You could well be describing my difficult child! It was an is an ongoing battle. One thing I've learned is to not even try to fight every battle. In the beginning we were consequencing him a lot but to be honest it wasn't helping. So what did help us? First reading The Explosive Child by Ross Greene. Plus lots of therapy (that for a long time didn't seem to be sinking in at all-but we are now seeing the positive effects of it) and he has an amazing psychiatrist that has helped us to find medications that really help him (however, that was for the violence along with the impulsiveness).
It's a long road and it's difficult but there is hope. If someone had told me that my difficult child would be doing as well as he is (still a long, long way from perfect and still mean and nasty-but only at home for the most part), I would never have believed it. There were many times I wanted to skip therapy but we stayed the course and I really believed it helped.
