Refusal to talk to therapists

scaredofhim

Member
How do you handle it when your difficult child will barely talk to their dr. or therapist? SS's behavior continues to go downhill. We went to his appointment. with his psychiatrist last Sat. and the dr. tries and tries to get him to talk to him but he won't. And the in home therapist is not having any luck with him talking to her either. Bio mom has since found a very good child psychologist to take him to as well, and he would not even leave the waiting room to go into the office to talk with her. She had to come to the waiting room to attempt to speak with him. At every appointment. with the psychiatrist he has had, he sits there and pretends he is sleeping, and the most the dr. can get him to say is yes or not to a question and it's even hard to get that out of him. He will just shrug his shoulders and say "I don't know" most of the time. He continues to spend every waking moment on his video games. He gets violent when bio mom tries to take the electronics away from him. We have tried to talk to him about it and he says that he doesn't like talking to strange people he doesn't know, and that there is nothing wrong with him so he doesn't see why he has to do it. Trying to explain to him why it would be good for him gets us nowhere. In the meantime, he has become more sullen and moody. His face and eyes are vacant all the time. He never smiles. He barely talks to anyone unless it's his friend on XBox or the laptop when playing games. I see no hope of anything ever turning around for him if he will not speak to therapists. Drugs are not helping him at all. Any ideas or advice? We feel he is slipping further away from reality, that is how it seems....
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
You can't make him talk. There is nothing you can do about it.

I would actually take a step up and go to a psychiatrist who can figure out what is going on with him partly becaue he WON'T talk. I wouldn't waste money and time on a therapist if he doesn't want to be helped by one.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
I'm so sorry.
You may have to take him to a psychiatrist. Maybe he's having such anxiety that he can't even open his mouth.
But if you tell him that he'll be placed on medications, he may freak out even more.
As for me, we've gone the violent route with-gaming and occasionally still have a meltdown. It is scary and crazy but sometimes the kids just need to take a break. Our son is always much better after just 24 hrs of no gaming.
{hugs}
 
C

Confused

Guest
I hope your difficult child will talk soon.All you can do is just keep encouraging him and letting him know he should feel better after he has someone he can talk to. Maybe ask him if he has any ideas / people/ therapist thats hes thinking of within agreement that would maybe make him feel more comfortable. But I agree with Midwest and Terry, maybe a certain type of Dr can help, the losing the games, seems like a good idea too :) Hugs
 

scaredofhim

Member
The in home therapist says that he mostly just pretends to be listening to her, and will answer yes, no, I don't know, or shrugs his shoulders when asked questions. And the in home therapy ends in three weeks. Hopefully the new child psychologist he is seeing will have more luck with him but so far that is not going well either.
 
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