First off, they must truly be seeing something that NEEDS a lot of help because very very few phosps will keep a child for more than 1-3 days. I remember having to fight and threaten to sue the psychiatric hospital, doctor and every single person who interacted with him at the psychiatric hospital if my son hurt or killed himself when he came home. He was there because he wanted to kill either himself or me or my daughter who was in fourth grade at the time. He still only stayed for 3 days, but they did at least admit him. They had a nurse from a temp agency who was filling in because the entire state had a huge flu outbreak and she was great to me. Talked with me for over 2 hours one afternoon giving me ideas, resources and letting me know that the threat to sue would keep him there another day or so. She didn't have to worry about getting fired for saying the truth to a parent - which the permanent staff there had to deal with. She also let me know that zoloft, the antidepressant he was on a large dose of, did seem to cause increased aggression in many teen males. This is NOT in any written documentation - another mom on this forum and I had noticed it and talked about it. This nurse said that no doctor or drug co would admit it, but that she saw far more of it in teen males than in other patients - she saw a wide range of patients as she usually worked in various psychiatric wards around the state. She suggested that since prozac helped me a LOT (only AD that ever really helps me, though I haven't needed luvox but may try it soon) then my son might benefit from luvox. Luvox is a "cleaner" and stronger form of prozac - what the drug co eveloped so they would have the next step once the patent on prozac expired. Wiz is on luvox to this day and is doing amazing - not at all ODD or CD and his aspergers is very very much not a big problem. He is quirky, but gets on well in the "real world" but cannot handle life with us (lives with my parents about 15 min away from us.
It is HARD HARD HARD to have a child in a psychiatric hospital, regardless of how difficult they are at home. Have you been able to visit her? They are NOT keeping her for fun, she is kept because something MAJOR is going on. Budgets and insurance co's are so tight that they CANNOT keep her unless she has REAL, MAJOR problems. Esp in this economy. PLEASE let her stay unless you see signs of abuse or something really wrong. This is her entire life that could be helped - and the life of the entire family also.
I would demand to speak with someone on staff and find out what is going on, what they think the diagnosis's are and why, what testing they have done, etc.... While you can only speak to your difficult child at certain times, you should be able to speak to a staff member at ANY time. You should also have visitation at set times at least on weekends. I know how hard it is - wiz spent 4 months in a psychiatric hospital when he was 12 because I caught him strangling his little sister in her sleep in the middle of the night. It had been happening for months and she never said a word because he said he would kill her little brother and she knew he was really sick and didn't watn to get her big bro in trouble. It was, as I am sure you can imagine, a truly horrifying time for us. We could visit two evenings a week and on weekends, plus there was family therapy 1-2 times a week.
Call and ask when they want to do family therapy - it should be a part of the picture before she comes home. Do you think it will be safe to bring her home, or will she be a danger to herself or others if she comes home now?
Get the other kids to a therapist as soon as you can. If they have a reg therapist make sure that you talk about this with them and the therapist. Also call school and have the guidance counselor work with them. They are likely to be very scared that she won't come back, etc... When Wiz first left our home we had about 2 years where the other two kids were afraid I would kick them out if they did something wrong. We learned a lot about each other as we worked through that. I DID "kick out" my son by making the sheriff take him when he kept assaulting me. It was almost 18 mos after the long psychiatric hospital stay and he was just getting more and more violent when any demand or request was placed on him. I was terrified that he would go for one of his siblings again. Even worse was teh fear that he was going to kill me or hurt me seriously and then kill himself out of guilt. I know in my heart, 100%, that if he killed me or anyone he would then kill himself out of guilt - he has a very tender heart though you wouldn't have known it by his behavior back then. As it is I have nerve damage in my left hand from one of his rages when he was 11. to this day he will massage my hand and even kiss it if he thinks it is hurting me and he feels huge guilt. I don't blame him because I know he truly could not control himself at that time, but it has taken a lot of work to get him to not punish himself over it.
Use this time as a chance to take a break (much as you can with 2 more difficult kids at home) and try to heal some.
I want to suggest some books - available on many used book sites as well as amazon and in regular bookstores. The Explosive Child by Ross greene is sort of our bible here - it is all about collaborative problem solving which is very difficult from traditional parenting and often seems counter-intuitive but it WORKS. Also explore Love and Logic. Parenting Teens with Love and Logic by Fay and Cline is an amazing resource for parents of teens. Parenting with Love and Logic is also excellent but aimed at parents with younger (non teen) kids. You can learn more about love and logic at their website -
www.loveandlogic.com . The info on the site is hugely helpful, even the stuff written for teacher si worth reading. They also describe all of their books (and sell them) and most are available on audiobook also.
These were the first books of any kind (the L&L books) that got my husband to work with me - before that he pretty much ignored my efforts because they didn't make any sense to him. It almost caused a divorce because I was so upset htat he couldn't and wouldn't follow through on ANYTHING as far as helping our child.
You list the hospital as an Residential Treatment Center (RTC) - these are usually long term placements and most of the time you have to fight super hard to get a placement for your child - the cost is enormous. Does the hosptial call thmeselves Residential Treatment Center (RTC) or do they just call themselves a psychiatric hospital? I notice you are in Alaska, so it may be hard to find other options if you need them. Because of this, give them some more time unless you see signs that she is actually being abused. Reassure the kids that the hospital is going to help her so that she can behave better and have a better life. I know this is hard, but it is clear that she needs some real, intensive help - they would NOT keep her if seh didn't, and they would get NO funding from insurance for this unless she truly needed it. before the economy crashed it was hard to get your child into Residential Treatment Center (RTC) but was do-able. Now it is much much much harder and insurance companies (including medicaid) are incredibly reluctant to pay for it. I cannot stress enough how she likely needs much more help than seh can get at home.
