I just read difficult child's sd psychiatric report

[klmno]

This was just completed by the school psychiatric at Department of Juvenile Justice. There are a couple of things in the history portion that are botched, as usual. Will a sd psychiatric change a report to correct/clarify those things or will that be another time I have to attach an addendum that never gets read by anyone?

Then, he tested Average on IQ and she wrote Average on executive functioning and memory in the chart, however, subtest scores indicated problems in executive functioning and imapairment in verbal and auditory memory. She acknowledges a difficulty for him in these areas in her summary and I guess they aren't noted in the chart because the lower scores were averged in with the other subtest scores. The problem is that the same thing was done in his neuropsychologist test report 3 years ago and his home sd didn't want to put any weight on the written summary or recommendations because the chart showing results didn't show major impairment in areas that they consider as impacting his learning. Suggestions?

Other than that, this lady really pegged my son in her description of him. She didn't call them triggers, but she listed about 3-4 types of situations that precede his problematic behavior and I was AMAZED that I would agree with all of them. She got this by talking with difficult child. They included wanting to impress his peers (social maladaptive behavior- I'm leaving out some specifics), rejection from females (I think males too), wanting to establish independence by defying my rules. I'm going to asked the PO to read that section since it clearly states that she got that from difficult child- not me- and I have never been able to get the legal people to see that the problem is not the home environment or my anxiety or me being too strict.

She lists inconsistencies between what difficult child and I told her as being things revolving around symptoms of his mood disorder- which the jury is still out on that one so I'll discuss it with her but I'm not too worried about it.

She says difficult child scores very high for depression issues and at risk for anxiety and being atypical. Also, he needs to be watched for anti-social behavior to get attention, playing with fire (apparently those empty cans I found were used for difficult child to spray then light) , and substance abuse in the future (he hasn't done illegal drugs YET).

Along with some recommendations for his IEP/school setting, she supports family therapy, monitoring of difficult child- including no violent computer games, and supports/strategies for me to help deal with difficult child not wanting to comply with house rules. Well, that will be fine if we don't get a person who wants to sit in front of difficult child and tell me to CHANGE the house rules. That's what our PO and MST guy wanted to do and that completely undermines the idea of telling the child to do what the parent says, in my humble opinion. She also pointed out that while difficult child is doing very well there, he will be at risk when he is released and goes back to peers, sd, etc, and she worded it in a way that didn't sound like home was the problem so that was good.

 

[Shari]

Wow. It sounds like she might have a clue. That's a step in the right direction, anway!

Depending on what is botched would determine if I was adamant to change them or not. If its minor, I'd document the change and send it back to her and not worry about it. If its something that's a major factor in this, tho, I'd push a bit more to get it correct.

But that's just my non-expert opinion.

Really, this sounds like it might be a good report.

 

[klmno]

A couple of them are very misleading and need to go away because it's from 4 years ago. difficult child doesn't need the interpretation of a principal who was out to get him following him the rest of his life. I somehow doubt she'll change the report but I'll ask. If she will clarify these things, it would be useful for Department of Juvenile Justice to use it as part of their recommendations for difficult child's parole as well as sd.

 

[Christy]

I'm glad difficult child got a fair and thorough write up. I hope it will be useful in finding things that will work best for him when he is released from there.

 

[DammitJanet]

K...since that report is so much in difficult child's favor and sounds like she really gets him, I would be hesitant to rock the boat. She sounds like she did a most excellent job! Boy did that come as a surprise for you...lol. Her recommendations will carry a whole lot of weight.

 

[smallworld]

k, whenever there are factual errors in reports written by professionals, I edit them and ask nicely that that they be corrected. A true professional will make the changes and send a corrected version back to you.

 

[totoro]

I was very nicely pushy in regards to K's nuero-psychiatric when there was some wording in regards to some home relationship issues.
This was a minor thing in the Nuero-psychiatric's mind, but when I read it to her and then explained how someone who was not a professional would see this or possibly not see it, she understood.
She did change it.
I got on my soap box and went on about how we are trying to change stigmas... etc.
We want to get it right not make things worse for families or our kids.
These are in their files for life, an error does make a huge difference in my mind.
This was also why I had the ODD diagnosis taken off or rule out because no-one felt K truly had it, it was just a symptom.

They may be little things but our kids have a hard enough road ahead of them.
JMO.
Other than this it does sound like she gets him!

 

[klmno]

Thanks all! After reading the report more thoroughly, it seems like she tried to take data and incorporate into a stand-alone report that covers everything- legal issues in and out of school, all trouble difficult child has ever been in, every rumour ever reported as truth, recommendations for parole and home environment, etc. First of all, this is so misleading because of how things get blown into something they aren't by being takeen out of context. I give an example below. Secondly, while some of this is a good thing, she really isn't qualified to make all those recommendations and I doubt the legal people are goping to read this, much less follow those recommendations. After all she is a school psychiatric- I doubt the PO will go by her suggestions. on the other hand, the home sd will be reading this and it will undo a lot of effort to keep the sd from treating difficult child like he's just a behavior problem with secondary depression issues. It took me 2 years of head-butting in IEP meetings just to get things as far as we did and the home sd and Department of Juvenile Justice's sd has been happy with difficult child for the past 2 years.

