Son being discharged, but doesn't want to come home

[troubledheart]

whew. it has been a week, my son is being discharged from hospital today, but called home and said he doesn't want to come home, he feels like he still needs to be there. I don't know what else to do, I called and spoke to the nurse and she would get the doctor and let him know. I am supposed to leave in an hour to get him.....grrrrr....The nurse told me that sometimes they are nervous about going home to unstructured time.


They changed his diagnosis to: ADHD Combined; PTSD with Anxiety Disorder; Depression and possible Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)

 

[mog]

It can be hard for them to come home. When my difficult child came home he did good for about two weeks and then started falling back into his bad routines again. My advice is to try to keep things more structured than you had it before. I think that it will help him to succeed better that way. Make him earn privileged and give him consequences that will affect him. Most of all our MST tells us that it is like teaching a baby to walk again. Strongly praise and reward good behavior it will help to heal the relationships.
Good luck!!!!

 

[WSM]

It was shocking to us too, but last month when our difficult child went to the psychiatric hospital for the first time for 7 days, he also didn't want to come home either. It makes you feel as tho your home is so horrible the 'snake pit' is preferrable.

A couple other people here have said their kids didn't want to come home, so maybe it's not all that uncommon, and maybe the phosps have heard it before. If so, I know ours didn't reassure us.

In our case I think that difficult child liked it because it was a new place where he hadn't yet burned bridges and people were still manipulativable and would give him the benefit of the doubt. At home, he's burned his bridges, lives with the consequences of his behavior, has a lot of trouble manipulating people and seldom gets the benefit of doubt (except sometimes from his dad).

Other people have said their kids found the psychiatric hospital to be a safe non-stressful non-threatening space and liked the rigorous structure. Freedom can be scary for kids who don't cope well.

 

[maril]

Leaving behind the daily structure, therapy, and support my son had available at the dual diagnosis facility he was discharged from in May was significant for him. In fact, after being home a little while, he was depressed one evening and told me he wanted to go back; he said, "not because I am using but..." and the conversation went along where we discussed peer pressure and situations he faced at home that he didn't have to deal with at the facility. Fortunately, he has been following through with aftercare (outpatient program, etc.) to me, very important to help him to continue to work towards goals.

He seems to be dealing with things somewhat better as time goes on as he becomes adjusted to life at home.

Good luck to you.

 

[auntalva]

Within the last year I have had one difficult child spend one week at psychiatric hospital (aka Behavioral Health Center) due to depression & suicide ideation and another difficult child spend two weeks at a shelter for troubled/runaway teens and 4 days in Juvenile Detention. Our circumstances might be different than yours, but BOTH of my daughters did insist at one time or another that they did not want to come home. Two thoughts to add to this discussion:

1) In one case I am absolutely certain that the difficult child was angry with me and fearful that I was rejecting/abandoning or 'giving up' on her. It was a defense mechanism for her to say that she did not want to come home, I am not her mother, she didn't want to be in this family, and wants me out of her life. In order to feel power and control, she wanted to reject me first and emphatically, before I kicked her out for good. In the heat of the moment, those words did hurt my feelings, but when I look at the big picture, I understand that this is only her anger and FEAR talking, and that she really does not mean it. However, my children are both adopted (formerly foster) children, and so they may have some paranoia and insecurity about the permance of our parent-child relationship.

2) We know that these (and most) children often blame us for all of their problems. This is due to lack of maturity, experience and responsibility. While you and I know that everything is NOT 'all our fault,' these immature and illogical children seem to think so. It is *their* behavior that we would like to change, but this does not happen easily Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) we get 'stuck' in the same patterns by which wer try to correct them, which are not having the desired effect. In fact, since we are the ones who acknowledge that there is a problem, maybe we should STOP and consider whether some of our parenting style is contributing to the problems. Without actually accepting blame for our difficult child's bad behaviors, let us stop and consider if there might be something in our parenting style that can be improved, so that the difficult child would want to come home. In my case, I have had to realize that I was suffering from depression (and sleep apnea), and my terrible mood and exhaustion were affecting my ability to parent. I had developed a negative communication style (scolding, lecturing, nagging, ven sometimes name-calling or insults). Family counseling (all three of us together) has helped us significantly, as well as behavior charts with rewards. And when the difficult child's see that I am working on improving my own parenting style, they seem more willing to work on their behaviors too.

 

[Andy]

When my son came home from the psychiatric hospital when he was 11 yrs old, he told me he was homesick for the psychiatric hospital.

Phosps are such structured places that the kids get very comfortable there. One way you can help the transistion is to set up a super structure schedule at home (we just did the night schedule) for awhile. Ask the psychiatric hospital what his night schedule was and have him follow it at home.

Do you have therapist appts set up for him? If so, share that calendar with him. Assure him that you are continuing to address his needs, that being sent home is not the end of treatment.

He was most likely given coping skills to use. Ask him to share those skills with you. Perhaps give him a poster board to write the skills down and examples of when to use what skill.

Good luck! If he is really not ready to come home, his psychiatric hospital doctor would recognize that fact. I hope what ever is best for your son today comes about.