Hi, I am new here, but I am hopeful that maybe someone here will have some information that can help me...or at least some support!
Obviously I can find a ton of info online...I have read tons and tons of it and pretty much know where we are at... I just don't know where to go from here, and it is scary.
My difficult child is 7, going to be 8 in just a few weeks, and can be the sweetest most loving child ever. But ever since he was just a newborn, he suffered from "rages". Just the slightest trigger would set off a virtually uncontrollable tantrum that could last up to, and sometimes more than, an hour.
His 2nd grade teacher at a Charter School recently "diagnosed" him with Asbergers and was "extremely worried" that he was going to seriously hurt someone. We took him out of that school after I found that this same teacher was lying to me about some of the things that were happening, and that her punishment when he lashed out was to set him in a chair in the middle of the class (they had an "open" curriculum with no assigned seating and children milling the classroom constantly) in my opinion, he was one child that she could not change, and that really bugged her. She was starting to treat him differently than the other kids and things were very hard.
Although I was angry at her, I didn't ignore her concerns, and since we live in a smaller town with limited choices of specialists, we traveled 200 miles in one direction to a Neuropsychologist who found nothing wrong with him ( :surprise:) and then 50 miles in the other direction to a very good child psychologist who put him through 8 hours of testing and interviews. His Primary Doctor ordered tons of blood, hearing and vision tests to rule out anything pysiological. FINALLY, they took all of the results and decided that he has a fairly mild case of ADD (no hyperactivity) Let me take a minute to salute those of you who deal with more severe ADD/ADHD! I cannot imagine...
The anger is part of it, but definitly aggrevated by his home issues (his dad suffers from a lack of anger control as well, and we have moved a total of 9 times since difficult child was born.)He also has some anxiety and possibly a little depression. He does have some social problems; I think the kids find him a little overwhelming, maybe? He really loves his friends and is very generous...but he does get frustrated.
He is now in a regular classroom, and though he still has some issues, his new teacher seems to be helping quite a bit. At home is still difficult at times. The thing that scares me the most though, is something that he told me the other night when I was laying down with him at bed time the night of the VA Tech shootings. Apparently the teachers had gone into their classrooms and told the children a little about what had happened. He asked his dad and got the rest of the details and he had been lingering on it for some time. He said that he was really scared that he would do that someday (the shooting) I was shocked, but talked calmly about it with him. He was worried about what the boys parents thought, and if they were angry at their son. I told him that they were probably hurt, dissapointed and really, really heartbroken, but that they probably were not angry. I just didn't know what else to say. I asked him why he would think that he could ever do that, and although he said that it was horrible and that he never wanted to do anything like that, he was worried about his anger problem.
Right now he is on Depakote to treat his anger and hopefully level off the escalation. I think it is taking the edge off, but it is still there. The helpfulness is subtle...more so than I had hoped. His Doctor is hesitant to prescribe any ADD drugs since the long term effects are showing some problems in children, and the newer ones haven't had time on the market to prove thier safety.
Does anyone have any ideas or have a similiar situation?
Thanks for listening!
Marcia
Obviously I can find a ton of info online...I have read tons and tons of it and pretty much know where we are at... I just don't know where to go from here, and it is scary.
My difficult child is 7, going to be 8 in just a few weeks, and can be the sweetest most loving child ever. But ever since he was just a newborn, he suffered from "rages". Just the slightest trigger would set off a virtually uncontrollable tantrum that could last up to, and sometimes more than, an hour.
His 2nd grade teacher at a Charter School recently "diagnosed" him with Asbergers and was "extremely worried" that he was going to seriously hurt someone. We took him out of that school after I found that this same teacher was lying to me about some of the things that were happening, and that her punishment when he lashed out was to set him in a chair in the middle of the class (they had an "open" curriculum with no assigned seating and children milling the classroom constantly) in my opinion, he was one child that she could not change, and that really bugged her. She was starting to treat him differently than the other kids and things were very hard.
Although I was angry at her, I didn't ignore her concerns, and since we live in a smaller town with limited choices of specialists, we traveled 200 miles in one direction to a Neuropsychologist who found nothing wrong with him ( :surprise:) and then 50 miles in the other direction to a very good child psychologist who put him through 8 hours of testing and interviews. His Primary Doctor ordered tons of blood, hearing and vision tests to rule out anything pysiological. FINALLY, they took all of the results and decided that he has a fairly mild case of ADD (no hyperactivity) Let me take a minute to salute those of you who deal with more severe ADD/ADHD! I cannot imagine...
The anger is part of it, but definitly aggrevated by his home issues (his dad suffers from a lack of anger control as well, and we have moved a total of 9 times since difficult child was born.)He also has some anxiety and possibly a little depression. He does have some social problems; I think the kids find him a little overwhelming, maybe? He really loves his friends and is very generous...but he does get frustrated.
He is now in a regular classroom, and though he still has some issues, his new teacher seems to be helping quite a bit. At home is still difficult at times. The thing that scares me the most though, is something that he told me the other night when I was laying down with him at bed time the night of the VA Tech shootings. Apparently the teachers had gone into their classrooms and told the children a little about what had happened. He asked his dad and got the rest of the details and he had been lingering on it for some time. He said that he was really scared that he would do that someday (the shooting) I was shocked, but talked calmly about it with him. He was worried about what the boys parents thought, and if they were angry at their son. I told him that they were probably hurt, dissapointed and really, really heartbroken, but that they probably were not angry. I just didn't know what else to say. I asked him why he would think that he could ever do that, and although he said that it was horrible and that he never wanted to do anything like that, he was worried about his anger problem.
Right now he is on Depakote to treat his anger and hopefully level off the escalation. I think it is taking the edge off, but it is still there. The helpfulness is subtle...more so than I had hoped. His Doctor is hesitant to prescribe any ADD drugs since the long term effects are showing some problems in children, and the newer ones haven't had time on the market to prove thier safety.
Does anyone have any ideas or have a similiar situation?
Thanks for listening!
Marcia
