I have an 11 year old son. Over the years we have had several diagnosis' and people tend to disagree about what is going on. I have been consistently told that I have a part to play and I fully willing to take responsibility for this as behaviour is much worse in my presence. What I don't yet have is another effective way of parenting despite several parenting courses, books and advice. I have seemingly failed them all.
Currently we have a Dyspraxia, Dyslexia and Sensory Processing Disorder diagnosis alongside inadequate parental control and inability to execute advice from parental guidance books/courses.
I guess my question is where else do I look for ideas of what I can do differently so that life isn't quite so crappy for him, me and everyone around us.
The behaviour I would most like to focus on is the reduction of meltdowns.
Meltdowns - these are absolutely exhausting, they can last for hours, they are emotionally draining and usually at the end he looks for "a way back in" for reassurance that he is still loved and there are times that I don't have the resources to offer that way back in straight away (for example once calm he will ask to play a game or read a story etc and sometimes I am too exhausted and just not ready but this then causes another meltdown which usually has emotionally charged statements such as how awful he is and how I must hate him and how I must wish I had a different child (I can say with all honesty these are not and have never been messages that we have stated but I can see that we may have communicated them whilst dealing with the meltdowns (I can stay calm but I think I probably sound pretty stretched and my body language is probably pretty defeated - I am working on this but hard after hours of shouting).
I try to be aware of known triggers and try to give him as much reasonable power in situations as I can.
I feel as though I am analyzing everything I do and say to try to minimize the chance of a meltdown and then most of the time I have made the wrong choice of words or demands and we get one anyway.
At the moment we have consequences for shouting. If a meltdown occurs and he shouts AT someone during the meltdown (this is usually targetted shouting in someones face and is also usually a demand of some kind or the avoidance of a demand such as not wanting to do what the swimming tutor wants will illicit full scale shouting in her face, following her as she exits the pool still shouting and then transferring to me once she has removed herself. Removal is the technique we use either of him or us but when out and about I try to just to broken record removal. At the pool, I can't leave him there so I just sit and try not to look directly at him and just repeat calmly..."I am waiting for a calm voice and body before I can respond". It can take a long time but he will eventually calm down. He has a further consequence for shouting of removal of screen privileges for the evening. I know that he can't always help the meltdowns but I do believe that it is unacceptable to shout at others. We have tried to teach him calming techniques and ways of defusing situations but to no avail he simply can't access this information when in meltdown. Maybe I am on the wrong track and I should just accept the shouting as part of the uncontrollable meltdown but I worry that he can't continue to just shout at everyone over every tiny request or denial of request from him - he has no filter it could be Queen and he would have no ability to control his behaviour. Any further suggestions very, very welcome