You've found a good site here. Hang around, we can help. I'm sorry you had a hellish year - we can help there, too, because on this site is such an amazing wealth of collective knowledge and experience, that you need no longer feel you're struggling on alone.
If you can (I know you're busy, because we all are, especially when you have a difficult child = Gift From God) then do some reading of other posts on this site. There are some useful past posts which can help.
SOmething we recommend a lot is reading "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene. I have to admit, it took me some time to get to read it - the bookshops here didn't seem to have it, I had to order it in and I didn't want to buy yet another book until I had read it. Then there was a queue for it at the library, I had to reserve it. The queue for the book should have tipped me off - it's a darn good book.
There is some useful discussion on the book in the Early Childhood forum, if you want a quick peek.
The basic thing - our kids aren't being difficult just to be difficult; they're really struggling to cope in a world which just doesn't make sense to them, which seems sometimes to be deliberately frustrating for them. Then we come along and get tough, thinking that is all that is needed. It worked for us, having parents who were strict and ruled firmly. Why isn't it working for our children?
The stricter control methods not only don't work for a lot of difficult children, they make them worse because they take away any chance of trying to apply some level of control to their life, something they feel they need to do to reduce their stress. We demand instant compliance, we punish, we end up yelling - and the child gets more difficult.
If discipline isn't working, it's best to back off and not try, than to try and fail. Also, we tend to become micromanagers of our difficult children, often out of a sense of martyrdom after a while. I'm more aware of it now, and I see it around me at the mall, for example. The mother who is shouting at her child, "Now come along, Sam. One foot in front of the other, that's how you come along. Stop dawdling, stop looking in that shop window. Tuck your shirt in, push your glasses back up your nose. Tie your shoelaces. Come ALONG!"
Too much happening in too short a time.
We need to get back in touch with a better way of communicating with our children. I found that the more I scolded my child for disrespect, the more I seemed to be showing disrespect to him. But, we think, that's what our job is as parents, to teach our child by correction, how to behave. But for osme kids, this just isn't working. The more we scold, the more our child scolds us back. And this is disrespectful.
What worked for me was to take a step back and realise that my child had no understanding of how to show respect for other people. His teacher at school used sarcasm a lot, and this only confused him. Other kids would wither at her sarcasm; difficult child 3 would stand there and look at her puzzledly, or just turn his back and walk away because in his mind, she didn't make sense. She might shout after him, "That's right, walk away!" so he would keep walking. Then wonder why he was in trouble for disrespect.
So I pulled right back and began to show him respect, even when he was apparently very rude back to me. Instead of shouting at him, "Don't be rude!" I told him gently what he had said tat was wrong, and what he SHOULD have said. He looked surprised, then repeated te correct way. I thanked him and praised him, he was happy. Next time, he caught himself sooner. Over time, he has actually learned much better, how to be polite. When he's excited (or anxious or upset) he forgets, and slips back. Again, I gently correct. However, if he's in panic mode then something urgently needs attention (in his mind) and I won't get respect until he feels less anxious. if he's making a fuss over nothing I still help him resolve it and then tell him, when he is calmer (and therefore more receptive) that he really didn't need all that fuss, it was easily dealt with.
I worry when I see kids getting what I call an alphabet soup of diagnoses, when often the extra labels are simply observations of behaviours or symptoms. For example, my difficult child 3 has a diagnosis of high-functioning autism plus ADHD. As part of this conglomerate, he also has/has had SYMPTOMS of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), echolalia, perseverative behaviour, anxiety, Sensory Integration Disorder (SID), hyperlexia, hypermobility, language delay, Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), Learning Disability (LD), Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). And probably more. A number of these labels overlap or are so similar as to be virtually the same label. I've also had other experts seeing difficult child 3 who say that he's not autistic, he's Asperger's instead. The definition/diagnosis does change. But I can't therefore say that my son has autism AND Asperger's. It's a different diagnosis and frankly, needs to be independently verified before it will be acknowledged. We get more services with him having an autism diagnosis so nobody is likely to back up such a change in diagnosis.
Generally, a difficult child doesn't choose to be difficult. They usually WANT to be good, but don't know how and often get to a point where they just give up. It all becomes too hard.
Go back to when your child was a baby. Did you correct absolutely everything your child did wrong? Or did you work mostly on one thing at a time? For example, did you toilet-train your child at the same time as teaching your child to eat with utensils? Chances are, you didn't. Did you notice that as a child attains a skill like toilet-training, or self-feeding, that other recently-acquired skills sometimes take a backward step? That is because the child can't do too much at once. They need to focus their energies more specifically.
A difficult child needs to develop at their own pace. Throw out the calendar, forget the phrase, "At his age he should be doing..." because for difficult children, that phrase is meaningless and misleading. They WILL get there, it just takes longer.
You've had some great advice so far. There is plenty more, but like your child, we don't want to overwhelm you with everything all at once. Gently, gently.
Welcome aboard.
Marg
