Sheltering in place is hard. Sheltering in place while working full time and also supervising distance learning for your kids is really hard. But the hardest thing is spending every hour of every day with an emotionally reactive child.
I know all kids are struggling right now. I know this is difficult on all parents. I know everyone is doing the best they can. But spending every hour of every day with a kid who cannot manage their reactions is exhausting in a way I have never experienced before.
I”m so tired of waiting for my kid to lose their shit. I’m so tired of taking deep breaths through the screams and the throwing and the hitting and the kicking. I’m so tired of being consistent and holding firm on boundaries and being berated and insulted for my efforts. I’m so tired of feeling like the consistency isn’t paying off.
Consistency is the key to any behavior management plan, but I think it’s efficacy is bullshit. We require our kids to brush their teeth every morning and evening. We require them to eat three meals every day. We require they take showers twice a week. We require limits on screen time. We have always upheld these expectations and every day I still have to navigate tantrums when I ask for any one of the these things to be done. I respond with empathy and understanding, but firm resolve, every time, and it doesn’t seem to change anyone’s reactions. I still have to fight for even the most basic of self-care to be accomplished.
I’m so tired of managing my kid’s behavior. I’m tired of walking on egg shells. I’m tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m tired of steeling myself for a meltdown every time I request the smallest thing. I’m tired of keeping calm while I am physically and verbally assaulted. I’m tired.
I try so hard to do be proactive, to model the behavior I want to see, to practice strategies when we are calm, to remind them of strategies before the rage boils over. I’m working through the steps in The Explosive Child but it seems to be getting me no where.
Yes, I know kids do well when they can. I understand it’s a lack of skills, but I don’t understand when the skills will be learned. It feels like there has been AMPLE opportunity for these skills to be learned.
The idea of spending the next three months like this makes it hard to breath. It crushes something deep inside me. It strangles any semblance of hope I may have. Once school stops all the boundaries will be created and held by me. I can’t even point to an outside entity anymore. The wrath of my explosive child when expectations are enforced will be brutal. It will be a string of long, hard days.
I know this too will pass. But right now, man is it hard.
This is massively hard.
This is living with domestic violence.
I do not have answers. I know how much effort and attention and hard work you have put into this issue. I know you have talked to doctors and looked at meds and clearly have not gotten adequate help. I have absolutely no idea if agencies like STAND that deal with domestic violence might have answers or if they could result in inappropriate responses from other agencies.
I do not think you are, at all, being unreasonable or difficult or demanding in your expectations. I do know your children are both old enough to understand these expectations and meet them with reminders perhaps but absolutely with cooperative behaviors. Both of your children are now too old to be hitting/assaulting other family members.
I wish I had advice or could help. My only question would be: If the child in question is with their grandparent do they exhibit the same behavior? Depending on answer, might a stay at that house reduce the stresses on your household or even effect some change in behaviors? And I don’t know, assaulting grandparents could do real damage.
I do know this is awful and you need help. On top of the stresses of the pandemic etc this really is terrible.
I’m so sorry. I feel you.
My 7 year old has ASD and ADHD and I know those behaviours and I have experienced how difficult they are to live with. From 2.5-5years I almost had a nervous breakdown. I don’t know how I went that long without cracking.
What has helped the most has been access to good therapists, starting at age 3.5. Therapy is not ABA, but focusses on social skills and self regulation. Over the past year they have introduced a package called the Zones of Regulation. His year One teacher loved it so much she got the whole class doing it and the principal thought it was so good he bought the package and teacher training for the whole school (preK to yr6). I can’t say how fabulous it is for L to be getting this consistent reinforcement from therapists, school and in the home. I recommend looking into it.
