Zerissenheit
New Member
Hi all -- I have been silently checking in with this forum for years for good advice and just plain old validation. Now I could really use your collective wisdom!
My husband and I have a 17-year-old son who is a sophomore in high school. We adopted him at birth. His birthmother smoked through the pregnancy, and we don't have evidence of other substance abuse but it's entirely possible. difficult child was born at full-term weighing 5 pounds 12 oz, with a very small head circumference.
Over the years he has been diagnosed with sensory integration disorder, auditory processing disorder, visual processing disorder, etc. His IQ is around 84, and he struggles to read and do basic math. He has been oppositional with us since he was 2 - never grew out of the terrible two's. Also never showed any initiative to "do it myself," as others on the board have described their kids. Now he is 5'10" and weighs 200 pounds, and delights in telling us that we cannot make him do anything. He also constantly wants us to do everything for him, argues with us constantly, flies into rages when we don't do what he wants, and is crazy jealous of and terrorizes his younger sister (easy child, age 14, adopted from China). I truly believe that he would be content to lie in bed watching videos for the rest of his life, as long as someone brought him a steady supply of junk food. He used to have friends when he was younger, but I think everyone else's maturity has passed him by at this point. On the plus side, he has a great sense of humor and loves to have fun, and very rarely acts out at school. Sometimes he "gets" rather complicated concepts, other times he has no clue about basic concepts.
We have tried various things over the years, none of which really seemed to make a difference. All of the "natural consequence"-based discipline approaches have been pretty useless - he doesn't make the connection, and/or doesn't have the self-control needed to pick the right actions. It hasn't helped that my husband and I don't really work as a team on this (I think husband may have some Aspie tendencies ...) difficult child has an IEP, with some accommodations, but our school is a Montessori, and while they are great on many things they are not so great on providing structure to kids who are not inherently self-motivated. We have gone to therapy, and no one thinks he has any mood disorders.
So - I am putting together the latest behavior plan, based on Your Defiant Teen, by Barkley and Robin. Has anyone had success with this? Also, we are really struggling with (and have always struggled with) our expectations. Of all the diagnoses I've read about, fetal alcohol spectrum seems to fit the best. But if he does have FASD, he's definitely on the high-functioning end. I would like to have reasonable expectations of what his future will look like after high school (assuming we get him through), but it's hard to know what he is capable of if he never "wants" to do anything other than watch TV and demands that we do everything for him. Is that because of his FASD (or whatever), or is it because we as parents have enabled him? How do I figure that out? Should I just assume that he is unlikely to ever live on his own, or should I act as if he is going to until he proves otherwise?
To top it off, I have fibromyalgia and struggle to get through my own day. We are all in survival mode and have been for years.
I think the next step is to do a neuropsychologist evaluation - anyone have recommendations for someone in the Denver area? Then ... any advice is welcome.
Kelly
My husband and I have a 17-year-old son who is a sophomore in high school. We adopted him at birth. His birthmother smoked through the pregnancy, and we don't have evidence of other substance abuse but it's entirely possible. difficult child was born at full-term weighing 5 pounds 12 oz, with a very small head circumference.
Over the years he has been diagnosed with sensory integration disorder, auditory processing disorder, visual processing disorder, etc. His IQ is around 84, and he struggles to read and do basic math. He has been oppositional with us since he was 2 - never grew out of the terrible two's. Also never showed any initiative to "do it myself," as others on the board have described their kids. Now he is 5'10" and weighs 200 pounds, and delights in telling us that we cannot make him do anything. He also constantly wants us to do everything for him, argues with us constantly, flies into rages when we don't do what he wants, and is crazy jealous of and terrorizes his younger sister (easy child, age 14, adopted from China). I truly believe that he would be content to lie in bed watching videos for the rest of his life, as long as someone brought him a steady supply of junk food. He used to have friends when he was younger, but I think everyone else's maturity has passed him by at this point. On the plus side, he has a great sense of humor and loves to have fun, and very rarely acts out at school. Sometimes he "gets" rather complicated concepts, other times he has no clue about basic concepts.
We have tried various things over the years, none of which really seemed to make a difference. All of the "natural consequence"-based discipline approaches have been pretty useless - he doesn't make the connection, and/or doesn't have the self-control needed to pick the right actions. It hasn't helped that my husband and I don't really work as a team on this (I think husband may have some Aspie tendencies ...) difficult child has an IEP, with some accommodations, but our school is a Montessori, and while they are great on many things they are not so great on providing structure to kids who are not inherently self-motivated. We have gone to therapy, and no one thinks he has any mood disorders.
So - I am putting together the latest behavior plan, based on Your Defiant Teen, by Barkley and Robin. Has anyone had success with this? Also, we are really struggling with (and have always struggled with) our expectations. Of all the diagnoses I've read about, fetal alcohol spectrum seems to fit the best. But if he does have FASD, he's definitely on the high-functioning end. I would like to have reasonable expectations of what his future will look like after high school (assuming we get him through), but it's hard to know what he is capable of if he never "wants" to do anything other than watch TV and demands that we do everything for him. Is that because of his FASD (or whatever), or is it because we as parents have enabled him? How do I figure that out? Should I just assume that he is unlikely to ever live on his own, or should I act as if he is going to until he proves otherwise?
To top it off, I have fibromyalgia and struggle to get through my own day. We are all in survival mode and have been for years.
I think the next step is to do a neuropsychologist evaluation - anyone have recommendations for someone in the Denver area? Then ... any advice is welcome.
Kelly
