dealing with my feelings about difficult child

[sjexpress]

I have posted only 2x and mostly lurk but I would love your opinions on my thoughts. Our 10 ds difficult child is undiagnosed but has seen a few psychologists and counselors with little success. We are in the process of trying to find a child neuropsyh for more help. difficult child has anger issues, is defiant, can get aggressive, has tantrums, blames others when things don't go his way, poor coping ability when frustrated, can get very emotional, etc.. However, these behaviors are not an all day or everyday occurence. It happens when he does not get his way or if he feels stressed. He is a smart, athletic kid and with out these poor behaviors, can be the world's most easy child.
These behaviors occur only to husband and I, not is school or on sports teams with other coaches but difficult child will act up in public places, family events, etc. For yrs. we thought it was only "behavioral" and poor parenting and we tried all methods to encourage better behavior and change our approach with little changes.
After many meetings with the professional, I have begun to feel that difficult child's actions are more of a "disability" that may be out of his control more than something he is doing on purpose to us. It was sort of explained to us that the area in difficult child's brain that deals with impulse or emotional control sort of shuts down or is slow to work during certain times. After difficult child has his moments, he feels bad and apologizes. I have begun to feel more sad for difficult child than angry when it happens because sometimes when it happens on the sidelines of a baseball game (after he strikes out- he throws helmet or bangs bat around but never directed at anyone) or soccer game, some of the kids tease him. husband however, just feels embarrasment from difficult child behavior in public and says everyone is looking thinking we are terrible parents. husband wants his ds to behave like the others on the team. This is causing alot of stress between husband and I.
I tell husband that not everyone gets the easy child they were hoping for. There are many worse off than us and we have to love and help difficult child for who he is and not care what others think because they don't know us at all and what we have to deal with fairly frequently. As you all know, it is not easy!
Do you think I am wrong with my thoughts? Should I inform his coaches about some of difficult child's issues so they just don't think he is a bad kid or poor sport? husband says no way but I think they should know because again, I am seeing it as more if a disability, not intentional. Thanks so much for your input. I really feel alone with all of this because of how others perceive us.

Jan

 

[PatriotsGirl]

Caring about how we are perceived does not help anyone. No one will ever truly understand what we deal with. Sure, they could empathize, but never truly understand. My husband and I are very different from each other. He has a very short fuse and our difficult child knows how to push every button that man has. I have had to hold him back from going after her after she has run her mouth (when she runs her mouth you wouldn't believe what comes out of it!!!). Eh, people can think we are bad parents. Whatever. I do have one easy child so I know that is not the case. You are right - not every one can have a perfect child. Otherwise there would be nothing but normal people inhabiting the earth and we all know that is not the case. People are always going to judge for something or another. There is nothing you can do to stop it. The only thing you can do is worry about your family and coping with your problems and doing the best for YOUR family. I am sorry you are having to join us here. Seems to be a pretty big pool of us out there struggling....a lot bigger than I imagined....

 

[aeroeng]

It is NOT BAD PARENTING. (Although people contently blame the parents). And yes I beleive it is a disability.

Sounds a lot like my son. Wonderful sometimes, extreme explosions and no ability to control his emotions, anger or frustration. Also he only vented it at home, behaving perfectly at school. I asked his teacher once about his behavior. She looked at me with a confused look, this is xxx we are talking about of course his behavior is perfect. Her look said, "why would you even ask?". Mean while I have holes in the walls, bruises on my arms, have called 911 many times, and have gone through a personal hell. I thought, "If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you."

His Dr. stated that we should not feel that just because he can hold it together at school that he could hold it together at home. The pressure vent has to pop sometime. I also believe that his primary problem was that he did not have the skills to manage his frustrations. For example: he did not want his brother to touch his computer, yet he also wanted his brother to fix his computer. He did not have the emotional skill to manage this conflicting wants. So he simply gets frustrated and explodes on some minor thing. He also had troubles dealing with things that were not as expected, or things that he thought were not fair. (yet he could be more un-fair related to his brothers then anyone else).

The book "The explosive child" helped us the most. Behavior modification techniques only became something else to fight about. In the explosive child the idea is the child would behave well if they knew how to, so rewards and penalty systems won't help. He feel most kids really want to behave, they just don't know how. A reward/penalty systems does nothing to teach then how. The author has a detailed system of finding the problem and talking through it. A therapist we worked with showed us a similar technique called reflection. Where you repeat back what the child is saying or feeling. The child corrects you, you repeat again. Then you state the child's side of the problem and then yours. Then begin the problem solving part. The book states the problem solving part is difficult, but I disagreed. For us stating the problem clearly was the difficult part. After the problem was stated he was smart enough to come up with the solution fairly quickly. The more we did this the better he got at not exploding.

It is a good sign that he can apologizes. It took my son several years to get to that point. He is doing much better now. I changed my signature for him from "difficult child" to "recovering difficult child" because he is really trying. I would not tell he coach unless the behavior starts to interfere with his game. The coach is not as likely to understand it. What you want is for him to develop some strategies on what he can do for the next time he strikes out so they are not as unexpected to him. (When he make an apology is the best time to talk about OK next week when ...).

 

[BusynMember]

Your hub is wrong for worrying more about other people than the problems with his son. It says a lot about him that his son is ten years old and still not diagnosed and that behavioral therapy has been tried for so many years when it's not working...the poor boy needs permission to be who he is and he deserves help. He didn't ask for his disability either. I don't know if your doctor is right or not...he sounds kind of strange not diagnosing.

Of course your son's coaches, teachers, etc. should be told and he should see a neuropsychologist for a complete 6-10 hour evaluation. Your son won't change or get better without help and it's getting late in the game. Early intervention (like at 2 or 3) is best. He has some catching up to do.

I'm betting this kid is somewhere on the autism spectrum and that lots of time has been wasted (I could be wrong about the diagnosis. of course, b ut not that lots of time has been wasted). However, because of very poor social skills and not caring how he looks to others (the child not the hub) often spectrum kids will act very childish and embarassing in public and not even know ir or care. A neuropsychologist is your best bet. Can't say THAT enough. Denial is not your friend. Or hub's friend. Is he this boy's father? Hub could use therapy. The world is NOT all about him, and he should be thinking of the child, not himself.

Good luck!

 

[TerryJ2]

I'm with-MWM. Get your son a good neuropsychologist evaluation, and talk to the coaches. Don't give them any more info than they need--just that you know your son has either neurological or chemical issues or both, and they result in behavioral issues. Also tell them that you appreciate their cooperation when they have to bench him--at your request, if he really messes up at home. For ex. we've called coaches b4-hand to tell them that difficult child will be at a game but needs to be benched unless there aren't enough members. The coaches are very good about it and contrary to what your husband says, are very well aware of the fact that all kids are not born equal.