Wish I Could Speak My Mind

[Bunny]

I just need to say this and get it out.

*There are some days with difficult child that I truly wish I could just say the things that I want to say, but I know that it would only make things far worse. He rants and raves and feels that it's okay to say any and every hurtful and mean thing he can thing of, but the rest of have to watch what we say or else things just spin completely out of control and the violence and aggression start.

I'm tired of having to censor myself, while difficult child just says whatever mean and nasty thought pops into his head.

 

[LittleDudesMom]

Holding our tongues, sitting on the edge of our seat, and walking on eggshells is a warrior parent's lot. However, there definitely comes a time with our difficult child when we do have to be honest and open without being cruel and disparaging. Life will not always "hold its tongue". When our difficult children are in our safe cocoon, we do have to push so they can hopefully learn how to handle themselves when we are not there.....

I began to slowly challenge my difficult child and push his frustration button when he was in 6th grade. Little by little, by little, by little he began to learn the signs of impending anger and frustration and slowly began to self-modulate. At 17, he's far from typical or easy child, but he has a much better understanding of what it takes to maintain control.

*Sharon

 

[Bunny]

We have tried, but we've gotten no where. He just continues to truly believe he can say anything, no matter how mean or nasty it is, but the rest of us have to be nothing but nice to him.

He has an appointment with his therapist tomorrow, so I think that I might bring this up with her.

His old therapist got no where with him on this issue, eithe. Hopefully, the new one will be able to make some headway.

 

[DammitJanet]

I dont think you should bite your tongue. Of course dont cuss him out but if he is ugly and mean there is no reason you cant tell him that and then tell him that you dont like being around people like that so he has to go sit in his room.

I wouldnt take it. If he wants to scream and throw a fit, well Im sure you can work yourself up to a good old fashioned tizzy right along with him. Remember when babies are little and can barely talk so they like to scream about everything? I have been known to scream right back. Thats the only way they are going to learn screaming isnt going to get them their way.

 

[Bunny]

Believe me, Skotti, I've done that, too. That just seems to whip him up into a frenzy even more, and then it tends to spin out of control and get violent.

 

[Malika]

Hi Bunny. For myself, I have felt having a difficult child has definitely brought out the worst in me (possibly also the best but that's not really for me to judge... ) I'm afraid I HAVE ranted and raved back on occasion, to my subsequent shame. But one thing I do thing one has a right to do is to say how a child"s tantrums or difficult behaviour affects us - I don"t like it when you... because... etc. And I have found this is also heard without offence and with respect.

 

[SearchingForRainbows]

Bunny,

I can relate to what you're saying. It rots big-time! For many years I was referred to as every nasty thing you can possibly think of and more by my difficult children. I was told by difficult children's therapist, psychiatrist, to remain neutral. Ignore what I could. This didn't work and left me wanting to scream, punch holes in walls just like they did. When I felt this out of control, I usually went for a run. This calmed me down enough to deal with the next nasty comment that would fly out of one of their mouths. However, there were those times I'm not proud of when my emotions got the better of me and I would yell back. This only escalated the situation to the point that sometimes I would have to either call husband to come home or lock myself in my room.

I had to learn the hard way that the only way to diffuse the situation was to remain calm. However, I didn't have to take all the "garbage" spewing out of their mouths without letting them know how inappropriate it was. Once the tantrum passed, I would tell them in as few words as possible, another suggestion made by difficult children's therapist, why this sort of behavior is inappropriate and will not be tolerated. There were negative consequences for their outbursts. Unfortunately the negative consequences usually resulted in another meltdown. Eventually, I learned to go with natural consequences whenever possible. If they called me a F*ckinB*tch, one of their favorite terms of endearment, to borrow an expression from a long time member, then half an hour later wanted something from me, I could let them know that after being called an FB, I wasn't in the mood to spend time with them, etc...

Wish I could say this helped but in reality it did little to stop the steady stream of "garbage" coming out of their mouths. Sad to say, I think the only thing that made a difference was time and distance between us. Once they were no longer living in my house, things improved dramatically. I think lots has to do with the fact that as another long time member used to always say, they weren't finished cooking. Unfortunately our difficult children mature lots slower than typically developing kids and have much shorter fuses.

Wish I had some advice that would actually help you. Just want you to know I'm thinking of you... Hugs... SFR

 

[Bunny]

Thank you, both. I appreciate your words and understanding. SFR, I have done what you have done quite a few times. difficult child wants something from me and I will tell him that I'm in no rush to help him after being called every name in the book. He'll say he's sorry, but I usually respond with, "You're not sorry because you're sorry. You're sorry because you want something."

I brought it up with the therapist today. She asked me how things were going, and I told her that I saw him trying hard at times, but then there were other times when he didn't try so hard, and I told her exactly what my concerns were. She said that she has a good idea of what areas difficult child needs to work on and they were going to start dealing with that at his next appointment.

 

[DammitJanet]

Im going to tell you something that I have learned in retrospect.

All of the therapists and psychiatrists over the years told me to ignore the mouth and cussing. Told me we had worse behaviors and bigger fish to fry. I think it was the biggest mistake anyone ever gave us. Now I have a grown man who cant say a sentence without there being half a dozen cuss words in it.

