You should not feel that way I am sure you are doing the best you can. You also do not have the training or the ability to give your child 24/7 care, you need your rest time to.

Sometimes you just have to do the best for your child and if that means letting the professionals so it then that is what had to be done. Trust me I know the sadness and guilt you are feeling but you have to move on and do what is best

Meds are good and do work but sometimes that is not even enough. The hospital however is a short term solution to the problem. Not that the staff does not try but they can only do so much, then your child gets back home and the behaviors start again pretty quickly.

Sometimes like in the case of my daughter you have to consider residential treatment. It is a tough choice to make but sometimes it is best for all involved. The mistake parents often make is to keep the child in the home far to long because they do get bigger and stronger and much harder to handle.

A good residential program works with the child in stages where at the younger ages they start on behavior, in the early teens life skills and then in the late teens working and real world skills. This is not a situation where they medicate your child to be a zombie and put them in the corner. I am not saying there are not bad programs out there but something like that is rare.

The longer you put things off the more that time table I described gets put off and the less skills they are able to teach your child. My daughter had been in for a year and she is 8. She has progressed more than we could ever have done at home. She had one on one care all day long up until she goes to bed and then it starts again in the morning. She goes to school six days a week and they do not have the week long vacations like at school that can drive you crazy. We have her after school on Saturday until Monday morning every week, and if there is a holiday we keep her extra time. She is also nonverbal and works with sign language and PECS and are now starting her on the IPad for communication. She has about six words she can say now and can go out in the community with much fewer incidents.

The child can advance to a day program if the progress enough and do not have to keep with residential. If you do have to admit your child to the hospital all that documentation can be used against the school for placement.

Aggression is hard to deal with because there is no single cause and no single solution. The general rule is to figure out the cause, and deal with the cause as directly as possible.

Aggression is frequently (but not always) under voluntary control. The child might be using the aggression to obtain something, or to communicate something. Many ASD kids can't distinguish between "good attention" and "bad attention", so it can be problematic to even give them too much obvious attention.

If a child is aggressive because they are frustrated and unable to communicate, then the only way to deal with it in the long term will be to figure out a way to aid the communication.

If a child is aggressive because of physical pain, then the medical issue will have to be solved before you can make any progress. This can be a long process, because so many ASD kids are unable to tell you where (and when) it hurts.

If the aggression is due to a psychological condition, then you may have to treat the psychological condition as a separate issue from the autism.

Some kids have extreme behaviors, including even self injury, simply because they are unable to calm themselves down. Although you can make great progress by teaching self-calming techniques, it is not always enough.

Medication can certainly help, but it is also important to use ABA approaches whenever possible. If a child throws an extreme tantrum and ends up getting what they want, then the behavior has been reinforced, and the tantrums will get more extreme in the future.

While it is early, do everything you can to avoid reinforcing bad behaviors. I know this is pretty silly advice, considering the situation, but it is about the best I have.

Hi, I used to work in an inpatient psych hospital and when my Jaiden started becoming aggressive I was so down and out. We put him on risperdal 1 ml to start and when he gets extremely aggressive we also give him a dose of Benadryl. I would try to keep his behaviors under control at home, though I know at times it may be rough because of his strength. Medications are always based on their weight and age so just ask the psychiatrist or psych nurse what they would recommend you doing before ever admitting him. Good luck!

Right now I feel like the worse mom ever, I don't know what to do, but I do know we can't keep walking on egg shells we have ABA and he is on meds ( as much as I hate to admit that) I'm just so sad right now, :(