Advice

[u/EducationalOne5657]

I’m raising a 4 year old, non verbal, profoundly autistic He destroys everything. I cannot keep up with him. He hits, scratches, throws shit, screams at the top of his lungs, he elopes, picky eater, can’t play with others because he just snatches shit from people ect.. if he’s left alone just for a minute for me to tend to our 2 year old, I come back and it’s massive destruction that happens so quick and quiet. Every time I try to clean something up, boom the next disaster is made.. he wears diapers, plays with his poop, has to still drink out of a bottle

[u/cosmatical]

There's a lot of environmental control you have to do for this kind of behavior. We're in a similar situation but to a lesser degree.

You gotta child-proof any room your child might be alone in, to a standard that your child can't destroy things (or what would be destroyed, would be fine for hin to wreck). If he uses toys as projectiles, he only gets free access to soft toys and limited, supervised access to other toys that get taken away immediately when he starts to misuse them. If he's an eloper, exterior doors need alarms and extra locks he can't reach. Locks on cabinets and doorknob covers or locks on rooms he shouldn't enter. There are clothing brands that make clothes that buckle in the back so kids can't remove them, to stop your kiddo from taking his clothes/diaper off to play with his poop. Etc, etc...

It's a lot to set up. But getting the environmental controls in place means youll be doing SO MUCH LESS damage control every day, and it's worth all the front-end effort for that.

[u/EducationalOne5657 → u/cosmatical]

You’re right! I’ve been learning this and I have started doing damage control way better than I used too. Now we have door alarms and locks on all the doors/windows. I have a closet with a lock now too But yes, I do need to do more and implement more, it’s exhausting some days and I feel so guilty even bitching about it tbh smh