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[prettywingz]

I have been reading the forum here and there just lurking. I have finally decided to join. I have a 5 year old Son. because of my insurance the doctors would not see him to diagnose him until he was 5. Well he finally started the process in June. In July he was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. his doctor put him on rispedone to help with sleep. In the mean time he started kindergarten in August. He did well, but had a few angry outbursts. He was supposed to see his doctor again in sept. The doctor passed away. I got him in to see a new Dr. who diagnosed him with odd, took him off the medications and gave him clonidine to sleep. He said it's my parenting that's the problem and when I get parenting therapy he will be better in school. Well since then, my son became violent in school. Throwing chairs, hitting the teacher and other kids, destroying the classroom. They suspended him 2 weeks ago. The Dr finally tried tenex. The first day he did well at school, the second day he kicked a student and tried to bite the teacher. I had to pick him up from school. I asked him why he behaved that way, and he told me that he was tired. I have read that the first few weeks on tenex, the kids are usually tired. so guys does it get better? I can't keep leaving work for him. I am a single parent. I will lose my job.

 

[TeDo]

To be perfectly honest, you need a new psychiatrist. There is NO WAY your parenting is the problem (we've all heard that about a zillion times from ignorant people that are quick to judge....yes, that includes many "professionals") and ODD is not recognized by many of us here as a helpful diagnosis. All that label says is that the child is oppositional and defiant (DUH!!) but does not tell you why so you can try to make things better. My son carried that diagnosis for 3 years and the school's way to "deal" with it is to "show him whose boss" only to find out it wasn't ODD after all, he's on the autism spectrum. I would stick with the anxiety diagnosis from the sounds of his actions (VERY similar to difficult child 1's at that age) and look into an anti-anxiety medication. You really, really, REALLY need to find a "GOOD" psychiatrist, not the quack you have now.

As for the Tenex, difficult child 1 takes 1 mg between 8 and 8:30 every night and bedtime is 10. He usually falls asleep by 10:30 and has absolutely no problems being tired...at least not fromt he medications. How much does your son weigh and how much does he take and when does he take it? difficult child 1 only weighs 75 pounds (he's 14) so the highest the psychiatrist said we can go is 1.5 mg a day. We tried 1/2 a mg in the morning but it started lowering his blood pressure at that dose so we stopped that dose. Did the Risperdal help when he was on it???

I would 1) find a new psychiatrist ASAP and 2) figure out why he's so tired. When difficult child 1 acted that way at school, it was because he was so scared (anxiety disorder) that he did what he thought he had to to get out of the situation. Yes, they sent him home too. Once I figured out what the problem was, I went with him to school and sat in the room for a couple days until HE told me he was okay without me there. It was worth the time off work.

Welcome to our little corner of the world. Others will come around but week-ends are a little slow here.

 

[BusynMember]

Is this even a child psychiatrist? Is it just a pediatrician? They are not qualified to help identify or treat childhood disorders.

This is NOT your fault. Your child is wired differently and your getting parenting therapy will not change him. I recommend taking him to a neuropsychologist for a complete test/evaluation. In the meantime, can you tell us about his very early years...infancy and toddler? Did he like to cuddle? Did he walk and talk on time? Make good eye contact? Cry too often? Sleep poorly? Anything else of note? If not, when did his behavior start? Were his early years chaotic? Also, does he see his father and do you think anything is wrong with his birth father? Any psychiatric or neurological problems on either side of his genetic family tree, even if he doesn't see his father at all? Some things are hereditary. The more you tell us, the more we can try to help you.

 

[buddy]

I'd push to get him back on the Risperdal if it helped. Tenex and clonidine can help some, not help or make things worse just like all medications for our kids. I HATE docs who just automatically change medications without getting to know you better. I'd agree you need better docs and looking for a neuropsychologist to fully assess will be good.

In the mean time, if youre in the USA, your son has legal rights in school. You can request special education services in writing which will provide him with a legal plan that helps him cope, learn skills, and spells out how to deal with behaviors. The first step is to write a request asking for a complete special education evaluation to include cognitive, language, motor skills as well as behavior. There are examples on this site and on other sites like Writeslaw.com.

Send it registered, return receipt mail so you have proof they got it. This starts a legal time clock which limits their time to respond. If they deny testing ask for the response in writing and appeal. (We'll help you cross that bridge if you come to it.)

I agree that this sounds like your child has some kind of challenge and it needs to be identified, sure we can all use parenting help but that doesn't change a child's different "wiring". Mental Health professionals rarely look outside of a "family systems" model and are trained to think talking about feelings and using behavior charts with rewards will fix everything but it leaves out teaching lacking skills that many of our children have. It doesn't take into consideration that they may not learn that way, that they may not even perceive touch, smell, sounds, language, sights, etc....the same way as other children. (I'm not saying there is no use for mental health therapies, just that if you feel its not a good fit and for kids with challenges that are beyond typical emotional upsets including learning differences, it often takes other methods)

You might find the books "The Explosive. Child" by Ross Greene and What Your Explosive Child is Trying to Tell You" by Doug Riley. The approach is helpful for children who do not respond to traditional parenting experiences.

 

[busywend]

Do you give the tenex at night?

I would have left that doctor as soon as he said it was ur parenting. Was he even listening? Ugh!

 

[TerryJ2]

Hi Prettywingz, welcome!

I am so sorry that the former dr died and that now you're stuck with-a loser. It's your parenting, when your son is throwing chairs at the teachers? Yeah, RIGHT.