Ok- here's one example: When difficult child started exhibiting problems it was 3+ years ago, his first illegal activity (among other signs like emotional outbursts and doing things that were a danger to himself- like running or skateboarding into traffic and almost catching himself on fire) was that he started stealing when he was in 5th grade. He had two incidences at school - the first he stole his teacher's cell phone and the second, he stole his proncipal's cell phone after she left him in her office alone where the cell phone was. Now, the principal ignored any other sign of emotional discturbance and just wanted difficult child committed to juvy at that time. She started calling his day care centers asking for info about him and his homelife- even though I was providing documentation from profs. to her about his psychiatric hospital stay and stuff and even though difficult child was awaiting trial for the thefts. Anyway, she found out that difficult child had been kicked out of one day care center because he took a vial of a chemical from his child's chemistry set to day care and had it in his locker all day. The day care had to kick him out but did not file charges because they saw it as no REAL threat. (They don't put lethal doses of poison in children's chemistry sets.) The principal, who frankly might have found this out illegally, wrote a note and made it a part of difficult child's permanent sd record. The note says "difficult child was kicked out of a day care for taking poison and stating that he did it because he wanted to hurt a child that annoyed him".

This psychiatric wrote that in her report- the statement in difficult child's file, not any clarification of what really happened. Then to make matters worse, she writes that "formal legal charges were then pursued" and that "difficult child was ALSO involved legally for BURGLARY", which of course makes it look like there was evidence of difficult child wanted to hurt someone but the local Department of Juvenile Justice must have been too easy on difficult child but difficult child was ONLY charged with THEFT for stealing the cell phones, which was appropriate and he was found guilty. The truth is that NO legal charges were pursued for the chemical incident because no one perceived it as a real danger and apparently it wasn't because difficult child never did anything like that again and ha s only had a few incidences of typical push matches or shoving with other kids.

So, when there are about 3 things like this listed inaccurately or out of context, along with them being written as fact while anything I have relayed is written as "mother claims.....", it makes it look like difficult child is a sociopath and I'm just in denial or making excuses for it.

This will lead to nothing but more behavior mod and parental focus. My guess is that since she wrote "data is gathered from a variety of sources therefore some errors and inaccuracies may be expected" in her first paragraph, she won't change a darn thing. If I can even get them to make my written statement a part of the file, I'll be lucky but of course no one will read it. I can assure you, not a single prof has said that difficult child was a sociopath or that behavior is just the problem. It doesn't matter- since Cho did what he did, the people in this state want every accusation against a child made a part of their sd record and people are doing it.

I am sooooo tired of this fight- I'm about to hang it up. I can't win with these people. A few seem to get it but they are the exception to the rule. I don't think I can save difficult child from a life-long label that is partially based on people's beliefs that if he did A and B, then he must have done C, D, and E and the mother is just covering. So our "community supports" become a behavior contract and focusing on parenting changes with axes hanging over our heads.

There have always been the smaller percentage of people that have ssaid difficult child's behavior problems are a result of not having adequate therapuetic interventions for what is really going on with him. That could be bipolar or it might just be internal conflict over his father and me and not really bipolar. This is what the profs and I have been trying to figure out. In either case, the treatment for this would have a different focus than the treatment for a primary CD diagnosis but laymen don't understand that. It doesn;t mean that I am excusing all difficult child's bad behavior. He has done enough without having to document every unverified suspicion as truth and I have called cops on difficult child many times. I am not saying that my son is never at fault or doesn't also need structure and behavior problems addressed.

In either case, I'm starting a letter that states that as long as the majority of the people overseeing difficult child believe that he has CD as his primary diagnosis and I'm just excusing it so they can't believe any thing I tell them that might work in his favor, they should not be thinking about sending difficult child home yet. There is NO WAY that this will be solved that way because when their methods don't work, they will think it's because I didn't do what they said.

I'm glad she could see that difficult child has issues with peers and so forth and that I had to put forth stringent house rules. However, I can't see anything major changing until they can believe the reports from difficult child's caretaker and I'm at a point where I don't think they will ever believe me. People say that the problem with dysfunctional families (or one aspect) is black and white thinking but I swear, I see more of that in the people who evaluation difficult child and the sd and legal people than anywhere.

It breaks my heart that I don't think I can save difficult child from this label anymore. I don't want to save him out of denial, I want to save him from it because I think it is put on him due to people's lack of trust in what I tell them. The only chance he has of ever having it changed is by living with other people who maybe the others will believe.