The past couple of weeks have been extremely rough on the family. Brandon who is currently 7 years old and has Autism has increased his self stimming actives by 1000% or at least it feels that way.  His stimming activities include uncontrolled laughter when there is nothing funny, finger tip skin picking, throwing himself on the ground (hard to the point of causing pain) to name a few.  He has also shown an increase in the amount of emotional breakdowns. This past weekend he broke down at a restaurant because he could not decide what to have for breakfast, french toast or pancakes. His fuse for handling things recently has been extremely short and if you do not see the warning signs of a meltdown and cut if off. Well lets just say the meltdown is loud, violent toward himself (throwing himself on the ground), and long (45 minutes to an hour to calm down to calm himself down).

Now the confusing part is 2 fold: what is causing this new change in behavior and why does he only exhibit this behavior at home not at school. The change in behavior can likely be explained by a couple of different things and maybe a combination of all three of them. First is change in schedule, Brandon has been on Christmas break for almost 2 weeks so his routine was changed. And Brandon like most Autistic kids live and breath by routine. Second is growth spurts, children with Autism that go through growth spurts often do not feel comfortable in their new body and since it is different, they need to sooth themselves. Third is regression, children with Autism can sometimes take one step forward and two steps back. Frustrating when it happening to you kid but the key is to press on. I believe in Brandon’s case it is a combination of the change in routine and a growth spurt happening at the same time, the Perfect Storm.

The second part of my confusion is why does he not act like this at school? I do not have good theories for why the behavior only appear in the home but I do have a couple thoughts. First, maybe he feel more comfortable to be himself at home and know he can release his emotions on us without feeling awkward. Second is school is extremely structured, there is not much room to stray off the planned path for the day. This part is fustrating to me and extremely fustrating for my wife Dee who has to work with Brandon after school.

Lucky for us we have an extremely good support system set up to handle all of  the challenges with Autism. We have a great school with awesome teachers, fantastic therapy workers, a phenomenal sister Emma, and the best mom and wife to make sure we continue to be there for Brandon in his quest to defeat Autism.

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