The sky is falling, The sky is falling.........

[arizonachic]

Sometimes I feel like a character out of the story chicken little. The sky seems to be constantly hitting me on the head...

Maybe I should introduce myself. My name is Jennifer. I am a mother to four children. His, Mine, Ours. My oldest child has ADHD and ODD. Words cannot explain the struggles we face daily, which Im thankful I found this forum, someone out here must understand right??

My Son, Issac, has been a challenge since birth. I dont mean a challenge as in normal kid stuff. Issac is constantly pushing and pushing and pushing. Being Defiant and sneaky, Angry, and manipulative seem to be the constant battles every day. I love him with all my heart.

I am hoping to learn how to handle this a little better. I get so frustrated sometimes. I get so tired of having to repeat myself 400 million times EVERY TIME I ask him to or to refrain from doing something.

I feel like I am such a failure..

 

[LittleDudesMom]

Arizona,

You've come to a place where the comment "we understand" is soooooo true!

I welcome you to the site and suggest, as a moderator and a member, that if that is your picture in your avata you may want to give thought to changing it. It is an identifying feature and this board is public and read all over the world. If you plan on posting specifics about your adhd child for support and suggestions, anyone could identify your child by your picture.

Again, welcome to the site. You've found a place of great support!

Sharon

 

[Marguerite]

Welcome Arizonachic.

Sharon is right, you may not be too concerned at the moment but it IS best to be anonymous here, there will be times when you will really value being able to vent about your son's teachers, for example, or his doctors, knowing they won't be able to identify you or him and so give you a hard time about it.

A lot of us have felt very disheartened at times. I think it goes with the job. It could also be a sign that you could be dealing with more than just ADHD.

The ODD - in my experience while ODD may be a clinical condition which is still being researched, there is also something that seems to develop as a result of our mishandling of the child. Not that we have been bad parents or used bad techniques. No, what we have done with our kids would be held up as best parenting practice, in most cases. But for SOME kids, this can actually make them worse. And how were we to know?

People are told that ODD is untreatable and incurable, but the thing I describe, which looks a lot like ODD, CAN improve in my experience. It's certainly worth a try.

What worked for us, and is always worth a read - "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene. The discipline techniques described in it helped us a grat deal, with difficult child 3. And you don't need to have different things for different kids, we have found that it also works on PCs. It seems counter-intuitive, at first this method seems to be "giving in" to the child or "letting them get away with it", but these phrases imply that it's all a competition between you and the child, for who is to have supremacy. And with a lot of our difficult children (difficult child = Gift From God, the child that brought us to this site) when things get to the stage where you and your child are battling for supremacy, you have already lost the war. Instead of battling (because the child will get into the habit of automatically opposing you on principle) you teach the child to see you as a facilitator and helper, not the obstacle. Often the child is desperate for control and frankly, the sooner the child learns SELF-control, the better. So you let them, but as you let a child learning to walk, to step out and try, with your hands at the ready just in case.

The book helps. Grab a copy from the library, or browse the discussion on it in the Early Childhood forum.

There are other books too, plus a lot of distilled wisdom on this site.

Let us know how you get on.

Marg

 

[BusynMember]

Hi and welcome.

I'm wondering if there are any psychiatric problems on either side of his family tree (biological?) Any substance abuse?

How was her early development? Does she socialize well with her same-age peers? Can she make good eye contact? Any obsessions? Any sensitivities to light, sound, textures, etc.

Has she ever had a complete evaluation by a Neuro-psychiatric? Are you convinced that the diagnosis is correct? It is easier to parent the child if you have the correct diagnosis, and so many of our kids have been misdiagnosed. Mine is one of them. Things turned around after we got the right diagnosis because then we altered the treatment plan for him and he really improved.

Glad you found us. Lots of nice people come here.

 

[Jungleland]

Hello Jennifer, and welcome to this wonderful site. I know only too well what it's like to have a "pushy" child, difficult from birth, etc... I love mine dearly as well, but that doesn't seem to help the difficult times, it seems.

Visit often, tell us more about how your child does in school, who diagnosis'd him, if he is on any medications, does he have an IEP?

We are always here to offer that listening ear, support and understanding.

Hugs of welcome,
Vickie

 

[helpangel]

Hi Jennifer,
I'm also new here and the others are right to warn you about posting things on the internet, at some point your child will grow up and who knows? might be running for public office and isn't going to want their early childhood years coming back to haunt them.

I can so relate to what you wrote about the sky falling and hitting you in the head, many days I feel like that. I have a child who can't handle hearing the word "no" and often I slip and say it which usually results in her throwing everything she can get her hands on straight at my head. In my case the sky isn't falling, a tornado has hit my home.

The book the Explosive Child is a good one and those methods can help a lot - with mine I've had to fine tune a combination of positive behavior management, the explosive child and "Shamu". Shamu is from a couple books written by Amy Sutherland that at first glance have nothing to do with parenting but some of the practices can be applied to kids. The titles "Kicked, Bitten & Scratched - life lessons learned at the premier school for exotic animal training" and "What Shamu taught me about life, love & marriage" are available at many libraries and they have helped me a lot. I also get a chuckle out of the ways this lady uses techniques for training exotic animals to help train her husband. I figure if it will work to help a trainer not get eaten by a Lion it stands a chance at working with my kids. Very simplified version is try to reward the behaviors you like and ignore the ones you don't.