mercurybebe
New Member
Hi Everyone! First I must say I am *very* grateful that I found this site today. We are reaching our limits dealing with our difficult child and discovering this forum has given me hope for the first time in a long time...
A brief intro:
My partner J and I are co-moms to 2 pretty awesome 10 year old kids: our easy child Avis who is my biological daughter and our difficult child Buddy who is J's biological son. Our kids were born 4 days apart, have always known each other and have been living as siblings under the same roof since they were 6. We try to involve J's DEX "FB" in creating consistency for Buddy but it is a struggle.
Buddy was diagnosed with ADHD at age 6 when in 1st grade and was started on stimulant medications in the summer before 2nd grade. He responded well to the medications and his classroom behavior and grades improved drastically.
Over the past year Buddy has developed severe anger issues and it became pretty clear that to us and his pediatrician that he has ODD in addition to the ADHD.
Buddy has always had a difficult relationship with his father, and that has been causing him more and more problems as he gets older, especially due to the inconsistencies in parenting from our house to his father's house.
For example: We do not allow Buddy to play video games of any kind or use the computer and we limit his TV watching to 30 minutes per day if he behaves. He is with his father for 2 and a half weekends per month and it is a free-for-all where Buddy has his own laptop, plays tons of video games and watches as much TV as he wants to...unsupervised.
The impact of this inconsistency has shown its face more and more recently, with Buddy finally saying that he wants to live with his father full-time, something his father would never do, and obviously we don't want to happen.
Since 5th grade started, Buddy has been totally wild.
He starts fights with us over anything, lies about the smallest things even when he is clearly caught, sneaks junk food and toys, has lied to his teacher (new) and shoved a kid at school (new), he talks back, breaks things in anger and just doesn't seem to care at all about losing his toys, being grounded, missing soccer, or any other consequence that we come up with.
There is a blow-up or fight over something every single day and I am exhausted and at the end of my rope. There is no peace in my house and Avis suffers for it as she often has to stay in her room alone just to get away from Buddy and all the arguing. When she does interact, Buddy is quick to lash out at her and blame her for every problem under the sun.
We are desperate for help at this point. I am an educational psychologist and work as a behavioral specialist but cannot seem to cope with/manage/figure my own son out.
I look forward to learning from all of you and hopefully helping as much as I think this forum will help me.
A brief intro:
My partner J and I are co-moms to 2 pretty awesome 10 year old kids: our easy child Avis who is my biological daughter and our difficult child Buddy who is J's biological son. Our kids were born 4 days apart, have always known each other and have been living as siblings under the same roof since they were 6. We try to involve J's DEX "FB" in creating consistency for Buddy but it is a struggle.
Buddy was diagnosed with ADHD at age 6 when in 1st grade and was started on stimulant medications in the summer before 2nd grade. He responded well to the medications and his classroom behavior and grades improved drastically.
Over the past year Buddy has developed severe anger issues and it became pretty clear that to us and his pediatrician that he has ODD in addition to the ADHD.
Buddy has always had a difficult relationship with his father, and that has been causing him more and more problems as he gets older, especially due to the inconsistencies in parenting from our house to his father's house.
For example: We do not allow Buddy to play video games of any kind or use the computer and we limit his TV watching to 30 minutes per day if he behaves. He is with his father for 2 and a half weekends per month and it is a free-for-all where Buddy has his own laptop, plays tons of video games and watches as much TV as he wants to...unsupervised.
The impact of this inconsistency has shown its face more and more recently, with Buddy finally saying that he wants to live with his father full-time, something his father would never do, and obviously we don't want to happen.
Since 5th grade started, Buddy has been totally wild.
He starts fights with us over anything, lies about the smallest things even when he is clearly caught, sneaks junk food and toys, has lied to his teacher (new) and shoved a kid at school (new), he talks back, breaks things in anger and just doesn't seem to care at all about losing his toys, being grounded, missing soccer, or any other consequence that we come up with.
There is a blow-up or fight over something every single day and I am exhausted and at the end of my rope. There is no peace in my house and Avis suffers for it as she often has to stay in her room alone just to get away from Buddy and all the arguing. When she does interact, Buddy is quick to lash out at her and blame her for every problem under the sun.
We are desperate for help at this point. I am an educational psychologist and work as a behavioral specialist but cannot seem to cope with/manage/figure my own son out.
I look forward to learning from all of you and hopefully helping as much as I think this forum will help me.