The other tool that has been a godsend is the TimeTimer. We also use visual schedules, so I get him to check the schedule for what task comes next, and ask him to set the time timer for either a certain amount of time that I choose, or a negotiated reasonable amount of time of his choosing (depending on the situation). Time Timer is King of the house. When that baby goes off, you can’t argue with it. It is an inanimate object. I would be lost without it. It surely helps that we have used this thing as a boundary since he was 3, because now it is so ingrained he wouldn’t think of arguing about it. And it takes a huge amount of nagging out of the equation.
The third thing that has helped was the recent ADHD diagnosis (Nov 2019) which opened up opportunity for medication. Ritalin offers him some useful focus and ability to be a little more emotionally even. It’s not perfect, it’s never going to be a panacea because this isn’t a ‘curable’ thing. But providing stability to his neural network has definitely helped him at least have the ABILITY to work with therapists etc so those emotional regulation tools can be useful.
Please do not think I have my shit together and am swanning along looking smug, here. Life is still hard and with all this current uncertainty and fluctuating of situations, we’ve had a rougher trot than usual of late.
I don’t know exactly what your child’s personal situation is, but I can only share my experiences with you and I wanted to offer you the top three things that help us.
I am autistic too, and the Coronavirus experience has been stressful and more than a little difficult for me to navigate personally, let alone help my son through, let alone suddenly find myself with NO alone time, and his needs greater than ever. Boy is it a BAD combination. And I know that without the outside help I receive I would surely go under. This is not a thing I could be expected to manage alone, and no one should be expected to do that. The way you describe your child’s behaviour puts me in mind of Pathalogical Demand Avoidance (PDA). I’m not trying to diagnose anything, I’m just putting it out there as an option to investigate if you haven’t come across that before.
So I am hoping you are able to access help somehow, from somewhere. Theoretical help is better than nothing, but practical, tangible help would be ideal. I wish I could offer you more.
I have been reading your blogs since we were TTC together a million years ago. I see so much of myself in you – especially in the way you think – which I suspect may be due to the fact that we are both neurodiverse. I often want to respond to your posts with a comment and don’t (executive functioning issues with follow-through, lol), but this is the first one that has compelled me to get off my bum and do it. Because I really want you to know that I hear you, that this shit is real, and it’s hard and if you can possibly find it anywhere, you need to ask for some help now.
Personally, I don’t find prayers very useful so I am sending you heartfelt love instead. And some hope.
Thank you so much for writing. So good to hear from you. And so good to get your perspective. I actually got the Zones of Regulation curriculum book, which I know works best in groups but I’m hoping I can use with my kids together. They could both use these skills though one absolutely needs them. I’m relieved to have something at least to try. Already the summer doesn’t seem so scary. Expressing my gratitude.
I so hear you. Both my kids have ASsD and the younger one especially is volatile with many sensory issues. Other commenters have offered wonderful solutions for managing behavior. A key piece for sure, but I do find it so difficult to manage my various conflicting emotions around my son.
For whatever reason (and I have never been into attachment parenting or other formal styles), gentle parenting has really spoken to me the last year or two. It’s given me ways of being for managing my emotions and learning how to hold space for a volatile child. For a quick intro, I highly recommend the Instagram account @synergy.gentle.parenting (think she has a website too). Regardless of the path you take, I wish you peace on this journey. No one who hasn’t dealt with issues like these can understand what it’s like.
Typo! Not ASsD!!
You say you can’t point to an outside entity, but I also don’t think it’s entirely correct to point to yourself either. We are experiencing very similar issues with Harvey, even though we have parented both of our children as alike as possible. It’s exhausting and heartbreaking and difficult to be sure. Like the poster above, we have been doing counseling with Harvey (first in school and then via zoom since social distancing started) and the Zones of Regulation definitely help Harv. I’m sort of jealous of how calmly he talks to the therapist, honestly, but she has shared her resources with me and it definitely helps to be consistent in verbiage around expressing emotions. Beyond that, no solid advice other than to say stay the course and I feel you!
I feel this. We have a similar situation. Sheltering in place was really hard. We use Zones of regulation and emotional behavior charts but they don’t work when the kid doesn’t want to do it.