How to Manage Aggressive Behaviour In Children With Autism

 It is important to establish clear strategies and plans on how to manage aggressive behaviour in your child if they have special needs.

How to Manage Aggressive Behaviour In Children With Autism

Within your family, or care team, create clear strategies and plans that you all know, so that just one word from one of the team and everyone knows what to do.  Also, make sure everyone knows what sounds, or movements, or other early warning signs might indicate that your child is about to lose regulation or act out.

 Early warning signals and recognising patterns 

Challenging behaviours can be in relation to an emotion, what we would see as a positive thing like extreme happiness can even result in a feeling of overwhelm, disorientation or discomfort for a sensory child.  Sometimes it can be a physical feeling such as pain in a part of the body, or uncomfortable or uncontrollable body experiences.  It can also be something like wanting a particular person’s attention, or a particular outcome like food or quiet time.

You will become a detective, but the rewards are that you may start to see early warning signals or recognise patterns that can help you anticipate, distract or even avoid challenging behaviours altogether.  This can help you build a plan.  When making the plan, consider - what does your child need?  Also - what do you and the family need?

Strategies to put in place to manage aggressive behaviour in Children with Autism 

1. Not giving bad behaviour too much energy or attention

A general rule is not to give too much energy or attention to a behaviour you don’t want to be repeated and to give lots of attention to behaviours you want to encourage.  In the practical day to day that can be tricky, but if you look at the challenges one by one you can find ways to incorporate ideas.  It can be very tricky when behaviours involve some sort of danger or mess, but in those situations give the least interesting reactions you can, keep the child safe but keep eye contact and speech to an absolute minimum neutral.  You’re not happy, you’re not angry, you are completely uninteresting.  

2. Remaining calm

Concentrate on moving slowly if you can and breathing slowly if possible.  This will keep you in a calmer state and be less interesting.  Many of our sensory children are extremely tuned in to their primary carers and know how to get emotive responses.  If they find unpredictable behaviour around them unsettling, they may seek to gain control of the reactions around them to try and make sense of the world. We don’t stop responding with love and attention, we just try to keep it calmer and more focussed when we can.  We are only human, and it won’t always go to plan.

3. Approach the situation gently

Remember that anyone in an extreme emotional or physical state is unlikely to respond well to demands being made of them. Gentle queries may coax the child to engage with you. ‘I can see you are upset, what can I get for you?’ may work better than telling them to calm down.

4. Consider getting professional help

It can be very difficult to get professional help, but don’t let that stop you asking you GP for referral to behavioural specialists.  In the meantime, join specialised social media groups (so long as they are a positive space), look at charities like the ones below, and see if you can find any books specific to the issues you are facing.  Whatever you find is likely to be unique to your child, so don’t panic if it takes time to work out.

Medication can be a tricky subject.  Parents often seek to avoid medicating their children due to potential side effects.  However, if your child is struggling with constant compulsion, or unable to stabilise their emotions there may be a cause to consider this.  I avoided medication for many years for my son until an adult with an autism diagnosis told me I was being selfish. Ouch!  She said ‘do you think I could do everything I do every day without any medicinal support?’ and that caused me to rethink.  

Be easy on yourself. If you are struggling to be calm because you need a break, start there.  Give yourself the space you need to rest and recover.  You can’t pour from an empty cup.

Other resources that may help

Via the NHS your GP can help with referrals.  CAMHS can signpost you to specialist provision in your area.  Mental Health helplines are important if you are in crisis or at risk of family breakdown. Call 111 and they can triage your call and refer you to the appropriate places.

Some charities have specific support that can help:

www.pegsupport.co.uk where you can self-refer for help with child to adult violence.

www.challengingbehaviour.org.uk offer support around challenging behaviours to families caring for a person with learning disabilities.

www.capafirstresponse.org specialise in supporting families with making safety plans and reducing violence.

There are also many books that specialise in helping with calming and de-escalation, some examples of these are in our book section.