measures. We also put an alarm on our home in case he opened a door to explore outside without us knowing. Many ASD children don’t understand danger or safety.
Diet and gut health is almost always an issue with children who suffer from some of the more debilitating ASD symptoms. Changing our sons diet to include little to no sugars, dyes, artificial ingredients, processed foods, wheat/dairy or soy made a world of difference in how he felt and acted. It was a challenge, but totally worth it to see him healing and feeling so much better. It definitely helps behaviors. Children with autism tend to have gut dysbiosis whether that be candida (yeast) overgrowth and/or leaky gut. This causes the foods they eat to leak out into their blood streams which affects their brain function. Healing and sealing their GUT issues can be a great help in their quality of life. I highly recommend fermented foods such as kefir, kombucha and cultured vegetables like kimchi, kraut and pickles. (Some of my sons favorites). I make my own which is very easy and cost effective. But, you can certainly buy them at the store. Make sure they are raw and not processed. Diet proves to be a huge factor in helping to heal kiddos with ASD and ADD/ADHD.
Medications can help, but they are truly only a band-aid. Doctors (regular M.D.’s) mean well, but if most have little to no training in treating autism or in dealing with autistic children. Their first reaction is to deal with autism as only a brain disorder, when it is so much more complex. Doctors will usually prescribe meds for children that while temporarily helpful, can cause even more problems down the road. I have had success not only with diet, but by using certain essential oils with my son for calming, focus and even balance. I use them for me too! Hey, when you have a child with special needs you have to take care of yourself as well! Try to locate either a physician who works with autistic children, or a bio medical doctor (google for your state). Biomed was amazing in pinpointing our sons major issues (gut) so that we could help him to begin to heal. Behaviors can and many times does accompany autism, but not always. Another option is looking for a quality ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) program in your area. Many states will cover this under their Medicaid programs (ours did). Our son was in ABA for 2.5 years. They break every day life lessons down into small increments and teach the children how to function in the world. It was a great experience for us and our son. His behaviors were greatly reduced due to the ABA therapy he received from age 5-7.
Sorry I went off topic here, but I had to add this. Wishing everyone here the very best! Join me on Facebook @ Healthy Gut Kitchen. 🙂 Or @ http://www.healthygutkitchen.com
Thanks for the post. It caught my eye as my child has a very similar issue.
I agree with the idea of leaky gut, however it should also be pointed out that you can develop multiple food intolerances with leaky gut. The most common are histamine intolerance, salicylate intolerance and oxalate intolerance. You can find diets, symptoms and information online. Histamine intolerance can cause numerous neuropsychiatric disorders, including hallucinations and salicylates can cause explosive outbursts of anger. Unfortunately the scd diet is high in both these things. For such problems try elimination diets and see what happens to both behavior and the gut. Then eliminate problematic foods and I suggest taking align probotics which are low in histamines. As you begin to reintroduce foods, focus on scd friendly carbohydrates and continue trying to introduce fermented foods like pickles, sauerkraut and (only) scd yogurt. Scd yogurt may be problematic as it is high in histamines, however such things are needed for gut repair so keep adding small or even minute fermented foods once every three days at whatever amount is tolerated. You can freeze the yogurt if necessary and continue the align/bifido if that is all that is working. Turn around may be quick or take years, however some improvement should be seen immediately. This is difficult but worth the effort. Also get a 23and me genetic analysis and run the raw data thru a methylation analyzer like genetic genie or others. Ben Lynch provides some info on doing this. Then look to Amy Yasko books to understand what you find. These genetic defects include the Mao-a warrior gene and a tendency to create excitotoxins-toxins…that is to build up toxins that affect the brain. Such things are often associated with gut dysfunction. In fact the gut is lined with neurons (brain cells). Good luck! Keep trying, ask questions on Google, don’t give up.
Hey this may offend some parents but here’s what to do. Physically restrain him. Verbally and very loudly inform him that what he is doing is not acceptable. Take away all preferred toys for a specific period of time. If he is really bad put him in a room with nothing but a foam mattress and some pillows. Inform him that his behavior will not be tolerated and he needs to calm himself down. Tell him not to come out of the room until he is calm.
This may offend you and I fully intend that, but you clearly don’t know what you are talking about. ASD is a neurological problem, not simply a child behaving badly.