Bad Idea!!

[mog]

We met with the MST therapist yesterday and she did one on one with both difficult child and easy child separately away from the house. Then decided that we would have parenting one as well which was going fine until difficult child decided to get involved in the conversation so we had to send him to his room. WE have not left him alone at home since he came home so she thought it would be a good idea to leave him here and us go have our session somewhere else. easy child was getting ready for a date and we told difficult child what we were doing we incouraged him to be safe and do the right thing but we still had all of easy child's electronics in our room since that is the only room that locks. we made sure that the windows were locked and everything. We left and then shortly easy child called and told us that she was leaving and I double checked to make sure that the room was locked and she said yes.
We got home last night and unfortunately he did go into easy child's room and did get into ours as well , he for some reason even moved the entertainment center in the living room (?????) We didn't want to start conflict last night so we waited then today found out the he has taken a speaker and both cords to her new and old ipod---It started a huge fight between the two and difficult child told easy child to go into his room and see if she could find proof then she went in there and he blocked her from getting in the closet and she fell over all the junk in his room. We both husband and I went back there to make sure that she was ok and he threw us all out and started his loud music and slamming the doors then got a ladder and blocked his door. We called the MST and she too is disappointed. easy child left now on a date and difficult child is still trying to calm down but is still slamming things which is upsetting husband SO as usuall I am stuck in the middle. He hardly has an priveldges at all and MST is telling us that we realy need the consequences to be strong but what especially since he still is denying it and we really don't have proof except the fact that he was the only one home and his footprints are in the flower bed under our bedroom window which he says didn't happen now (yeah right) What do we do for consequence --I feel responsible because I did not feel he could be left alone. NOW WHAT????

 

[klmno]

My experience with MST is that the guy worked with the premise that if a kid has consistency and structure and fair, reasonable rules across the board, that he/she won't get into trouble anymore. The guy we had simply had no clue of our reality and could not fathom that anything else could play into "difficult child-ness". I found it to be an intense in-home parenting class, no matter how it is advertised. The school involvement- that's because they think it is the parent scr**ing up the IEP. That's just my experience.

 

[klmno]

I find it interesting, too, that your MST person didn't propose "appropriate" consequences for you to dish out. So, what exactly did this person accomplish?

Sorry- I hope you can get this turned around. Obviously, I hated the program and thought it was ridiculous when it's a difficult child involved insteaad of a household where the problem is poor parenting with no structure or routine.

 

[smallworld]

What medications/doses is your difficult child taking? In my experience with my three kids, very little can be accomplished with behavior modification until the mood is stablized.

 

[BusynMember]

What is MST?

It sounds pretty insane. They are assuming that your child will act like a regular child rather than a difficult child. I would go for a different type of help---a neuropsychologist first, then follow his instructions as to what to do next. Behavioral mod doesn't really work well for our differently wired kids. At least, I don't see much evidence that it does on the board here.

 

[mog]

MST is multi system therapy- difficult child is on depakoate, abilify, requip (for his restless leg) metformin for a differnt reason, and trazadone. They just changed his medications while is was at rehab and just started this regiment--the plan is to up the trazadone and abilify at next meeting.
We so far have liked our MST but she never does give us a direct consequnce to give him even though we have told her several times that we do not know exactly what to do.