Frustrating Team Mtg at psychiatric hospital Today

[tessaturtle]

We got a short notice call inviting us to a team meeting for difficult child at the psychiatric hospital today - when asked if it was at all possible if we could do it tomorrow (due to work) we were told "I have no guarantees the team can meet tomorrow so if you can't come in today, you run the risk that we may discharge him and send him home" !!!

Needless to say we went to the team meeting today. Bio-mom participated by phone. So the psychiatrist spoke most of the meeting and the gist is...difficult child is completely fine! He suggested that we read and do the steps in a book by Russell Barkley - when we said we have read many books, tried many things, and go to numerous workshops, the answer was, well you haven't read this one though. We remind them of his history and previous hospitilization this time of year, also remind them that its not just home, its school that he has MAJOR problems in and they are specialized (so basically what good is one more book or technique on our part going to do if even the pros can't do it). Also, they said his psychologist is not the right one for him and that he needs to go back to the counseling place he was at previously for 8 years (that did not get very far with him - that's why we moved him). They also said we should hire a behavioral consulting firm to come into our house to make parenting recommendations to us. All of this without ever asking us how we do parent and what type of household we have! Amazing, since we have gained residential custody of him (5 yrs), he has made lots of gains due to the structure we keep in the house (for his benefit) - but you can't fix a lifetime of mental illness and maladaptive behaviors!


Oh and they also have not made him do his school work because "he refuses" to do it. Nice.

I could go on and on - overall I was pretty frustrated with the meeting. Bio-mom even said to the staff that they have never kept him long enough in the past to provide any type of help that is lasting.

We did get them to agree to keep him and send him to school from there so that they can see his behaviors.

*sigh*

 

[StressedM0mma]

UGH Tessa. I am so sorry that they are not listening to you. It is so frustrating. At least you got them to keep him. That is one positive thing. We would like to get our difficult child admitted until she is somewhat stable, but her psychiatrist and therapist say that she can't go because she is not a threat to herself. I hope that you can get through to them and get him some more help. HUGS.

 

[InsaneCdn]

You got a bigger win than you might think... if they are keeping him, and sending him to school from there... it might just force their hand.

 

[susiestar]

(((((hugs))))) I know how frustrating that must have been!! Geetting them to keep him is a BIG win.

Back when Wiz was in the psychiatric hospital the 1st time, they wanted to send him home after a week because he was so "sweet and caring and couldn't POSSIBLY be doing what we said". I wanted to pull their lungs out through their nostrils. At this point the psychiatrist had not even SEEN us, much less spoken to us. Seems he didn't "do" parents. I was very frustrating to him because I insisted on being at meetings with him and jumped though any hoop to do it.

Have you had a family therapy session there? By the 4th or 5th week I was clearly losing the battle to keep him there and I went into a family therapy session and pushed every single one of his buttons over and over until he blew up. They were totally surprised because they did not think he did any of the things he cut loose with. They didn't think a kid was capable of honeymooning for 2 weeks, much less as long as he did. I had a good rapport iwth the therapist and she knew what I was going to do (trigger his rage) and was sure that I would see that it wasn't really a rage and that I was exaggerating. There was ONE nurse on the ward who knew how bad the situation was from day one - she just seemed to KNOW that he was fooling everyone else and it was actually her advice to trigger hm in the therapy session.

You may need to do this. It will be one of the ugliest experiences of your life. I felt horribly guilty for doing it, like I MADE him have a meltdown so it was really me who was sick not him. After the therapy session I barely made it to the bathroom off of the ward. I didn't want to use the one on the ward because I did NOT want him to know that he had the power to make me that sick/upset/hurt/scared. I knew it would be very dangerous if he had ANY clue of that and they sent him home rather than keep him until he got help.

