My son is 7 years old and has aspergers. He is currently doing well ins second grade after a horrible first year. He is well but he has begun to get so sad and angry and doesn't really know why. It is breaking my heart and he is so confused he wants to hit and lash out at the world. He knows he cannot hit people (that was last year) but he wants to release his anger. He is in karate and doing well but I was wondering if anyone else is experiencing this with their child and what they are⦠read more
Please pick a copy of The Explosive Child by Ross Greene. People are going to get sick of hearing me say this, but the book will teach you how to teach your son how to think things thru. It made an amazing difference in my daughter's life, and I've seen it work with many other families. Please do yourself a favor, spend the $12 or so, pick up a copy on Amazon or have your library order it in for you. You won't be sorry!
Having grown up as an Aspie in an era when anger had to be internalized and not expressed. I learned to tear napkins into long strips, then small pieces to make snowflakes hat I could throw in the air & watch fall. It calmed me down quickly.
We use this same method at our school whenever a student starts to get angry.
It may not be very scientific, but is effective.
My son is 6 and anger management is an issue...he cannot control himself, when he is upset it is very bad. Since he is back to school it is worst because of anxiety, tiredness...etc. What works well for us is to show him pictograms of what he can do to calm down and we are also rewarding him with something he likes after 4 good days (at the end of the day, if he made an effort to control his anger during the day we gave him a Spiderman token and after he accumulated 4, he can chose a reward). The plan is to raise the amount of days required for a reward when it is easier for him to get the token. Good Luck!
Try getting him involved in something else that focuses him. Boy Scouts, FFA, 4H, something that will help him release his energy. When my son got that way there was usually a reason for it, something at school mainly, but if he got the energy out he could focus better and try to tell me what was wrong. Hiking worked well. So did getting him his own cat. A cat, not a kitten. (I still think his cat has Asperger's too.)
Please let me know if you find an answer to this one. My son began crying loudly during his 1st grade year, but was still productive. By 2nd grade his crying escalated to screaming and tantrums. By the middle of 2nd grade he had completely shut down and was constantly acting out. He was put out of his school and is currently doing intensive outpatient therapy to get to the bottom of it. So far, it seems to all stem from frustration of daily activities, the inability to recognize and control his emotions, and incorrect communication strategies. All of the things we know about autism, but at pronounced or expressed differently during a different developmental stage in life.