Creepy Moment this AM

Roxona

Active Member
As I was walking downstairs to take the boys to the bus stop this morning, I heard SS10 singing "Hush little baby" but changing the words to "I'll kill you." He was singing...yelling loudly. We don't let him watch scary movies that have this sort of thing in them, so I don't know where he is picking this up from or if it's from his imagination.

These types of words have been coming out of his mouth more and more. Most of the time it has been in the heat of the moment when he has lost his mind. This time was not. In fact, everything had been going smoothly this AM until I went upstairs to get changed to go to the bus stop. That's when the yelling started. He always starts yelling every time I leave the room. I usually ask him why he is yelling, tell him it's inappropriate and to stop. Most of the time he is shouting nothing in particular...I think mostly just to hear his voice. Today was creepy though. I'm becoming more and more fearful of him. I have a key lock on my bedroom door, and I lock it every night. My husband knows I am scared, and knows to keep it locked.

My husband was trying to get him into in-patient treatment, but because he is not raging right now, they will not admit him. He was advised to call for an evaluation, but has not be able to schedule anything because the lady who does the intakes has been out of the office sick the last couple of days. I'm waiting for my husband to make his morning call, so I can tell him what happened. I don't like to bother him at work...he has a hard enough time concentrating as it is. I hope he can get a hold of the intake person today or someone else if she is still out sick.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
Document, document, document.
When he says this stuff, record it. When he is raging, video. Things get damaged, take pictures.

Even once he gets in for an evaluation? They won't believe what you SAY, but direct evidence is harder to discount.
 

PiscesMom

Active Member
yes, agree - try that, videotaping. what about the school district? My son is in an Residential Treatment Center (RTC). He has been mentally ill since age 13. I remember those years - years!! of trying to find a solution, seemed like every door was shut against me. The schools have an obligation to educate him, hopefully yours has deep pockets? Not sure if that is the avenue - but reading this just reminds me of those lost years trying, trying, trying to find a way to get him help. I wish you the best.
 

Roxona

Active Member
No deep pockets here I'm afraid. In fact, the school just enables his behavior further. His behavior is out of control at school and they really should evaluate him, provide an IEP and a BIP but they don't want to pay for it. Whenever I mention doing an IEP they back way off and pretend nothing is wrong with him. My hands are tied because I am not his legal guardian and Dad is slow to do anything. Meanwhile, I keep locking my door at night and have minimal contact with him.
 

Feeling Sad

Well-Known Member
Do not ignore any words of violence...even when they are substituting words in a song.

Please have him evaluated and keep a detailed journal and tape/video as long as it doesn't put you in danger. You do not want to escalate a possibly dangerous situation.

My son's threats of violence got worse and worse. How much medicine would it take to kill me, he asked, when we had to have our dog put down. He would tell me how easy it would be to smother me in my sleep. He told me of a dream where he pushed me off of a pier and I died. All done with smiles.

I tried to ignore these threats as anger at the moment.

But, it came down to a possible aborted attempt with a jagged bottle at my throat, singing Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead, and a restraining order to keep my other younger son safe.

Yes, sons can say bad cruel things. Sometimes to get a rise out of us. Sometimes to scare us. But sometimes, it could be a true threat.

Heed the warning. If you feel fear then take steps to be safe. A lock on your door will not do it.
 

pigless in VA

Well-Known Member
I would think it would be to the benefit of the school for them to have an IEP and a BIP on SS10. Roxona, you might consider posting in the Special Education forum to see if there is something your husband can do to get this ball rolling for SS10.

I work with a child who has zero impulse control. I really do mean zero. He does every little weird thing that pops into his head including kissing the boys, copying Jack's stimming behaviors, and dropping his pants in the bus loop. Happily, he has an intense BIP. All the teachers and aides help him throughout the day, all day, every day. We love the kid, but he has to have someone else to tell him that his behaviors are inappropriate because he cannot do it for himself. Yesterday, March 21, was the first day ALL YEAR that he had a good day. A day where he was successful at focusing and not annoying the heck out of every person in his path, like a one child tornado.

At 10 years old, your step-son deserves to have a chance to be successful at school. He deserves to have the adults in his life working together to help him.
 

Roxona

Active Member
But, it came down to a possible aborted attempt with a jagged bottle at my throat, singing Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead, and a restraining order to keep my other younger son safe.