One reason they say that it is parenting is because a LOT of parents don't seem to want to parent - they want to be their child's friend and then when child is in trouble or is defiant, the parent makes it sound much worse than it is. The staff also may not see many kids who look so sweet and misunderstood and like they come from a good home/family and really they are jsut "mistunderstood" and if the parents were consistent then the problems would go away. MOST tdocs/psychiatrists have practices where this is the majority of their patients. So they really just don't have a clue what all we have gone through and how what they are saying is something we tried years ago, still have as part of our skllset but doesn't address the actual problem. I havenever understood the "parent as friend" thing because kids go through a lot of friends but they only get one set of parents and the parent is there to help them be the best they can be, not to make them happy all the time (happy is a nice thing, but is not our main job, in my opinion)

Do you have a Parent Report that shows ALL of these techniques that you have tried and how they did or didn't work? If so, give them copies and go over it iwth them. If not? write one. It takes time, and you won't get all the details in a draft if you have to give it to them this week or next, but you CAN make a good start and give them the basic info of what you have already done and how it had no lasting effects. One of the reasons a Parent Report is so powerful is that it documents that you tried all these things. It isn't just you saying that you did, it is in black and white with dates, results, etc..... A quirk of people is that we will believe things that are written even if we didn't when we were given the info orally. Seeing it printed on a page makes it more "official" in our minds.

The link in my sig will take you to the Parent Report and you can get the more applicable sections started, then give copies to the psychiatric hospital staff.

It always baffles me when someone in a psychiatric hospital thinks that the solution is so quick and easy. We were once told to read "The Everything Book of Aspergers", throw away ALL the other books/resource material we had on Asperger's, and that Wiz would be "fixed" and would make safe choices and not ever hurt anyone again if we just spent 1 hour per day doing an activity 1 on 1 with him - the activity of his choice and no matter what it was we were to pay for it and do it and let him win if it was a competition. He wasn't 3, he was 13. he also flat out refused to EVER do ANYTHING with us. he got them to say we should drive him to someplace inappropriate and then giving him $50 or so and we waited OUTSIDE while he spent a couple of HOURS doing whatever. This was written down as what the psychiatric hospital said we should do and they sent it to CPS to try to force us to do it. The psychiatric hospital said that by doing this we would be keeping all of our kids safe and Wiz wouldn't abuse Jess or I anymore.

We were not supposed to have ONE of us do this each night. husband was to do this and then I was to do it AGAIN each night. There was no way, what would we do with the other kids? Sell them to make enough to give Wiz $100 a night to go play with? Thankfully he wasn't into drugs, but how stupid can someone be?

So while I am not surprised by what they told you, they are only operating on difficult child's poor little unloved me act. Let them handle school for a while and keep pushing them to keep him there. I know it is hard, and confusing that they are so stupid, but hang in there as best you can.

 

[buddy]

The comment about his not doing work because he refuses.... ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? That is the kind of stuff that makes me want to just throw someone off a bridge.


I am sorry for you. This is just plain laziness on their part.

 

[DammitJanet]

Susie is so right. I have been around the mental health field for a long time now and I know how they think. They see so many parents who simply dont want to parent in the verb sense that they tend to get jaded. I have no clue why anyone who works in a facility wouldnt know about honeymooning but I am also sure they get their fair share of kids who are stuck in these places just because mom and dad want to take a break. How they manage that I will never know.

I do think you should insist on some time to meet with your son and his therapist or psychiatrist and push a few of his buttons so the ones in charge can see him in action. It shouldnt be too hard. Im sure your son will have asked you to bring something from home and if you dont he will get ticked off and show out. Let him argue with you. That will buy you more time and medication management.

 

[Bunny]

Talk about frustrating!! Holy cow! I agree with Janet that you should see if they can do a family therapy session and try to push his buttons so that they can truly see what you are having to deal with. I understand that there are parents out there who really don't care to parent their kids, but at some point they have to realize that you are not one of those parents.

And they did not make him do his school work because he "refused" to? Does not that raise any red flgs for them?

 

[tessaturtle]

Thank you all for your great suggestions and great support and stories of your experiences!

It seemed to me that they were going through their usual checklist of recommendations, not individualized at all. Also it appeared to me that the social worker/case manager and the psychiatrist did not agree at all (social worker wants him out, psychiatrist thinks its worth it to keep him in longer and try the school thing).

 

[InsaneCdn]

Also it appeared to me that the social worker/case manager and the psychiatrist did not agree at all (social worker wants him out, psychiatrist thinks its worth it to keep him in longer and try the school thing).

FWIW? We've not had any luck with "social workers" either.
The rest... tend to at least partly get it, but the SWs... just think its a parenting problem.

Not that that stmt would be true 100% of the time - I'm sure there has to be some good ones out there somewhere. Just... haven't ever met any of them.