oh Sally you are not alone. There was a time there, when I was on the phone to Lifeline or some parent line for help to not hurt Matilda as I was at the end of my rope. Over and over again I was given parenting advice that JUST DIDN:T WORK! We tried the Triple P course and made a huge go of it. 8 months of going to fortnightly meetings and working together and we finally were told that Matilda didn't respond to it so it was beyond the social worker... There is now a Triple P course for parenting ASD children, and I reckon its pretty good for getting a basis of how you parent and how to work together. Just having "tools" to fall back on are helpful.

Matilda didn't cope with time out. If I started on time out, we would do a 6 hour drama over it.... and then I would give up, because 6 hours was my limit. Matilda fought to the death, and I just couldn't do it. Matilda would laugh if I smacked her in last resort because for her smacking feels good. I found in the end the only thing that has worked for her is doing OT exercises.... if she's loosing the plot I jump in quickly and squash her and do deep compression work (squashing is putting her between two bean bags and jumping on top of her and making her climb out), pushing her joints together and doing breathing races (we use a straw and push a ball down the hallway in a race... this makes her do deep breathing which helps calm her down). It takes a LOT of energy to get through. Its hard hard work... and if I don't have the energy, its not too good.

I am not saying this as someone who has found the answer... just as someone who is on the upside at the moment.... I'm not naive enough to think that it could not go downhill at any moment. Anything could set us off downhill again... but I'm living in the good time at the moment.