Ethansmom

New Member
My son is so angry. He refuses to discuss his feelings leaving all family members wondering what they did to set him off. The littlest thing can trigger his anger! He yells and screams and calls us names. He breaks stuff and puts holes in his wall. He has come a long way from where he was a year ago, but he still has problems with ODD. We have done everything you can think of to help him. He refuses to talk to any therapists. He is taking antidepressants, ADD medication, and anxiety pills to help with sleep at night. He is only 15 and I am scared he will never be able to control his anger! I am at my wits end and I need to talk to other parents going through similar things.
 

Ethansmom

New Member
Thank you for the response. I am trying a lot harder to set boundaries and enforce punishments. I think I avoid them sometimes for fear of what will set him off. I think for too long he has not had the discipline he needed! That makes me so angry at myself.
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Welcome Ethansmom! I see he is on some medications. Does he have an official diagnosis? Has he ever had a neuropsychologist evaluation? They can be very helpful and show you a lot that you might not see. Is there any hook you can use to get him to talk to a therapist?
 

Ethansmom

New Member
He is diagnosed with depression, anxiety and ODD. He also suffers from ADD. He took tests and such through a place called the achieve center. I have always thought he suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was 3, but we never got him checked because the dr's didn't think the accident was that severe.
 

Ethansmom

New Member
Thank you Copabanana. I think I just need to be able vent or get ideas from other parents going through the same things. Sometimes I feel all alone.
 

Isla

New Member
My daughter (now 34) was diagnosed at 13 with ADD Inattentive type. She was prescribed stimulant medication which seemed to help her concentration. I wasn't aware at the time but she began to take massive doses along with Valium (to calm her down). This made her very aggressive and she had seizures due to sudden withdrawal (of the Benzodiazapam).

20 years on and anything triggers an extreme verbal attack. I have only recently learned she has been self medicating again (I was of the opinion she had stopped taking stimulant medication at the age of 19). She uses a months supply of stimulant medications with Valium over the short course of a couple of days. Her extreme moods perplexed us, but now they make sense. Is it possible your son is doing a similar thing?
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
Hi, and welcome.

Son. 15. Sounds like major problems starting about age 14.
Brings back too many memories!

No, it probably is NOT your parenting. You more likely have a differently wired kid. Add to that the combination of the transition into high school, AND the dreaded puberty... ugh.

You probably do not know all that is going on. It is likely that school is practically toxic for your kid (it was for BOTH of mine, and only one is truly "difficult"). These differently-wired kids tend to be bullied by both other kids and by teachers (no, not all of them, but enough to be a problem). They don't learn the same way or at the same rate - sometimes being far ahead, other times being far behind.

There can be: developmental issues (such as Aspgerger's or autism spectrum disorder); disabilities, such as Auditory Processing Disorders (APD) (auditory processing disorders - there are several different ones) or Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) (developmental coordination disorder); learning disabilities such as dysgraphia or dyslexia; mental health/illness issues - from anxiety and depression to things like bipolar. I've probably missed a few categories at that.

If you son has never had a truly comprehensive evaluation by someone highly trained in testing and results evaluation, he should be. It isn't too late to make a difference. Finding out exactly what you are dealing with enables you to fine tune your approach - and to adjust school through an IEP or similar. More than that, HE needs to know who he is, what he is capable of, and what kinds of interventions, supports, medications and therapies will help.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Hey, Moms and Dad, there is WAY too much blame going on here.

Our children have inborn temperaments that you can't change. Anger is not usually caused by our poor parenting. That is an old fashion, outdated theory. It is usually caused by some sort of underlying disorder, such as autistic spectrum disorder, early onset mood disorders, or other issues that we can't do anything about and that require early intervention and help. A parent can raise four kids and have four different personalities. Drugs are often a factor, even when we don't know it. My daughter started using drugs at twelve (yes, that's twelve) and my once good natured child became a terror and I did not know it was drugs. Or even think it. She is back to her normal sweet self now that she is clean. My son has autistic spectrum disorder and he started out having tantrums that he could not control, nor could anybody here. But he got help too and he is 21 now and the sweetest, nicest young man on the face of the earth and he almost never even gets irritated. Most of the time something else is going on a nd it's not "bad parenting." If you ever get a therapist who tells you that, you need to fire the guy yesterday.

Your son is getting to the age where it is late in the game, but I highly recommend taking him a psychiatrist for medication (the one with the MD in psychology) and a NeuroPsychologist (not a neurologist) for intensive testing to see why this child has so much trouble controlling himself. And make sure a drug test is included, although drug tests don't show ALL drugs. Also, look at the genetics tree on both sides, even if the boy never met his biological father or mother. Regardless, he is 50% DNA of that parent. Does he resemble a biological relative with certain traits? Is there substance abuse or bipolar somewhere in his DNA? Any neurological differences, like autism?

You can be as consistant as you try to be with many kids and it doesn't work because they can't control themselves the way we want them to and it is not because of us. If you tell a child to go to his time out chair and he throws the chair, like my autistic son did as a toddler, and bites you when you try to settle him down, it is pretty hard to be consistent. Consistency did not help him. Interventions to help him communicate and understand the world helped him. I have four kids, three adopted, and none are biologically related. They are good kids, but they are very different because they have different DNA from one another and I raised them all the same. And I was not a strict parent. I was more the lenient, loving type. I was also a child myself who had an early mood disorder. I remember being very depressed as young as four and, although I am not going to even try to say I had good parents, they did not cause my outbursts and meltdowns. My temperament was very challenging. I was so uber sensitive that anything made me cry and I continue to struggle with a mood disorder to this day, however I am under good control with years of therapy and medication. As abusive as my mother was, and I'm sure none of you are like her, she didn't cause my mood disorder, unless I inherited from her, and she didn't heal me. I had to do that.

