Neurodivergent kids

I feel hopeless. I truly appreciated the time you spent with me on our last call, answering my questions and helping me create a plan. I was excited and put it into action immediately. I even convinced my husband, who had stopped parenting our son after we began TSG, to give it one last try. During a mentor meeting, I asked my son what he needed, and he said more positive attention. I convinced my husband to spend 30 minutes with him daily doing something he loved. We held weekly mentor meetings, and I checked in with notes for each child every day. We also revisited our family vision and motto and took each of our kids on individual dates.

Initially, it seemed to be working. My son calmed himself for five days in a row without earning any part of the rule of three. After my husband and I took him on a date, he immediately became mean and disrespectful to his sister. Although the restaurant claimed it didn’t use sesame (which he’s allergic to), my husband and I found sesame on our food, and our son broke out later at home. The next day, when he was asked to say part of a prayer, he was skipped for goofing off, which led to him screaming and yelling. We gave him five minutes to calm down, but he took another 45 minutes after complaining of a headache. By the time he came back, lunch was over. After a discussion about the situation, he started screaming, throwing food, and earned all three consequences. He went from 0-100 in an instant. This pattern has become typical, and my husband is fed up and wants to return to spankings, which my son also prefers because they’re immediate and don’t drag out like TSG consequences.

Even our son's psychologist is asking if I’m too committed to this program. I appreciate TSG for my own self-government. However, it seems ineffective for him. My son becomes feral when he hears the key phrases, even when I deliver them with genuine calm and love. He still takes 2-3 days to accept consequences. Practice sessions accumulate until he is hopelessly angry. I think, when we started, it was 4 hours, and that seemed to work better, but my husband is reluctant to shorten it. He head you say that 8 year olds can do 24, and expects him to do that. How can we modify this program to better suit him?

My son often blames others for his actions, gaslighting us and his sister. For example, he’ll block his sister and then claim he was the one hurt. Even when we show him camera evidence, he argues against it. When angry, he blanks out.