Kilted Lass
New Member
Hi everyone, just joined today and looking for some insight.
My oldest is turning 8 this weekend,and I've been puzzled by his behavior. We have a diagnosis of ADHD/ODD. He is very hyper, doesn't make good choices (e.g. deciding that painting the outside of the house, the dog, his brother and the entire backyard blue seemed like a good plan), can be very disrespectful towards family, mean to his brother (more than normal brotherly fighting), yet he's smart as a whip, has a memory like an elephant, has interests way beyond his age (politics, obsessed with presidents) and has taken on kids twice his size to defend his little brother.
So here's where I'm stumped. At school he does well. He can focus, and is interested in school and gets along with his peers. At the moment his biggest issue is a tendency to rush through his work and penmanship that is so illegible even he can't read it. His school is a parent participation so about once a week I work in his room and get to observe him. He's always quiet, follows the rules is a model student.
But the second he gets home the sh!t hits the fan. He goes into super hyper mode, can no longer focus, and then I start seeing the fighting with his brother, the back talk, disrespect towards me and dad, and then usually about 5pm it gets ramped up to where he's completely out of control, and that's usually where my temper snaps. He gets into these hyper modes and when I tell him he needs to stop whatever it is he's doing (usually destroying the house), he gets really squirrely and then it's almost like he wants to see how bad he can get before I blow my top. Nothing I say or do penetrates and then when I try to get him into his room or make him stop, etc, it's the whole catch me if you can.
Nothing I've tried has worked. We've done time outs which are a complete waste of time, removing privileges has zero effect on him, we've done reward charts (several different kinds), spankings, but nothing seems to work.
I can't take him out without it being a struggle with behavior. Refusing to sit still, keep his voice down (he talks at like 180 decibels), etc.
I don't know what's going on, and I can't understand how he can be so good at school but not home. All I ever hear is how ADHD kids have so many issues in school. So it makes me think maybe he isn't ADHD. But I strongly feel there's something going on. Maybe he's more ODD than ADHD?
We just lost his ADHD pediatrician to a different facility, so I have to find a new one. I'm with Kaiser, so everything is inhouse. I'm not sure if the pysch we were seeing has left, we haven't been in a while.
Anyways, I'm at the end of my rope and just not sure what to do. I feel like a complete loser in the parenting department. And I'm ready to go postal on the next twit that tells me I just "need to discipline my kids".
Jen
My oldest is turning 8 this weekend,and I've been puzzled by his behavior. We have a diagnosis of ADHD/ODD. He is very hyper, doesn't make good choices (e.g. deciding that painting the outside of the house, the dog, his brother and the entire backyard blue seemed like a good plan), can be very disrespectful towards family, mean to his brother (more than normal brotherly fighting), yet he's smart as a whip, has a memory like an elephant, has interests way beyond his age (politics, obsessed with presidents) and has taken on kids twice his size to defend his little brother.
So here's where I'm stumped. At school he does well. He can focus, and is interested in school and gets along with his peers. At the moment his biggest issue is a tendency to rush through his work and penmanship that is so illegible even he can't read it. His school is a parent participation so about once a week I work in his room and get to observe him. He's always quiet, follows the rules is a model student.
But the second he gets home the sh!t hits the fan. He goes into super hyper mode, can no longer focus, and then I start seeing the fighting with his brother, the back talk, disrespect towards me and dad, and then usually about 5pm it gets ramped up to where he's completely out of control, and that's usually where my temper snaps. He gets into these hyper modes and when I tell him he needs to stop whatever it is he's doing (usually destroying the house), he gets really squirrely and then it's almost like he wants to see how bad he can get before I blow my top. Nothing I say or do penetrates and then when I try to get him into his room or make him stop, etc, it's the whole catch me if you can.
Nothing I've tried has worked. We've done time outs which are a complete waste of time, removing privileges has zero effect on him, we've done reward charts (several different kinds), spankings, but nothing seems to work.
I can't take him out without it being a struggle with behavior. Refusing to sit still, keep his voice down (he talks at like 180 decibels), etc.
I don't know what's going on, and I can't understand how he can be so good at school but not home. All I ever hear is how ADHD kids have so many issues in school. So it makes me think maybe he isn't ADHD. But I strongly feel there's something going on. Maybe he's more ODD than ADHD?
We just lost his ADHD pediatrician to a different facility, so I have to find a new one. I'm with Kaiser, so everything is inhouse. I'm not sure if the pysch we were seeing has left, we haven't been in a while.
Anyways, I'm at the end of my rope and just not sure what to do. I feel like a complete loser in the parenting department. And I'm ready to go postal on the next twit that tells me I just "need to discipline my kids".
Jen