Hi, Deb. Another Aussie here, I'm from Sydney and a long-termer on the site.
What I have found here - this mob have given me a lot more confidence to take certain steps over the years as well as the knowledge of what to ask for. Most of the members here are from the US, with a scattering of others from around the world, so a lot of the advice is US in flavour. However, much of it still is a good fit. We have resources they don't, and vice versa.
Calling the police or threatening to - unless you can follow through and actually do it, don't make the threat. We teach our kids to not be afraid of the police, to be prepared to call the police themselves if they need to, so it should never be used as an empty threat. I would suggest you make a discreet call to the police and ask their advice - what should you do in the event of X, Y or Z? You might find a useful contact in the local cop shop who could be of assistance. Or there might be a program they can get your son involved in.
We had to call the cops when difficult child 3 got attacked in the local playground one afternoon. The kids attacking him were all younger, and it had been part of an ongoing neighbourhood general harassment for ages. Because the kids were all under 10 years old, no charges could be laid. But crikey, did they put the fear of God into those kids! Some of them stopped harassing difficult child 3 permanently. Others kept it up but had no backing from their mates. Other kids were moved to different schools, banned from playing with certain kids, so the gang was pretty much tamed and broken up.
Your husband needs to be on board. There is no easy way around this. Of course he doesn't see the problems, but he does need to believe you. it is hard to accept that your precious No 1 son could be anything other than perfect, and it will be extra hard for your husband to accept that his son could be going through the same trials he had as a kid. Denial is more than just a river in Egypt.
What can help - and sometimes you can't always see why it helps, but it does, trust me:
1) some form of daily effective communication between you and school. In our case I bought a cheap exercise book from the supermarket, labelled it difficult child 3's Communication Book" and put a plastic cover over it, and stuck it in difficult child 3's school bag. I would write in it anything possibly relevant ("he didn't sleep well last night, he will be more tired and likely to be more cranky") and the teacher would also make notes ("he had a good morning but started to not pay attention after lunch. I think something happened on the playground during lunch.") I could then use this information to try to identify deeper problems and help difficult child 3 with coping skills. The immediacy of this communication was really valuable. it also saved me having to lie in wait for the teacher on the classroom steps - after a day teaching my kid, I knew the teacher would need to head home ASAP for a stiff drink!
2) some form of effective daily communication between you and your husband. In our case, I joined this site and my husband began to lurk. he would read my posts and when he got home would often discuss things with me. Not always about our kids, sometimes about another problem I might have posted on. He will read this thread, almost certainly. He has since joined this site in his own right (because when he logged on in my name, it changed what I had read and what I hadn't, I began to lose track of my threads). And even though husband & I talked together a lot about our kids and worked really hard to be on the same page, having him lurk here tightened up our communication more than I would have thought possible. We couldn't work out why at first, but I think it is because when we write, we condense our thoughts into an easier-to-read format. When we try to talk together, we keep getting interrupted.
3) a book we recommend here is "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene. When I joined here there were references to this book all the time. I read a lot of the posts, tried to do what I could, but kept postponing getting the book. It was never in the bookshops; and besides, if I bought every book recommended, we'd have to move. Our place is bad enough now! But I finally took the advice I was beginning to dish out to others and got the book out of the library. And it was amazing. It gave me a different insight. It doesn't tell you right away how to do things, but simply in the process of me reading it, difficult child 3's behaviour began to improve. This was because all unconsciously, I was changing how I reacted to him. It was so easy!
Changing mindset, I call it. And we try to discipline our kids, the more they misbehave or give us a hard time the more we try to clamp down hard on our control of them. But for some kids, this is absolutely the wrong thing to do. it seems counter-intuitive, but sometimes relaxing things a bit and focussing just on the most important issues and letting the rest go for a while, can bring about a general improvement in the kid's attitude. And that snowballs in a good way towards a general improvement longer term. You an also use the same techniques on PCs.
Oh, you asked about acronyms - there is a link, I'll try and find it for you. But if you slowly scroll over the acronym, it will usually tell you what it means. difficult child means Gift From God, the kid who brought you here. Mine are numbered because I have a cluster. easy child is Perfect Child, the kid who allegedly doesn't have any problems but still can be a headache. husband is husband, so wife is Dear Wife (for those members who have a Y chromosome or female partner for other reasons).
medications are not always the answer for ADHD, but they can help. We have problems with ritalin and Concerta in our house, so we use dexamphetamine which we have to get privately compounded (more expensive but we feel it's been worth it).
Something else for you to consider - do you think you would qualify for a Carer benefit? Talk to Centrelink. You would need a specialist to fill in some of the paperwork, and they generally knock you back on first application (Centrelink seem to do that on principle) but you could get it through on appeal. Also there should be support available through school - it is based on what his needs are, above and beyond those of the average kid in the classroom. The money for this support comes from the Federal Government but is administered through state education systems (that's for public education). There are a lot of supports available, undoubtedly more than you are being told about. Because often the school won't know themselves what is available, and they are not allowed to tell you, because that would then risk costing Dept of Ed money and Dept of Ed staff are not allowed to interfere.
Anyway, welcome. There is a lot of great support here.
So go check out the book in the library. Doesn't matter if it's an older edition - they're all good. Also there is some good info on tis website - go to Early Childhood for some discussion on adapting the book to younger children.
Marg
