Hi all, not sure if posts like this are allowed here but: I’m a dad to a 7 year old on the “less severe” end of the spectrum (is that the right way to phrase it?) and while he generally lives a pretty normal life he’s recently started having trouble dealing with emotional changes. Things like:
- adjusting to changes in his schedule (like a school lesson has to be changed)
- having a disagreement with someone
- when he or a group he is part of loses at something (he takes board/card games too seriously and holds himself personally responsible for losing)
Things like this cause him to get immediately frustrated which quickly moving into anger and screaming and some cases violence. Obviously mum and I are trying to help him understand and manage these feelings but I’m worried the way we’re trying to help him with it isn’t the way he needs.
Does anyone here have any experience with similar situations or advice on helping him to manage these emotions? Thanks in advance.
In my experience as a kid, directly managing my emotions was practically impossible at that age. That’s got little to with autism though, a lot of kids are like that. The autism just means there will be different triggers than most other kids.
Many of my difficulties as a kid were in not understanding something everyone else just knew intuitively. For example, when playing a competitive game with friends, family, or classmates “The Game” doesn’t actually matter. Which game, who wins, who looses; These aren’t why people are there. But that’s how everyone talks about it. Everyone pretends that’s why they’re there. The reality is they’re simply using it as an excuse to spend time with each other. “The Game” serves no purpose beyond giving structure to a session of socializing. If you can explain that to him, and he can grok it. It’ll cut off much of his concern for wining. Maybe not completely, as some people are just annoyingly competitive. It’s possible he’s one of those. In which case I’d recommend switching to cooperative games.
Changes in the schedule are only a little different. Again because of how most people talk about things, it seems they’re fixed. When in reality most know intuitively, plans and schedules are dynamic. I eventually learned to do what I call “Planing for Chaos”. I needed to learn that every schedule is only a hope, not a guarantee. And when inevitably things don’t go as planned, I needed to come up with contingencies. Some generic: Put on headphones and listen to something while I wait. Others are more specific: If this doesn’t happen, I’ll go do this other thing instead, then check back. But it depends on understanding that the schedule is never anything other than a hope.
Disagreements are going to be the most difficult. I’m still not good at that. I generally avoid them, which I know isn’t good. Mostly because when I don’t, I will get… Intense. And I’m a rather large man now. It’s extremely easy for me to intimidate or even scare people when I get upset. And that’s never what I want to do. It generally works against me, no matter how compelling my argument.
Good luck. I hope that was some help.
My son (10) sounds a lot like your son, and in my experience my son has gotten so much better with consistent encouragement and discussion around his emotions and social expectations (e.g. it’s okay to feel upset and/or disappointed, but it’s not okay to have outbursts because of the feelings, and there are better ways to express those strong emotions). I’ve also (single dad, so I don’t always know what mom does with him) grown to taking real life situations (i.e. when I get upset, or we’re watching TV and something happens on the show that has happened to him before) and having impromptu conversations. I genuinely feel these help more because he’s more receptive and not already upset; because when he’s upset he doesn’t want to listen to anything that anyone has to say at that point.
It can be frustrating as a parent to have to keep reiterating the same messages over and over again, but I can assure you that when he gets it on his own, the pride you will feel for him will make it all worth it.
Keep it up dad! You and mom got this!
I’ve heard the phrase ‘less/more profound’ though it seems there is still much debate on terminology.
Identifying emotions can be useful, probably has to occur after the event when he is receptive. There are many aids for this like emotion wheels etc should be easy to find online. A lot of autistics struggle to understand what they’re feeling or separate emotions from physical feelings so having a guide can help give him the tools. Might be useful to read about alexithymia also.
Perhaps role-playing a scenario might be good too. Such as playing a short board game together and saying let’s try to lose on purpose. Or changing your schedule but letting him know ahead of time that this is a ‘practice’ change (and the change being a nice thing for him). Having it occur in a safe way may help him tolerate and understand it when its less under his control.
I have a child clearly on the spectrum as well. One thing that is helping is to teach some sort of grounding technique like taking a big breath and releasing it a few times. It gives them something to focus on that they can control. Then after the initial overwhelm of emotions subsides they can decide how to deal with the situation (asking for help, communicating their frustration, etc) without exploding. As they get older we’ll probably work on specific phrases they can use to let others know, as politely as possible, that they need a minute to get their bearings.
