I haven't read all of this. I fully understand how you felt rejected by him when he was an infant, and how scared you were adn are, and how hard this is. I think the people that blamed this on your poor parenting should have to take hm home for a week or three. Though probably he could honeymoon for an extended period, so maybe three or four mos to get past that. Honeymooning is our term for when a child goes to the hospital or a placement and is perfectly behaved for them for the first however long period of time. My son still holds the record for honeymooning at the psychiatric hospital he was in at age 12 (he is almost 20!) - six weeks. He would have gone longer but they wanted to send him home and I went into the hardest/worst therapy session of my life. I sat and pushed EVERY button he had and he just exploded all over the place - really let htem see what we dealt with at home and how much he hated his sister and watned to kill her.
WHile my difficult child's beginning was different, there are similarities. If it helps, my son was so violent that at age 14 I had to have the police remove him from our home for good. He ended up with my folks because the judge and deputy stalled long enough because they didn't want to deal with it. So my dad had just retired from being a jr high teacher of kids on the lower end (never had the good or gifted kids) and he and my mom asked to have a chance with Wiz. Took hard work from ALL of us, and a LOT of time, but the child that I was srue was going to murder one of us (from age 5 or 6 to age 14 when he wasn't allowed here anymore) is now an awesome big brother with great relationships with all of us. So there is hope, and it can be different.
I know almost how hard it is for you. I am married to the father of my kids, so i only know ALMOST, and I fully see how hard this is. We spent YEARS with-o being able to use the bathroom alone. I took our daughter and husband took Wiz b/x even in the short period of time it took to use the bathroom our daughter would end up bruised and bloody. There were days I could not WAIT until husband got home so that I could have 60 seconds alone!
The cat has to go. Maybe your son could visit, but if your difficult child kills that cat, your older one is going to unleash a lot of rage on him and someone will get seriously hurt. It isn't fair to set your oldest son up for that. Could a relative take the cat?
SOOOOOOOO much of what you say about your son indicates to me that something is really wrong. I don't think a newborn was really angry, I think hurt or upset might be a different approach. If he is angry, then it is as though he is choosing to be angry. But if everything in his world is painful or overstimulating, then you have something different going on. My youngest was a strange newborn. Not only did he creak lke an old rocking chair when alone in his bed, when I could get him to lay down alone in it - he wanted to nurse 24/7 and screamed wehn he couldn't. It sounded angry, but if I had seen it as being angry then it would have put a wall between us. I saw it as him hurting, and that let me get and be closer.
Does your son have dark circles around his eyes, like he hasn't slept in a long time? Even if he doesn't, have you ever considered the gluten free casein free diet? You might all have to change to it in order to keep him from sneaking, at least during the trial of it. Way back when I first homeschooled Wiz in 3rd grade, there was a boy in the homeschool group who sounds a lot lke your son. He seemed angry, hurt kids, was charming on the surface but no kid would be alone with him because he would hurt them - on purpose. His mom was terrified, of course. Another mom suggested food allergies and since they had trialed every thing else - medications therapies intervention inpatient treatment you name it, mom figured it could not hurt. Now they had done allergy testing, but for food it just is not reliable. Plus it doesn't show intolerances, which don't SOUND as bad as allergies but can be as bad or worse. Intolerances just don't involve a histamine reaction - the body freaks out in other ways.
I would look into the girlfriend/cf diet and try it for 6-8 weeks. It means cutting out ALL dairy - casein is a protein derived from milk and it can cause a LOT of different problems, and all grains with gluten. There is a LOT of info about this out on the net, and many here have seen HUGE improvements in their kids and in their own bodies.
I would also look into sensory integration disorder. My bro was a head banger - my mother tried to pad the end of his crib and he ripped out the padding before he was a yr old, or so I am told. He also did a very strange rocking/moaning thing at night after he went to sleep. One of my older cousins believed for years that he was possessed because it. I myself have a LOT of sensory issues, as do my kids, and there were a LOT of times wehn people thought I was just an angry *itch when really I was so overwhelmed that I couldn't be knd or polite. I managed to work through some of it on my own, though I always called myself a "texture" person - the right textures calm me like nothing else and teh wrong texture? OMG it is so awful I can't focus on anything else. I was born that way and it made a lot of things difficult.
Get a private Occupational Therapist (OT) to evaluate your son for sensory issues. See what happens. Try the girlfriend/cf diet. there are a LOT more products out there now than there were years ago, and many are actually GOOD. I had to hide the tofuttie cuties ice cream sandwiches or the kids would eat a whole box - and so did Gma one night! The tofutti cream chease really IS better than reg cream cheese except that it doesn't really melt for cooking.
Do what you can to create special times for the other boys. It has to be really hard. I know you love your boys, but if it is really bad, could your middle son go live with his dad? Maybe as an only child he would be better able to cope? I am NOT NOT NOT saying you are a bad mom. You are an AMAZING mom just because you haven't throttled him yet, in my opinion. Some of our kids just do better as only kids.
