What Lies Beneath the Behavior of Children with Autism [INFOGRAPHIC]

“He pulls off the TV from the wall and throws furniture around!” she cried.

“That must be really rough on you.” I responded.
 

“Yes, we had to ask a relative to stay with us to help us. We couldn’t handle him on our own,” she said.

“How long has this being going on? Was there a sudden change in his life?” I questioned.

“Since a couple of years, from the time he was 14. We’ve tried psychiatric drugs. Once or twice my husband has hit him to control him. But nothing helped,” she said. “We’ve become afraid of him.”

My heart sank.

What can be worse than being afraid of your own child? What can be worse than thinking that hitting him will help?

I’ve know how it feels It’s a desperate situation.

When your child goes through the aggressive, hard phase- you just want it to stop. Immediately.

But something that takes time to build up cannot be eliminated immediately. I wish there was another way around it. I wish we could fix things so quickly- but there is no way out except through.

I’ve worked with behavior issues for several years now. I’ve mulled over graphs and data to ascertain the ‘function’ of behavior.

But I always felt I missed something deep.

My dear friend, you see the self stim behaviors crying, biting, hitting, pinching. These are just the tip of the iceberg.

Now take a deep breath and think.

Shift your focus from the behavior to the child.

How does he feel?

He cannot express his feelings. He feels rejected and broken. His self esteem has taken a huge beating. He feels trapped. To top it all, he can’t communicate any of this.

It’s much more than the visible behavior.

It’s about your dear child.

Each child on the spectrum is different. In all my years of work, I haven’t seen two children who are exactly alike.

Two youngsters may display aggressive behavior, but the plan for both will be different.

There is no quick fix solution. Nobody can tell you what to do on a phone call or a short visit.

It takes deep observation and study to get to the bottom of the problem. It takes consistent effort by the parents, professionals involved.

In the next article, I’ll share steps you can take to help your child overcome this behavior.

I’m also conducting a 2 hour training on dealing with problem behaviors on 15th April. For more details, you can contact us here.