Now I never dealt with violence towards me or really anyone in the house other than normal sibling stuff because every last one of my kids knew that well, they would as my youngest always said "wake up dead." They were convinced that because we own 8 acres with most of it swamp land that we could dispose of the body easily...lol. But seriously, my kids were afraid enough of their father that they would never think to raise a hand. And eventually, my middle one was big enough to take down the youngest if the need had arisen and everyone knew it.

I can take a lot of behaviors but not that.

I also think we should have nipped that mouth in the bud when it started as a child. I should have never had to hear all those words in my house. Especially from my kid. I have learned and trust me, my grandchildren will not cuss me out. I had one try it when she was two and I whipped her butt good because her parents just sat there. If they want to let her cuss them out, so be it but I wont. She doesnt like me too much...lol. Oh well.

I have gotten mean in my old age.

 

[DammitJanet]

Mine was extremely hard to punish too. Youngest I mean. The other two were okay.

I cant say precisely what would have worked but I know what didnt..lol. I did have the most luck when using The Defiant Child method out of Doug Riley's book.

I dont know if you have one of the problems I did when mine was smaller and into his teens but I worked full time and he took those hours while I was at work as a freebie to do whatever he wanted. I couldnt ground him because he simply left the house while I was at work. I couldnt tell him no TV or video games or fishing or whatever else was actually available to him even when no one was home. I couldnt take the TV with me in my car to work...lol. Plus, not fair to his siblings to ground them too from whatever he was being punished.

I started using some of the techniques from Defiant Child and I would make him do physical stuff when I was there. It was the only time I could actually control. Some of the things I did were probably borderline abusive but his behaviors were really out there. In order to keep him from running off when I was trying to make him do his physical punishments, we did things like leash him to a long wire dog run and made him walk or run from one side to the other for so many minutes. Now do remember he was at least 13/14 when this was going on and we were trying to keep him from leaving home to break into people's houses. We had people tell us they would shoot him the next time they caught him around their houses so we were desperate.

*He was hard though, even group homes set up for kids like him gave up.

 

[Bunny]

He doesn't curse and call everyone names when he's calm and quiet. Even the therapist says he is serious and very polite when he's in her office talking to her. It's when he loses his temper and starts moving into meltdown and rage mode that the language gets bad and everyone needs to run for cover, but then again, I suppose that alot of us have kids that do that.

 

[susiestar]

I honestly think we make a big mistake when dealing with tdocs/psychiatrists. They don't really see or experience what our kids do and they don't have a clue how bad it is. I think many of us have had psychiatrists/tdocs tell us they had no clue how bad it was after seeing our kids have a rage or whatever you call it. They use the yardstick of the badly behaving easy child to measure and treat our kids, but they don't really 'get' what we deal with.

Those of you who have been here a while know that at one point while my difficult child was hospitalized I pushed all his buttons to make him erupt during a therapy session. The therapist was good, and knew what I planned to do, and had worked with children in psychiatric hospitals for almost twenty years. She was TERRIFIED and totally freaked out when she saw and heard an experienced Wiz in a full blown rage. Talk of discharge stopped immediately and they started to really treat him because they were able to actually get the full picture of what the problem was.

I later got all the info from the psychiatric hospital that was in his chart and the notes of the sessions leading up to that day were mostly that he was a sweet, misunderstood kid with parents who were too strict but loved him. After that day? TOTAL change in the chart. He was identified as incredibly manipulative and violent and able to hide the problems and con the tdocs/nurses for long periods of time. The therapist actually wrote that she hoped he never got into a rage around her because she was afraid he would really hurt her or anyone around him. She had an orderly sit right outside her door during every one of his sessions for over a month after that day because she was afraid he would kill her before help could realize she was in trouble and could rescue her. He was in sixth grade at the time.

I firmly believe that our tdocs and psychiatrists have NO CLUE about how extreme our difficult children can get. I think you NEED to tell the therapist how you feel and how you want to tell difficult child just what you think of him. I also think more of us need to trigger rage in our kids during therapy sessions. I think it should be part of our standard operating procedure as Warrior Moms. They cannot treat what they cannot see/experience and many of them discount audio or video of a rage. Heck, many tdocs think we are just over-reacting to normal stuff until they are a few months into therapy with our kids. They think we exaggerate and no kid really acts taht way. I have gotten that feeling from most tdocs we saw with Wiz. It is one reason we saw so many before we settled on one, and why we were so upset to have to leave a therapist because it was so hard to find one who 'got it'.

I don't like having had to trigger my child's rage, and it won't feel good to anyone who does this with their child. It is still the only way I can figure out to get a therapist/psychiatrist/etc... to really know what we are dealing with. I think every one of us should at least give some serious thought to whether our docs are truly understanding what the problems are, or if they just think we are exaggerating and our poor child is misunderstood. It is hard to do this purposely, but you cannot effectively treat something you cannot comprehend. So if provoking a rage in front of a doctor will get that more effective treatment, then it may be a helpful thing to do.