Your son is overreacting to situations he does not understand and cannot cope with. That is neurological and chemical.
Yes, parenting a certain way can help but it's not the total answer. I want to strangle your doctor!

Again, welcome.

 

[SuZir]

Hi and welcome!
My difficult son is already and adult and wasn't medicated as a child (or really diagnosed but he seems to be a one to fall through the all cracks), so I don't have much relevant experience to your situation (mine wasn't violent either really, he was a runner) but there is something i may have a bit differing opinion with many here. If you are provided parenting classes or therapy without huge cost to yourself, take an advantage of it. your parenting most likely isn't causing your son's problems and neither does it fix him. But it may make a difference. We did get parenting classes and therapy when my difficult child was young. That certainly didn't turn him a easy child but it did turn him a difficult child with two much better equipped parent to handle him.

 

[DDD]

Like everyone else I want to assure you that it is NOT your fault. I've been a single parent and understand the strains on employment that come from having challenging children. You need a Child Psychiatrist for medications. You need to have a Neuro/Psychological examination done. You need to find out exactly what the problems are so you can be an advocate and try to help him. I don't know how you can solve the job problems. Do you have any options? Family? Friends? A possible daycare center....some of our children, particularly boys, are not ready for Kindergarden at five. If he is a year behind it is NOT the end of the world. I had to do that with one of mine and it gave an extra year of maturity. Hang in there and try not to be overwhelmed...we all understand how frightening it can be. Hugs. DDD

 

[HaoZi]

You need a new doctor, kid needs testing to determine his exact issues, and you need to work with the school on getting him an IEP. My daughter's IEP has explicit instructions that I AM NOT to be called away from work to pick her up. I'm also a single mom and can't risk losing my job because of her outbursts. And my child throws furniture at people when she's angry. They can't handle her? Fine. The police can pick her up (nicely. again.) and I will pick her up from the police dept when I get off work. Leave me a voice mail to do so and an email telling me exactly what happened.

 

[prettywingz]

Thanks guys. I didn't realize that the post actually posted. On on an AP on my phone so I just types up a new post but I don't see it yet. To answer some questions, he has had issues since he was an infant. He never slept well at all. He would take a 10 minute nap and be up all night. He has always had a temper. His father sees him when he can, which is months sometimes. he doesn't like to leave mom (me). I believe that his father is bipolar or has some mood disorder, I say bipolar because I can see him cycling sometimes, he denies this disorder. My son was at a private sitter he never really had friends his own age. Developmentally he reached all of his milestones. He sometimes get fixated on certain thing. For instance up until a few months ago he always had to drink from a certain cup. He would sleep with the cup, freak out if he could not find it. I was finally able to take the cup away. he is an extremely picky eater. He only eats certain foods. at times if he is,offered food that he doesn't eat he would run away. He has gotten better but he still won't eat. He is sometimes obsessed with clean hands, if he sees me rating something and he needs me to say pour him juice, he will beg me to wash my dirty hands even if I just washed them, it's the fact that I touched the other food. In the other post I put that the school is trying to expel him. They said they are waiting for his name to come up on the list for his evaluation and they don't know what else to do with him. I want a new Dr but I have united behavioral health and only 3 Dr treat children his age, everyone else takes Magellan. The one Dr passes so all of the patients were referred to The third Dr who became overwhelmed with patients.

 

[buddy]

The type of doctor you will probably find can help you the most is a specialized psychologist called a neuropsychologist. It seems to me your son has some kind of different wiring, either a chemical imbalance (maybe inherited from bio dad) or some kind of neurodevelopmental condition like Autism spectrum disorder (my son used to hyperfocus on clean hands too, some level of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) like behavior happens in some kids with autism).

A neuropsychologist evaluates to see connections between behavior and how our brains work. They do not only diagnose in the area of neurology nor in the area of mental health. They typically are well trained to look at the broad range of possibilities. You might need to just do it privately and see if you can arrange a private pay plan. Some places like universities and children's hospitals will arrange reasonable payment plans.

 

[prettywingz]

So is this a specialist? Like a medical specialist? If so my insurance may cover that under my medical plan which is different than my behavioral health plan.

 

[buddy]

people here have had to fight that. Find a neuropsychologist and they can help you argue for payment. I think that is how some people here have done it. My son's insurance paid for all of it. Others here have finally just done it privately because it is so critical. They are Ph.D. level psychologists with neurology training.

edit: by the way.... there are other evaluations that can help. You can have a speech and language/communication evaluation done for language processing and social communication as well as the typical receptive/expressive language evaluations and an occupational therapy evaluation to evaluate for sensory integration and motor development. With the history you specified there could be issues with either of these and the results can greatly help the neuropsychologist and they can begin therapy even before that if needed. This is typically covered by health insurance. In addition, if it is available anywhere around you, the insurance could cover a developmental pediatrician team approach which can be as good as a neuropsychologist but typically they use a team to look at cognitive, behavioral, language, motor, etc...... These folks tend to all fall under medical because you are looking at a developmental issue.

Emphasize that you are concerned about his neurological development because when they focus on behavior only then the kids tend to only get a diagnosis that describes their behavior and does not look at the underlying cause as much. Your child may well have a mental health issue underlying, but the neuropsychologist can look at both neurological and psychological issues.

 

[InsaneCdn]

If you cannot get a neuropsychologist, then look for a child developmental/behavioral evaluation team - typically out of a childrens' hospital or teaching hospital. In this case, your child may be seen by more than one person, and they meet together to evaluate the various possibilities.