New to the site (well..back after a long hiatus)

iluvmickey0206

New Member
Hi,

Wanted to introduce myself. As my sig shows I have a 16 yr old difficult child. He is currently diagnosis with mood disorder, ADHD, anxiety, depression, significant Learning Disability (LD), likely borderline personality disorder. He has been out of the home (this time) since last November-the week before Thanksgiving. I had filed a CHINS (child in need of services) with the court as he was a runaway. He was arrested and placed in DCF (Department of Children and Families) custody. They have physical custody, I retain legal rights. He was placed in a diagnostic facility for what was supposed to be 60 days and turned into 4 months due to beurocracy. He has since been in a group home for boys with mental illness since late March. It is sad, but really also the best thing. I was (and still feel) uncapable of parenting him. He is very explosive which made disciplining near impossible. I was exposing my daughter to way too much. He tends to cycle mood wise every 2 weeks or so, but recently had a good 3 1/2 weeks. Then they decided to decrease his Seroquel. He is now agitated, depressed and showing some paranoia. Why would you mess with a stable kids medications?????

He also goes to a therapeutic school. He is not invested at all in his education. He will be a sophmore in the fall, but really should remain a freshman. I don't see how he could have possible passed more than one class this past year. But, they will make him a sophmore and give him appropriate work. He is going to be 17 in October so keeping him a freshman would be very difficult for his self esteem. He plans to drop out at 18 and live on the street. It is so sad and I hope this doesn't happen.

The goal right now is reunification, but I don't know that I could ever take him back home. Any slight mention of him returning home causes panic in me.

My daughter is not allowed to see him because my ex says she can't. He is worried about difficult child's unpredictable behavior and exposing her to it, but I think if I checked in and he was stable a short visit would be good for both of them. I don't know how he feels he can make these decisions when he is not involved with difficult child at all and knows nothing about what is going on.

First family therapy attempt this afternoon. Wish me luck!

Thanks for listening and reading my long intro
 

JJJ

Active Member
Welcome back! Glad you found us again but wish you didn't have to :(

In the school issue, our district moves everyone 'up' with their class as which class (fresh, soph, jr, sr) they are in only matter for the social events (ie. the Spring Fling dance is only for Freshman, Prom is only for Seniors, sophomores wear green during Spirit Week, etc.). Now, for the matter of which actual subjects (health, English I, US History, etc) they take, that comes down to which classes they passed. It is not uncommon for a student who struggles to have a mix of subjects as they must retake any subject they flunked but move ahead in the classes that they passed. Since he is at a therapeutic school, instruction is probably pretty individualized. Since he is not invested in school, have you looked at changing his goals to more vocational classes? (assuming he can read, write and do math to a functional -- 6th grade -- level).

With the ex-husband issue, ignore him. You have the constitutional right to parent your daughter as you see fit during your parenting time. You decide who she sees or does not see when she is with you. Additionally, with your son in DCFS custody, they would also have to agree to a visit and you can set it up where one of their caseworkers supervises. He'd have a hard time convincing a judge that a state-supervised short visit is so dangerous to your daughter that it needs to be prohibited. That being said, how does your daughter feel about a visit? did difficult child ever hurt her? is she in counseling to deal with her emotions about difficult child? Is he also difficult child's dad, if not is difficult child's dad involved?

With the medications, who knows why some of these psychiatrists do what they do :crazy2: I do like to try and have psychiatrist lower my kids medications if they have been stable for a while but if they get "agitated, depressed and showing some paranoia" those medications go right back to their previous dose!!!

As far as reunification, Kanga has been out of our home for over 4 years, her goal is not reunification anymore, she will be 18 soon, and I STILL panic whenever Residential Treatment Center (RTC) pushes for anything remotely related to her EVER coming home, even as an adult for a visit! That is our lovely parental PTSD. It does fade as reunification is taken off the table but these kids turned our homes into a war zone and we have the scars to prove it.


Family therapy.....oh, the bane of my existance. Good luck in your first one today. After this initial one, you will have a feel for how the counselor runs them. With Kanga, we always have to set an agenda for the sessions, ie. today we will have Kanga tell mom about school and her science project; Kanga will be working on accepting both positive and negative feedback from mom. After one horrific incident, the goal for the family session was "Kanga will sit there quietly and listen while her mother expresses how Kanga's actions made her feel and the consequences of her actions."
 

iluvmickey0206

New Member
Thank you for the reply.

As for school. He can read and write. Has trouble with concepts of daily living including even counting money. Vocational options are not available at his school. He was at a less restrictive school where vocational options were available, but he had to leave that school due to behavior issues.

As for my ex, he is the father of both children. Not involved at all with difficult child as I said. They had an incident almost two years ago where at his father's house they got into an argument that Michael says got physical and left him with a mark on his neck. When he came home I couldn't even see it. He then told his youth support worker who filed a child abuse claim against his father. This really made him mad and moreso his current girlfriend mad. So much so they said he was forbidden to come to their house ever again. difficult child was in an outside placement from Jan to June of 2011 and his father did attend family therapy, but as soon as he came home all contact again ceased and has never resumed. His dad states there is no hope for him. He will either end up homeless or in jail. And while that could be, I think he shouldn't just give up and never have contact with him. It's a lot about his girlfriend's opions (as is everything else he does).

As for visitation thank you for your reply on that. That makes complete sense. He never hurt his sister. She does have some trauma from witnessing him being explosive with me and otherwise. She is in therapy and has made some huge gains. She wants to see her brother. She saw him on Christmas, but that is it.
 
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