How do you handle... Because emotions are effected by autism, our kids sometimes cannot control their emotions.  Instead of feeling simply angry, your child is feeling enraged and threatened and betrayed by you. He has not way to express this rage but violence.  Think about it.  If you were in an actual rage, wouldn't you look different? Of course, you would not be enraged about not getting a snack.  But your child actually was.  He clearly had tried to control himself, hence the good behavior in the store.  But the rage built up to the point where he simply blew.  This is why punishment of kids with ASD tends to backfire.  Their anger and frustration ovef a punishment is out of their control.  Continuous, consistent reward plans work far, far better.  And natural consequences do, too.  That might mean cutting a car trip short if the behavior in the car is inappropriate.  Telling the child that it's simply too dangerous to continue in the car given the way he has acted and that you will all try again another time. Then turn around and go home.  Of course, this is also likely to result in fury and it may not even be safe to do this, but at least it would relate to the misbehavior and not be an unrelated punishment.  After all, what does a snack later on in the day have to do with misbehavior in the car now?  If punishment is used, it should be immediate and related.  Ideally, simply not earning a reward (point, star, etc.) toward a behavior plan becomes enough of an incentive to behave better.  Now that you know your child has violent tendencies, set thing up so you won't set him off.  Prepare him for everything by going over what is going to happen during your trip ahead of time.  Perhaps he now has to ear sitting up front by having a certain number of successful, nonviolent trips in the back seat.  Make the earning visual by keeping track of stars or points or happy faces.  Avoid triggers because the more your child is aggressive, the more he will be aggressive. As some of you know we are going through quite a bit with R's  agggression. It seems to be happening when he's tired and/or hungry.  Yesterday as a punishment for breaking something in the car (he threw it at the windshield, thank goodness the windshield did not break!!) so I told him that there would be no snack because of what he did.  He was upset about it for a while which I expected. But he seemed to walk through a store with me just fine. Then on the way home, he started throwing a full bottle of water at me while I was driving, It hit the dashboard.  Then he threw  his Leapster at me, twice. I had to pull over and make him move to the back of the van. While I was buckling him in, he hit me.  When he is going through these aggression episodes, his eyes look like he is an entirely different person. The discipline we have tried has been frustrating, and does not seem to help the situation. He also goes through displaced aggression.  Or it  might upset him a while after the fact like it did in the van. And what about it happening in the van? I was the only one in the van with him.  Any thoughts? Zach's meltdowns are always when he's tired or hungry.  We're pretty sure he gets low blood sugar, and goes into aggressive meltdowns because of it.  We discovered giving him small snacks throughout the day got rid of a large number of meltdowns.  About a month ago Zach had a late morning dentist appt., hadn't eaten much for breakfast, the dentist applied flouride so I had to wait to let him eat.  We were sitting at the drive thru, when he went into a huge meltdown, he was thrashing his body so much I thought his seat would break.  Got some food, and in between thrashing wildly he managed to eat, and slowly calmed down.  The rest of the day he was fine. Since Zach used to throw things in the car, we would never let him have anything in the car that he could use as a weapon.  He does better in the car with no distractions, he enjoys looking out the window, and if he has nothing in his hands I don't have to worry about anything coming flying in my direction.  Unless we're on a long trip, I try to keep cups away from him, otherwise it will be thrown, or dumped every where. Does he overheat quickly?  Often the back of your vehicle can be much warmer, or colder, than the front, and he may be uncomfortable.  Even with dual controls, it may still be difficult to tell what the temps like in the back, without sitting back there while someone else is driving. Good luck. My oldest son also had a tendency to "lash out" when angry/frustrated.  The better his language got, the less he did these types of behaviors. I'd definitely not let him have any objects with him in the car, except maybe a plush toy or cards.  Another alternative would be to have all toys attached to a short chain so they wouldn't go far if he tried to throw them. I wonder if the car trip bothers him -- maybe the sun shining in the car, the feeling of being strapped in, car sickness etc.  You might be able to do something about those things. Good luck! my aggritionj was  more in school .were i was frustred .i think for your safly fpor awhile i put him in the farthest seat weith out his things so he cant throw stuff.so maybe he will learn that his behavior isnt geting him anything .it good for you to be mad he needs to learn there are consquise for behaviors .oneof my friend has a son with severe autism an can be aggrive but  hen he was litte they work on him learing he didnt get his way  all the time .sometimes his dads had to restrain him .but he much better now Mine has a terrible time in the car.  He can not have hard items for safety reasons.  My DS will throw stuff if he gets overloaded by noise (radio, my talking, sister crying, etc).  If he DOES happen to have something and throw it, do not give it back.  And simply explain to him that it's a safety issue.  To keep him busy we went ahead and purchased one of those car DVD players.  It helps a ton. Thanks everyone for your thoughts and ideas! I will keep trying different things to see if it helps.
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