new and need help

[amy76lee]

Thanks to all of you. I can understand, respect and definitely appreciate everyone's advice. I know that as parents, we search out what is best for our kids and do whatever we can for them, even as "steps"

Being a military family, we have certain restricitons on medical facilities, who we can see, referrals, etc. I have, however, scheduled difficult child 1 an appointment for next week. I have already informed husband that this will be a very down and dirty appointment with the doctor and I expect him to voice all his concerns, thoughts, opinions etc with her. She claims to be an ADHD expert and I guess we shall see. I will be pushing to all him evaluated for everything though. While some of his behvior is just "normal" teen stuff, other of it has just been going on for too long to ignore.

husband is the one who found the knife on difficult child 1. So the school has no idea that he was bringing it. I believe that he did not understand why he couldn't have it there. We don't know why he felt the need to bring it either, and questioning him, I'm sure, would only result in a lie...or an "I don't know" which is his typical answer for everything.

In the 4.5 years that I have know him, difficult child 1 has never been one to make eye contact...even in just normal conversation. We are constantly telling him to "look at me" and we've explained the reasons why you should make eye contact with people in conversations. We do try to explain reasons why for things, but it's seems to be of no use.

I know that we won't give up on him, it's just so tiring dealing with his issues every day...along with our 2 girls and mother in law who lives with us. mother in law has a whole slew of issues that we have to deal with on a regular basis as well, so we are mentally, physically and emotionally kept busy.

Thanks for all your advice and I will definitely post back and let you know what I find out from the doctor, or what they agree to do.

Thanks.

 

[SRL]

Cindy, as a moderator, let me welcome you to our forum. We encourage all new posters to post an introduction and create a signature.

I'm just honestly blown away by the number of people suggesting to this lady that her 13 year old son could be autistic. Did anybody think of the idea that SOMEBODY AT SOME POINT in his life would have suggesed this if the symptoms truly existed? The child is 13, not 6 or 3. There would have been significant issues with his ability to process information in a classroom prior to this time if it was Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) (even if he were high-functioning as my son is). I would just reallly love to see people stop, take a deep breath, and ask yourselves if you are trying to project your child's situation onto another parent where it doesn't actually fit.

I have a very long medical background and have studied these things for a very long time. I have a few other family members with a medical psychiatric background, adn we have talked at length of these things. I'm sure a lot of you have also done tons of studies on these things as well. But I have to call a pig a pig here. It doesn't fit. What more likely fits (and I hate to suggest it because I'm as guilty of what everybody else is doing) is bipolar and/or conduct disorder. These symptoms are more symptomatic of bipolar than anything else.
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Since you have extensive medical background, you are most likely familiar with the article "Practice parameter: Screening and diagnosis of Autism, Report of the Quality Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology and the Child Neurology Society". Among other things, the article reveals that almost half of all parents found other parents and the school system to be their best source of help, as opposed to the medical community.

http://www.aan.com/professionals/practice/pdfs/gl0063.pdf

Parents can bring a unique--and often valuable--perspective that can be highly beneficial to parents searching for answers. We never pretend to be diagnosticians here and in fact if the line is crossed the mods try and step in pretty quickly. We are only parents who suggest assessment and treatment routes based on what has worked with our kids. If your experience with your child has been different than another posters, please feel free to share that, but we also ask that you respect the input of other members whose knowledge and/or experience may be different than yours. You are brand new here and aren't yet aware of the many parents who have come here with misdiagnosed or partially diagnosed kids who are finally set on the right track because of the help of posters here.

amy76lee, many of the disorders we deal with here have overlapping symptoms. As with any poster here, we do encourage you to do your own research and seek out professional opinions.

 

[tiredmommy]

Hi Amy and welcome. So sorry you had to find us. As you can see, many childhood behavior disorders have similar or the same symptoms, most of us have a working diagnosis for our children. I think the best advice I can give you is to keep a behavior log, make a detailed medical history report and find a doctor you feel you can trust. We have another forum off the main page (the FAQ forum) where you can find information on how to complete a parent input report. This is something that takes days or possibly even weeks to put together so you may want to start soon.

Also, because the tone of this thread was confrontational at one point, I will post a link to the reminder we recently posted to members about board etiquette. I would hope that everyone remembers that we live by our words online and to please choose those words wisely.

http://www.conductdisorders.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18896

 

[meowbunny]

Amy, one thing about the eye contact. IF he is on the autistic spectrum, eye contact may actually be uncomfortable. There's just too much going on on a person's face and it really does make it hard to focus. One trick I used for a child who I thought was on the spectrum (her mother refused to believe anything was wrong with her, poor baby) was to tell her to look "through" the eyes when talking to someone. That way, the focus is not on the eyes or the face. It may seem like staring at first but with a little bit of time and effort, you can remind your child to blink. This is best practiced at home. Another trick is to look in the vicinity of the eyes but actually be looking at something behind the person.

If he has problems with social cues, especially personal space, get him to understand that unless someone opens their arms or he's specifically told to get close to someone (lines, dancing), don't get closer than an "umbrella" space.

You may have a problem convincing an ADHD expert that there is something more than ADHD. Sadly, professionals do bring their area of expertise to the mix and it can prejudice a diagnosis. If you have CHAMPUS, see if they'll cover at least part of a neuropsychologist exam at a local Children's Hospital or see if UC-San Diego has a teaching hospital. If worse comes to worse, check with UCLA. It's not that long of a drive if I remember correctly. They might be able to help on a sliding scale.

 

[Lothlorien]

Hi There! Welcome.

In the 4.5 years that I have know him, difficult child 1 has never been one to make eye contact...even in just normal conversation. We are constantly telling him to "look at me" and we've explained the reasons why you should make eye contact with people in conversations. We do try to explain reasons why for things, but it's seems to be of no use.

I do think that an evaluation with a neuropsychologist is necessary and perhaps more than one opinion. I quoted you above for this reason: My daughter, Missy, had this issue for the longest time. I would notice it mostly when she was extremely symptomatic with her bipolar disorder. Mind you, I did not know that she was manic at that time. I had no idea why she would look and then quickly look away. When she was manic/hypomanic, I would tell her to look at me and she just couldn't do it. I did think she was being defiant. However, once we got the symptoms under control, she stopped this.

I'm not saying this is bipolar, but is probably a symptom of something. He does sound like he's got some issues that need to be addressed. It does not seem like ADHD, to me. Good luck with your appointment.