Did anybody else have difficulty getting family (grandparents, uncles/aunts etc) to understand your child? Did you get blamed
Oh yes. It has taken a lot of explaining to our families. I think what you said should be said to them. Your son can hear that and may internalize his family's words.
Basically, our son has been babysat for an hour maybe twice by grandparents. One of his grandfathers yelled at him at 2.5 and I told my husband that I no longer trusted him to take care of our son. So our son has completely supervised visits with family. I have told everyone that he has extreme anxiety and that he is not having a "tantrum" he is having a "meltdown". Our families are coming around but I have cried to them many times to please understand. I know that they still have their judgements but they are trying. When he was a baby, my mom was convinced I was doing something to make him scream at every single diaper change of his entire infant life. Looking back, how ridiculous that any of us thought it was something we were doing. Clearly, this child is sensory sensitive. He hates new places, new people, new anything and so everytime someone visits, he struggles to control himself.
We do time outs for hitting, we have a lot of side talks with him if he needs support, we take him to his room for some quiet time and spend time with him reading if the visit is too much for him. I think my family hears me saying things like, "Pushing is not OK", "Please use a quiet voice", etc. So they do think I am doing "something" but I know on the ride home they say that we are too easy on him, that he behaves like that because....etc. My mom always tells me I should spank him. !!! Ya, so that's what I'm dealing with.
