Advice Needed

[lovemickeya]

I come and go on these DISBoards and everyone here has always been SUPER helpful so I am back to see what all of you can teach me.

It is summer time and my DS (7Autism) has had a terrible week. He just wants to go back to school. He has asked for the teacher, students, Music teacher, playground and speech therapist. It has been really hard to keep him "on track" with the summer routine.

With all that being said, yesterday he started hitting himself on the forehead. I have tried everything to make him stop. At first, I thought He has a headache, (he DOES NOT take meds) so I get a bit of motrin down him, but nothing still hitting the forehead. So I have trying having him wear a hat so he doesnt hit, I have but cream on there so he would not want to touch it. I am OUT OF IDEAS- Any help would be great!!!

 

[swimlib]

Any transition is hard, especially that one to the summer for children with disabilities. Working in a summer school setting, I can tell you it took a good week of school routine before the kids settled down and their behaviors calmed. I would recommend the same for your situation. Just make sure to keep a schedule, with things happening in the same order everyday. It may get a little boring for you but after a couple days your son's behaviors should calm. We do a lot of schedule boards at school for kids to know in the morning what is going to happen and in what order. It can be as simple as "Breakfast, movie, play outside, lunch, reading, walk, play in room, dinner, etc.". I don't know if it would help your son to do something like that to help ease with the transition of being at home.

 

[bookwormde]

My experience is that anytime new challenges are faced (changes from familiar routines), manifestations increase due to the associated anxiety. I guess my first thought would be if he in injuring himself, if he is it is a different situation, but if there is not any significant injury then it is just another manifestation. I have learned not to overlay the social assumption that the behavior is from trying to injure himself or any other social connotation. It is more likely to be a logical need for tactile input to help him deal with the social and other anxieties of the situation he finds himself in. As to the target, at his age I would assume he knows where his brain is so there may be some semi-logical basis for “trying to shake his brain up” to get it to do what he wants to make himself more comfortable. My son DS9 Aspergers will bang the heal of his hand and against his forehead when his perfectionism generated frustration and the associated anxiety increases.

What I do first is to try to communicate with him and try to discover what the cause of the anxiety is and guide him as to how to work through it (we all know communication is not always easy even with fully verbal children). I would definitely try to establish some level of visually documented routine with as many familiar activities as possible until the manifestations subside.

My experience is that trying to eliminate the manifestation actually greatly increases the anxiety levels unless a more socially acceptable alternative can be substituted which the child finds preferable or at least equivalently effective to meet his needs.

Hope this helps a little

bookwormde

 

[lovemickeya]

DS is "slapping" his forehead. There has not been a change in the household routine - I am not sure why he has started doing this. He has slapped himself so many times throughout the day that his forehead stays red and I am sure it is sore and he probably DOES have a headache at this point. I just pray that it stops very soon.

 

[leise]

My ASD DS (9) also does this when he is very frustrated or stressed. I know how distressing it must be.

I think it is likely to be associated with the end of school, like others have said. Nice to know he likes school enough to miss it, but that doesn't make it any easier. Hopefully he will settle down soon. My son usually takes at least a week into the holidays before he is relaxed and happy at home.

What I find helps a great deal, as well as a daily visual timetable, is a countdown calendar showing how many days til he goes back to school, that he can cross off each day. This also helps with the transition back to school as it does not come as another shock when the routine changes again. He may not fully understand that he is going back to school and when this might happen, so is stressed thinking school is finished for good, or he might be going to a different school.

Good luck, I hope things calm down soon.

 

[kaffinito]

Man, it is rough when that happens! My oldest went through years of hitting himself in the head, and then graduated to banging his head against walls, tables, whatever was handy. BUT this happened before we knew he was autistic. (Sorry to say that he didn't grow out of it, but it is better ) My youngest started slapping himself when he got stressed, but I gave him a stress ball that crunches for him to use instead. That seemed to work and he hasn't smacked himself for about a year now.

Why not try the stress ball or one of those "punch-a-bags" (available at some dollar stores and novelty stores) or maybe you can try giving him lessons? You know, sit him down and say that you are going to learn how to use blue and green in art or something like that. That has also worked for my youngest, when he gets out of summer school I will give him little lessons which seems to help him a bit.

Good luck and

 

[mechurchlady]

Your son is self-abusing. This is usually from stress, anxiety, exhaustion or other extremes in ones life. You ripped a big chunk (classes and teachers) of his routine out and left a hole. For a person who has to have order in their life this is very stressful. I am a self-abuser and exhaustion and stress are my triggers.

First of all you need to keep him stress free for now. Teach him how to deal with stress in other ways. I chew on things or play video games to release anger, tension and frustration. winning at things, being successful, and helping people give off positive brain stuff. You will have to find a new routine for him so that he is doing things. He needs his schedule back in order.

I have watched my mother self-abuse and only now am realizing how bad it was. I self-abuse like as a kid I would hit my head and say I was stupid when frustrated with homework. It is very upsetting to see someone you love hurt themselves. The only cure is to prevent or reduce the triggers, be aware of when an episode may be coming, and then when an episode happens prevent damage and try to relieve the episode by redirecting the frustration, anger, or whatever emotion exists.

Sending you big hugs and prayers.