If it gets to the point where it is unsafe to have him at home with the other kids, where you truly feel you cannot keep him safe, consider sending him to his dad or to what is called therapeutic foster care or to an inpatient psychiatric hospital or residential treatment center. Safety MUST be the top priority, and you have an equal duty to the other boys that you have to him. Sometimes we have to be a family of different addresses. Doesn't mean we love them less, means we love them enough to get them into a setting where they can thrive, Know what I mean??
WHile my difficult child's beginning was different, there are similarities. If it helps, my son was so violent that at age 14 I had to have the police remove him from our home for good. He ended up with my folks because the judge and deputy stalled long enough because they didn't want to deal with it. So my dad had just retired from being a jr high teacher of kids on the lower end (never had the good or gifted kids) and he and my mom asked to have a chance with Wiz. Took hard work from ALL of us, and a LOT of time, but the child that I was srue was going to murder one of us (from age 5 or 6 to age 14 when he wasn't allowed here anymore) is now an awesome big brother with great relationships with all of us. So there is hope, and it can be different.
I know almost how hard it is for you. I am married to the father of my kids, so i only know ALMOST, and I fully see how hard this is. We spent YEARS with-o being able to use the bathroom alone. I took our daughter and husband took Wiz b/x even in the short period of time it took to use the bathroom our daughter would end up bruised and bloody. There were days I could not WAIT until husband got home so that I could have 60 seconds alone!
The cat has to go. Maybe your son could visit, but if your difficult child kills that cat, your older one is going to unleash a lot of rage on him and someone will get seriously hurt. It isn't fair to set your oldest son up for that. Could a relative take the cat?
SOOOOOOOO much of what you say about your son indicates to me that something is really wrong. I don't think a newborn was really angry, I think hurt or upset might be a different approach. If he is angry, then it is as though he is choosing to be angry. But if everything in his world is painful or overstimulating, then you have something different going on. My youngest was a strange newborn. Not only did he creak lke an old rocking chair when alone in his bed, when I could get him to lay down alone in it - he wanted to nurse 24/7 and screamed wehn he couldn't. It sounded angry, but if I had seen it as being angry then it would have put a wall between us. I saw it as him hurting, and that let me get and be closer.
Does your son have dark circles around his eyes, like he hasn't slept in a long time? Even if he doesn't, have you ever considered the gluten free casein free diet? You might all have to change to it in order to keep him from sneaking, at least during the trial of it. Way back when I first homeschooled Wiz in 3rd grade, there was a boy in the homeschool group who sounds a lot lke your son. He seemed angry, hurt kids, was charming on the surface but no kid would be alone with him because he would hurt them - on purpose. His mom was terrified, of course. Another mom suggested food allergies and since they had trialed every thing else - medications therapies intervention inpatient treatment you name it, mom figured it could not hurt. Now they had done allergy testing, but for food it just is not reliable. Plus it doesn't show intolerances, which don't SOUND as bad as allergies but can be as bad or worse. Intolerances just don't involve a histamine reaction - the body freaks out in other ways.
I would look into the girlfriend/cf diet and try it for 6-8 weeks. It means cutting out ALL dairy - casein is a protein derived from milk and it can cause a LOT of different problems, and all grains with gluten. There is a LOT of info about this out on the net, and many here have seen HUGE improvements in their kids and in their own bodies.
I would also look into sensory integration disorder. My bro was a head banger - my mother tried to pad the end of his crib and he ripped out the padding before he was a yr old, or so I am told. He also did a very strange rocking/moaning thing at night after he went to sleep. One of my older cousins believed for years that he was possessed because it. I myself have a LOT of sensory issues, as do my kids, and there were a LOT of times wehn people thought I was just an angry *itch when really I was so overwhelmed that I couldn't be knd or polite. I managed to work through some of it on my own, though I always called myself a "texture" person - the right textures calm me like nothing else and teh wrong texture? OMG it is so awful I can't focus on anything else. I was born that way and it made a lot of things difficult.
Get a private Occupational Therapist (OT) to evaluate your son for sensory issues. See what happens. Try the girlfriend/cf diet. there are a LOT more products out there now than there were years ago, and many are actually GOOD. I had to hide the tofuttie cuties ice cream sandwiches or the kids would eat a whole box - and so did Gma one night! The tofutti cream chease really IS better than reg cream cheese except that it doesn't really melt for cooking.
Do what you can to create special times for the other boys. It has to be really hard. I know you love your boys, but if it is really bad, could your middle son go live with his dad? Maybe as an only child he would be better able to cope? I am NOT NOT NOT saying you are a bad mom. You are an AMAZING mom just because you haven't throttled him yet, in my opinion. Some of our kids just do better as only kids.
If it gets to the point where it is unsafe to have him at home with the other kids, where you truly feel you cannot keep him safe, consider sending him to his dad or to what is called therapeutic foster care or to an inpatient psychiatric hospital or residential treatment center. Safety MUST be the top priority, and you have an equal duty to the other boys that you have to him. Sometimes we have to be a family of different addresses. Doesn't mean we love them less, means we love them enough to get them into a setting where they can thrive, Know what I mean??