My son is 8 years old and was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD shortly after entering first grade. He has always been what others kindly referred to as a handful. I would pick him up from daycare and other parents would go- oh- your HIS mom, wow- you must have a lot of patience!
Lately I'm beginning to wonder if what they call patience, what I call endurance, is beginning to run out. I'm sitting here near tears and hoping that either his primary care dr calls with a psychiatric referral or the place I found on the web and called in desperation today calls me back. I have to find a solution because medicine and all the little behavior modification tricks we have tried just don't seem to work. Whether or not he behaves like a somewhat sane rational normal kid seems to be determined by some crazy quantum sphere dice.
Today he woke up after having colored his nose with multiple pens (why I don't know), cut open- YES cut open a box of cereal after I told him to wait for me to just go pee first and I would get him breakfast, and then in between cutting open the cereal box and bag apparently decided to eat multiple children's vitamins just because!
I've brought the dogs inside while he and his friend go in the backyard to play because I cannot trust him with the puppies - if left alone- he will hurt them. I haven't figured out whether he tries to hurt them on purpose or whether the concept of being gentle to two small miniature schnauzers just hasn't occured to him or what! I have to constantly check on him to make sure he's not breaking branches off trees for swords or just for fun, turning off the automatic sprinkler controls after being told repeatedly NOT to, playing in the boat again- a known off limit- or any other thing that wouldn't even occur to me to tell him not to do that he decides to do.
He has decided he likes playing with matches, he decided for some strange reason he wanted to throw eggs over the neighbors fence. He was told not to take the puppies into the front yard and so dropped the 3 month old puppy over a 6 foot tall fence to the other side because I told him he couldn't take the puppies in the front yard.
We've spent hours on homework each night simply trying to do one to two pages of very simple things. He has to bathe with the door open because if not, he proceeds to destroy the entire bathroom. Simple basic things he can't seem to remember and this is ON his medication.
When he wakes up he walks around singing / chirping/ droning on in his maniacal tone/voice with eyes almost rolling crazily around in his head. The medicine seems to contain this somewhat- but not enough. The impulsive behavior is almost impossible to predict or control.
I played single mother for several years before finally meeting and marrying my new husband who is wonderful but beyond his wits on what to do with my son. We have 3 other children besides my son and we are losing the battle on containing/training/corralling my son.
He is deceptive, devious, defiant, obsesses over the strangest things sometimes. They tested his IQ and found it at approx 125 with him refusing to do the reading parts. He can be very gentle and sympathetic and very sweet at times. The majority of the time you simply want to wrap him in a straight jacket and stick him to the wall so he can't "accidently" throw something, rip something, break something, steal something, get into something, lie about something, hide something, etc
Whenever we come up with a new system- reward points, positive reinforcements, behavior contracts- I think he spends the majority of his day trying to come up with either ways to thwart the system or consequences he already decided in his mind were acceptable in order for him to simply NOT do what we want.
We've spent hours trying to get him to do homework- starting with simple things like writing his name at the top of the paper, or underlining something instead of circling it. Whatever it is that he is supposed to do, he will insist on doing the opposite or not do it at all. Asking him to put his clothes away results in him taking 30 minutes hiding them in toy boxes, under the bed, inside toys, behind shelves, under couches- he takes more time avoiding doing what he was asked than simply doing what he needed to do in the first place.
This previous school year resulted in some improvement in that he was actually dressing himself most days for school IF I laid out clothes the night before. Whether or not we made it to school on time was a different matter because even if we avoided the get dressed battle, there would end up being some other battle about shoes, bookbag (where did he hide it this time) breakfast cereal, or simply he decided he wasn't going to go to school today or get in the car, etc etc etc
HELP!!!!!!!!!! Am I the only parent that is going through this? I keep being told my child is unique by so many parents who either look at me like I'm a bad parent when I used to need a leash to take him to a store or who looked at me with pity because of my strange weird wouldn't want a child like that looks.
I need some solutions! I need some hope that he will get better- or some something that helps us to manage with him better. I am seriously at a loss as to what to do. I have tried tons of "behavior techniques" - They either don't work or only work for a short time until he figures out his end run around for them.