Regrets about how a child turns out is more often nature, not nurture, and it is a waste of time to think, "What did I do wrong?" You could have had a child with a very mild temper (I have one like that) who just seemed to go with the flow from early on and barely have to do any disciplining. You can have one with a temperament like mine, a bit like my oldest, who needed therapy young, was harder, but is doing pretty well now. In fact, I'd say he's doing VERY good.

Any mental health professional worth his salt in 2015 is going to want to do testing for various disorders on difficult children. It is rare to hear, "It's because of your parenting" or "he's spoiled" from a professional anymore and, if you do, move on, move on, move on. Go to the guys with the most education in the brain--Psychiatrists and NeuroPsychologists. Don't expect therapists and social workers to be able to diagnose your child and DON'T DON'T DON'T let educators tell you what is wrong. That is not their field. They are teachers, that's all.They see a lot of kids, but are not trained to do ANY diagnosing. Don't take them seriously. Definitely get help if they tell you your child is struggling, but don't let them tell you, "It's ADHD." The fact is, teachers do not have the expertise to know what is causing that struggle.

Guilt doesn't help. If I were the parent of this boy, I'd take him for a complete neuropsychlogical evaluation, which can take up to ten hours, before he turns eighteen. Once he is eighteen, there is nothing you can legally do to help your child. If any of us do anything wrong it is not getting mental health professionals involved, diagnosing and helping early enough, but it is never too late for a person to get help and change. And it is rarely our parenting that causes "bad" behavior unless we beat our kids every day or somebody else abused him. Kids adopted at older ages have already been formed and often have attachment issues, which also causes really challenging behaviors, for those who adopted older kids, like we did a few times. Expect to have to really get an older adoptee a lot of help as soon as he arrives in your home
and hope he has not been damaged too badly from the place he came from. If he has been, this is also NOT YOUR FAULT. How can it be? You weren't even there.

Hugs to all the moms and dads with hurting hearts. You are good parents with kids who have challenges. All you can do is do the best you can to get help and see what works the best. And see a psychiatrist AND a Neuropyschologist (not a neurologist...two different animals).
 
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InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
Anger is not usually caused by our poor parenting. That is an old fashion, outdated theory. It is usually caused by some sort of underlying disorder, such as autistic spectrum disorder, early onset mood disorders, or other issues that we can't do anything about and that require early intervention and help
Including physical, emotional and/or sexual abuse outside the family that you know nothing about.

The angry kid has a problem, and needs help. It is not impossible for the problem to come from within the family, but typically, the kind of parents who seek out this board are NOT the kind who are the source of the problem. Most often - the problem is either from within the kid, or from an outside source.
 

Ethansmom

New Member
Wow. I can't even begin to tell all of you how excited I am to have found this website. I have felt so alone for so long. I have done everything I possibly can for my son and you are right when you say he is wired differently. There is a lot of background that I did not provide on here as it is too much to share. As far as medical and psychological I have done everything I can possibly do for my son. Sleep studies, counselors, medications off and on, he has always had an IEP at school, psychiatrists, psychologists...you name I have done it. It wasn't until recently that he started some new medications that we slowly started seeing the changes. He takes an antidepressant, ADD medication, and an anxiety drug to help shut down his thoughts at night so he can go to sleep. He has a good heart. I see it all the time, but other times he is a terror. He use to scare me to the point that I would lock my bedroom door when I went to bed. Not so much anymore. He is finally seeing a Dr that understands and genuinely listens to me and my opinion. I have dealt with Dr's who simply looked at me like my parenting was the problem.
I just want peace in my house again. I don't want it to be my son against the house and me trying to pacify everyone. I don't want to be the mediator. Everyone tells me I am doing the best I can and that I am a good mom, even his social worker said she wished more parents were like me. But in my mind I just wish I didn't have to go thru this. I wish my kid could be good and control himself. I wish he could be respectful and obient.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
Ethansmom, I forget who it was that cautioned you to be careful of ADD medication for your son, that is a stimulant. There are alternatives that do not have addictive properties.
I wish my kid could be good and control himself. I wish he could be respectful and obedient.
Me too. My son is my only child. I never married and had difficult relationships with my family. He was my everything. That was not good. I see that now. The relationship was too loaded for him, and for me. Now that I am older and he is older I find myself wishing my son was maturing into the kind of man I had hoped he would be. I worry that when I am old, old there will be nobody to take care of me.

The reality is neither you or I know the outcome for our children or ourselves. Nothing is promised to any parent. The only thing I can do is to make myself better so that I can face whatever present and future that is mine to face. It is the same for every other parent, I think.

I believe it is the same for you, too. You have a family that needs you. Your son needs you. You need you. To me, the important thing is to stay focused on what you can do, and to take care of yourself and your family.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
Hope this isn't discouraging: We got few answers and little help until son became an adult.
However... we ARE getting real help now.

The difference for us is: a whole different set of doctors once you are an adult. The "child and youth" system was a joke. Lots of false information, no real help. We "thought" we were on the right track. Then he'd hit another bump. Nothing worked in bringing stability. Not until we got adult-level doctors. Now they aren't afraid of labels, are prepared to diagnose, are prepared to document however they have to so he gets access to the right medications... Finally.
 
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