Heed the warning. If you feel fear then take steps to be safe. A lock on your door will not do it.

This is the sort of thing I absolutely worry about. SS10 is small for his age, but he won't be for long. In a couple of years he will be a teenager, and I worry about that. Dad took him to the children's psychiatric hospital last week to get the psychiatric evaluation ball rolling. They are suppose to call him back to tell him who his therapist will be, but I don't think they have yet. My husband is lazy and isn't good at following through if something doesn't seem like an emergency to him, so I will have to bug him about it.

I've already told my husband and family counselor that I am afraid of SS10. I recently asked my husband what he would actually do if his son became more violent. He says he would admit him into an Residential Treatment Center (RTC). I believe that he would, but I don't think he would act quickly enough before someone got hurt. He's already shown his complacency to me when SS10 threatened to kill me, my husband and himself because he wasn't allowed to go on a sleep over. My husband brushed the behavior away as just a bad temper tantrum. My husband knows that I do not think he is doing enough, quickly enough, and that I will be moving back into my house if I even get a inkling of SS10 being physically aggressive with anyone.

I changed the lock on the bedroom door to a key lock a couple of years ago. SS10 didn't like me locking the door to keep him out and would pick the regular bedroom lock, so he could get into our room regardless if we were in there or not.
 

Roxona

Active Member
I would think it would be to the benefit of the school for them to have an IEP and a BIP on SS10.

At 10 years old, your step-son deserves to have a chance to be successful at school. He deserves to have the adults in his life working together to help him.

Pigless, I would think so too, but they are doing things that I don't think are by the book. At the end of the last parent-teacher conference, his teacher mentioned something about a wellness team needing to provide counseling services to SS10. It would not be formal and there would be no accountability. In fact, I don't even know who would be counseling him. When she brought this up at the conference, I told her that counseling or any kind of IEP/BIP would need to be discussed in a separate meeting when my step kids were not there listening to the discussion, and it would require longer than the three minutes we had left before her next parent-teacher conference started. She would not provide us with any date or time within which to meet to discuss this issue. I told my husband that I objected because no one would be required to report or discuss anything to us. I explained that I agreed that he needed counseling, but it should be someone of our choosing, who was reputable and who would report their findings to us. I have had bad experience with school counselors in the past, so I am very cautious. My husband didn't seem to understand my concern. I know they are doing the counseling, and I also know that my husband has no idea of what it consists of because no one is reporting a thing to him.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I would use private evaluations and private therapists to help your son with his issues. The school can't do much about his problems. He in my opinion needs the mental health community ASAP.

Good luck! !
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
If everything is going right in the school environment, the biggest help they can be is in the area of educational needs - dyslexia, Auditory Processing Disorders (APD), accommodations, that kind of thing. Ed-psychiatric evaluation can be done at school - but it isn't a full psychiatric evaluation. We found it better to get our own full evaluation, and then get the school to add the education stuff to it.
 

PiscesMom

Active Member
ask for an IEP. formally, in writing. or find a sped advocate to help you with that. they legally have to educate everyone. don't let them off the hook.
 

pigless in VA

Well-Known Member
I think you need an advocate when dealing with this school. I am confused as to why they think they should counsel SS10 instead of get a plan in place to educate him.

Question: has SS10 stayed at the same school? Do the people at the school know that his mother has passed, and are they too soft on him? I found that after my husband died, the teachers at my daughter's school tended to give her preferential treatment. I had to encourage them to expect more of her as a student. She did participate in a grief counseling group at school for awhile with some other children who had also lost close relatives.
 

Roxona

Active Member
I think you need an advocate when dealing with this school. I am confused as to why they think they should counsel SS10 instead of get a plan in place to educate him.

This is baffling to me as well, Pigless.

SS10 has always been at this school. However, they change staff regularly. The counselor is new every year...sometime (like this year) we have had two different counselors. I get a sense that they are not looking at his complete background. I think his teachers know he has lost his mother, and I would agree that they are too soft and inconsistent with him, which promotes the disruptiveness and temper tantrums at school.

However, within the late month or so, they have been cracking down more, and I have been getting daily behavior reports and he is losing privileges for poor behavior. I sign the report every day, but do nothing more then discuss it with him and how he could do things differently since they have already issued a consequence for the infraction.

I agree with getting a private evaluation and having private counseling and then bringing it to the school for educational modification. That is exactly what I am pushing my husband to do.
 
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