Lately I'm beginning to wonder if what they call patience, what I call endurance, is beginning to run out. I'm sitting here near tears and hoping that either his primary care dr calls with a psychiatric referral or the place I found on the web and called in desperation today calls me back. I have to find a solution because medicine and all the little behavior modification tricks we have tried just don't seem to work. Whether or not he behaves like a somewhat sane rational normal kid seems to be determined by some crazy quantum sphere dice.
Today he woke up after having colored his nose with multiple pens (why I don't know), cut open- YES cut open a box of cereal after I told him to wait for me to just go pee first and I would get him breakfast, and then in between cutting open the cereal box and bag apparently decided to eat multiple children's vitamins just because!
I've brought the dogs inside while he and his friend go in the backyard to play because I cannot trust him with the puppies - if left alone- he will hurt them. I haven't figured out whether he tries to hurt them on purpose or whether the concept of being gentle to two small miniature schnauzers just hasn't occured to him or what! I have to constantly check on him to make sure he's not breaking branches off trees for swords or just for fun, turning off the automatic sprinkler controls after being told repeatedly NOT to, playing in the boat again- a known off limit- or any other thing that wouldn't even occur to me to tell him not to do that he decides to do.
He has decided he likes playing with matches, he decided for some strange reason he wanted to throw eggs over the neighbors fence. He was told not to take the puppies into the front yard and so dropped the 3 month old puppy over a 6 foot tall fence to the other side because I told him he couldn't take the puppies in the front yard.
We've spent hours on homework each night simply trying to do one to two pages of very simple things. He has to bathe with the door open because if not, he proceeds to destroy the entire bathroom. Simple basic things he can't seem to remember and this is ON his medication.
When he wakes up he walks around singing / chirping/ droning on in his maniacal tone/voice with eyes almost rolling crazily around in his head. The medicine seems to contain this somewhat- but not enough. The impulsive behavior is almost impossible to predict or control.
I played single mother for several years before finally meeting and marrying my new husband who is wonderful but beyond his wits on what to do with my son. We have 3 other children besides my son and we are losing the battle on containing/training/corralling my son.
He is deceptive, devious, defiant, obsesses over the strangest things sometimes. They tested his IQ and found it at approx 125 with him refusing to do the reading parts. He can be very gentle and sympathetic and very sweet at times. The majority of the time you simply want to wrap him in a straight jacket and stick him to the wall so he can't "accidently" throw something, rip something, break something, steal something, get into something, lie about something, hide something, etc
Whenever we come up with a new system- reward points, positive reinforcements, behavior contracts- I think he spends the majority of his day trying to come up with either ways to thwart the system or consequences he already decided in his mind were acceptable in order for him to simply NOT do what we want.
We've spent hours trying to get him to do homework- starting with simple things like writing his name at the top of the paper, or underlining something instead of circling it. Whatever it is that he is supposed to do, he will insist on doing the opposite or not do it at all. Asking him to put his clothes away results in him taking 30 minutes hiding them in toy boxes, under the bed, inside toys, behind shelves, under couches- he takes more time avoiding doing what he was asked than simply doing what he needed to do in the first place.
This previous school year resulted in some improvement in that he was actually dressing himself most days for school IF I laid out clothes the night before. Whether or not we made it to school on time was a different matter because even if we avoided the get dressed battle, there would end up being some other battle about shoes, bookbag (where did he hide it this time) breakfast cereal, or simply he decided he wasn't going to go to school today or get in the car, etc etc etc
HELP!!!!!!!!!! Am I the only parent that is going through this? I keep being told my child is unique by so many parents who either look at me like I'm a bad parent when I used to need a leash to take him to a store or who looked at me with pity because of my strange weird wouldn't want a child like that looks.
I need some solutions! I need some hope that he will get better- or some something that helps us to manage with him better. I am seriously at a loss as to what to do. I have tried tons of "behavior techniques" - They either don't work or only work for a short time until he figures out his end run around for them.
And go on your way. It takes practice, but will come in time.
