Grandmother Mimi from Athens, US, asks:

I have a five-year, soon-to-be-six-year-old grandson who is autistic. His mother and his younger sibling, who is 10 months younger, live with my husband and me. He has language and is in a collab[orative] setting at school.

The problem is that our grandson has become increasingly difficult to handle. He hits and tells people to shut up. This behavior happens when he doesn’t want to do something or when he wants to keep doing something.

We are desperately seeking help and answers because we don’t know how to handle this type of behavior. When he hits, we try to redirect him, and when he’s yelling at someone to shut up, I typically will ignore him or tell him those aren’t kind words.

We want to use strategies that will help correct the behavior and give him appropriate consequences.