My poor daughter

I felt so happy when the punching etc stopped and then he reverted to scratching but that seems to have stopped and now we are left with pushing and hitting my hand but we are working on that now , it's ongoing lol

Oh and the decibel busting , ear popping high pitched screaming has escalated too lol

Hullo nannynoo. I haven't seen you posting for a while and I had wondered how you were getting on.

You are doing wonderfully with your DGS, he has had a lot to cope with in his life and still does, of course.

I very much hope the course gives you good ideas for how to deal with the problems you and your DGS are having.

{{hugs}}

Today my DD had to deal with a massive meltdown in a store carpark in Glasgow. GS1 saw a pigeon die and wanted to take it somewhere and give it a burial. Needless to say, my DD didn't fancy carrying a dead, probably bacteria filled pigeon anywhere and told him no. Of course then my DD was all the awful things in the universe, a bad mother, etc. She had to frog march tall eight year old boy to the subway station, accompanied by two younger sons. The comments she had from strangers was less than encouragingly, and she swore at one man who criticized her parenting. She didn't want her son to bolt, as he would have done if not restrained. She got them home but the meltdown carried on for an hour and a half! I've just finished listening to the tale of woe, she needed a mum chat as she calls it.
They are all visiting us at the weekend, she is dreading the train journey with three boys with ASD's.

I have been in your DD's situation myself. DS2 has ASD, we got a good level of respite when he was 14, largely due to the issue of child protection for his younger brothers. Most of the things I would have recommended have already been mentioned. I would just like to add that the Challenging Behaviour Foundation is more than a Facebook page and gives excellent advice, DVDs on how to manage challenging behaviour that are free to parents etc. I'm away from home at the moment & can't check, but the email address starts cbf- hopefully this is enough for you to find them online! It does get better, DS2 is now 23 years old and calm, funny and loving 99% of the time. Best wishes to you and your daughter and congratulations for coping thus far. I will PM you as well.

Please be careful about residential care as there are some horror stories out there , parents being told it was just for a few weeks or months and years later the child or young adult is still there as they were sectioned and the parents are powerless to remove them!

16 years later and some teens now adults are still in there and legally it is hard to remove them once they are sectioned plus many are hundreds of miles away from the family home and there is not an open door policy to see your child / loved one so a lot of what goes on is hidden

( there was a snippet about it on This Morning on BBC1 today ) and it is every Autism parents nightmare as you need the help , it is left till it gets to crisis stage then the 'help' turns out to be no help at all but a nightmare where the child or adult is made worse but there are some good community programs yet few and far between but some carer groups are pushing for more care / support / respite etc in the community not in these huge 'care homes' as the vulnerable can be open to mental and physical abuse which is the last thing they need in their already fragile state!

I feel there are some excellent charities out there which is where I will reach out for help if needed in the future as I find them more trustworthy as the authorities are on a budget and the cheapest 'care' certainly is not always the best , nor the support , but many of the charities are run by Autism parents etc themselves so they have a huge understanding on the type of support needed for families and I am so glad they are out there as my safety net if needed ( rather than council run residential care tbh , particularly the 'crisis care!!' :-( )

Really feel for you I ve no real advice except as others have said, support of others in the same situation is so so helpful (just talking and moaning and getting it all off her chest with people with similar kids will be such a relief)
So glad you are visiting and can take some strain off even for a short while
I was wondering if the 4 year old could have a holiday with you ? Just a thought

And to the poster who says she hopes her grandson grows out of ADHD you don't grow out of 'different wiring' you have to learn to work with it and how to manage it Ritalin isn't always the best answer for the child it's a cosh to be honest so easier for the school, but is it for the child ? It's not a nice drug