This is NOT NOT NOT NTO NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT YOUR FAULT. It is NOT a lack on your part that has her in a hospital - it is a need on HER part that could not be filled at home, and likely could not be handled in ANY home.
There is probably a LOT more going on than adhd and/or odd. MOST of our kids start with those labels and thenwe start to find out what is realle wrong through later testing etc...
My signature has a link in it that will take you to an archived thread about Parent Reports. A Parent Report is a document YOU write that tells all about your child. Some of the Warrior Moms came up with the outline years back and it is one of the most effective tools in a parent's arsenal. It will help you keep all the events and details and various therapies organized and let you communicate with the "experts" far more effectively. You can copy sections to give to the people who work with you so that they can have it all at hand rather than having to remember what you told them - they see lots of patients every day and can get confused (even if they don't admit it). Be sure to include a picture of your child - often people can link information to photos and then when they see the person or a photo of the person it can trigger memories. I even went so far as to put a photo of Wiz at the beginning of each section so that they had frequent reminders of who they were reading about. Of course the psychiatrist we had when I first did that got us confused with other families on a regular basis. I have not had that problem with any other doctor or therapist before or since him.
You will want to create one for each child, but work on one for difficult child 2 first as it will help the staff while she is in there.
Don't let them go much longer with-o setting up family therapy and letting you know what is going on. Squeaky wheels get greased - simple fact of life. Even if you dont' have the report fully completed, take what you have each time you go to see her and have it with you when you speak to them. You may or may not be able to get ahold of the psychiatrist on the phone. The long term psychiatric hospital my son was in had a psychiatrist who did NOT see family. Period. They did a weekly meeting about 6:30 or 7 am where the whole team met to talk about each patient. Parents were "allowed" to attend but strongly discouraged. I was told I was the first parent in all their years who actually attended more than 1 of these meetings. I drove the 90 minutes each way every single week - and when they moved the time to 5:30 with-o telling me I made them talk to me anyway - the psychiatrist was NOT happy but I could not have cared less. I brought muffins, cookies, banana bread and many other treats to the staff so they worked to let me know his little games. It also led to the staff listening a whole lot more to me because they could see how much we truly cared and wanted to do whatever was needed to help him. Sadly they had several patients in the psychiatric hospital (not just his ward) that had not seen a parent in months or even had a call from them. That is more what they were accustomed to and I was severe culture shock. Even more shocking - to them - I rounded up about 14 or 15 cassette players and headphones (walkman type) and brought a couple of hundred batteries and many many booktapes and classical music cassettes as a donation to the hospital. They had a few old walkmans but never had enough batteries for them, or headphones. they wanted to use these as rewards and calming tools - soothing music, stories, etc... - but couldn't. We were doing a massive cleanout plus I volunteered at 2 thrift stores and have done a LOT of donation finding for different groups. I also weeded our games and books and donated boxes and boxes of those. It was kissing up, but I wanted my child to have whatever he needed - these things worked for him. I didn't think it was fair to bring these things for him when none of the kids had them. It was a way to help them see how we were dedicated to him and watned him to have whatever he needed.
You don't have to go to that extreme. but it can help to do whatever you can for them. It will also help them realize that any lies she tells them ARE lies. Wiz is an excellent liar, as are many difficult children, and being this involved helped them to see how untrue his lies were.
I really hope that they can help your child. Neuropsychs are neuropsychologists - psychologist with special training in how the brain works and how this impacts behavior. They often do a LOT of intense testing and can be amazing resources. Complete testing can take 12 or more hours depending on what is needed. You want them to identify everything they can - including learning disorders, auditory processing disorders, speech-language issues, etc.... Also push them to do an EEG. This will take a pediatric neurologist but is a crucial step, in my opinion. Seizures can manifest in MANY forms, not just the ones we see in movies and on tv. My Jess has Absence Epilepsy but was actually first diagnosis'd with inattentive adhd - which she does NOT have. Her seizures are totally unnoticeable. She simply isn't "home" and has no idea what is going on for up to a minute at a time. When it was first diagnosed she was missing at least 30 of every 60 seconds - literally half of her life. medications helped a ton and the change was startling. Seizures can cause all sorts of behavior and a sleep deprived EEG (test for brain waves) is the best way to find out if she is having them. Seizure disorders CAN look like psychiatric disorders, but with-o antiseizure medications no psychiatric treatment will help. (Doesn't that sound frustrating? It is!).
I hope that they are able to figure things out, find the right medications and therapies to help her, and also help the rest of the family. I am so very sorry you are having to deal with all of this, but am glad you joined us.
(((((hugs)))))
I so very much understand what you are going through. I just horrified another mom when I told her that I never ground my kids or take things away from them. She has always felt I was a bad parent but that has pretty much cemented it for her because every other mom does and if I don't discipline like EVERYONE else than no wonder my child is he!! on wheels! (which believe me he is NOT! She just chooses to believe the lies her child is telling her but that is another problem.)
