I really need help with my violent son. And I'm willing to pay for the help. But how?

[SortYourLifeHelp]

My son is nearly 10, middle child of three boys.

We have had trouble with his behaviour since he was about 3 years old. He has tics, allergies and ADHD (the later diagnosed privately) and they won't medicate the ADHD until older because he can take the standard meds due to his tics.

He had a 2.5 hour outbursts the other night because he went to bed at 8pm, but he wanted to go to bed at 8pm.
In other words, it's over absolutely nothing.
He was calling us fucking cunts. Punching us, throwing metal toys at our heads with all his strength. Saying he was going to smash up our phone, smashes the house up, he's a danger to himself, and the rest of us. The police didn't want to know.
He's run away in the past.

Things we have tried so far

• CAMHS, waiting waiting still waiting
• Private diagnoses of ADHD who recommended the triple P parenting programme, at a glance that didn't seem to be the answer though?
• spoken to the school, who have referred us to child services, for a key worker, still waiting.
• paid for a private therapist that does NVR non-violent restoration. I stopped that after I was paying £75 an hour for her to tell me the way we handle his meltdowns and simmer him down is to walk away. (Tried that!) and do "whatever we felt would work at the time" TRIED THAT. As if we want his violent meltdowns to continue into the night.

-grounding him makes him worse
-any kind of punishment causes hours long of violent meltdowns.

We are desperate.

We have some money left from our house sale, it's not going to last long so I want to pay someone to help us, but who?? How??

We are in Brighton if that makes any difference whatsoever.

Please help us.

Talk o the emergency social worker and say you think he will have to go into care because you can no longer cope.

That worked for friends of hours, suddenly the help was there.

You are in crisis so you need to call social services and tell them that. Then you can/will be able to get ore support.

Wha about a charity like BIBIC?

Does he have any other diagnosis such as PDD/ODD which are both on the spectrum? What about a child psychologist who specialises in those?

I'm so sorry, that sounds very hard to live with. I have had phases with my eldest that were like that. Also with foster children.
There are therapies you can do and pay for. You could pay for a therapist that 'gets' the family dynamic better. You'd have to research who is available locally. You may find foster carers that work with difficult children a really helpful resource.

I can only tell you what worked for us. It was to be non confrontational. Avoid tackling the small stuff. Be calm and clear with expectations. Don't go to war with him about you being in charge.
Let him make decisions. Those decisions will have consequences. Point them out.
It takes two to have an argument or row, even with a D.C. as contrary as yours.

Here's one of my memorable moments - D.C. didn't want a bath/shower. He needed one. So I pointed out it was up to him, have a bath and be clean and fresh, or don't have one and be smelly. That led to three hours of 'I don't want to smell, (ok, have a bath) I don't want to have a bath'.

Am going to message you.

OP you say the police don’t want to know, have you called them when he’s in the middle of one of his melt downs and smashing the place up? In my experience the police would always attend if there was an out of control child who was being violent to family and causing damage to property. If they seem disinterested, just keep phoning. Ring them every single time. Use the emergency line, tell them you, your family and the child himself are in danger of being hurt/assaulted. At age ten he does fall within the age of criminal responsibility so they can’t (shouldn’t) ignore this. The police also will have a family protection department who can open pathways to social and children’s services (most police forces will share information closely with partner agencies to support partners- at least my local force does)- every time they attend they will be making a child protection record which should be shared.

Sorry you are going through this

Has he go an EHC Plan?

I suggest you write to Children's Social Services today - write, don't phone - setting out everything that is going on. Say that your child is a child in need under section 17 Children Act 1989 and you are therefore asking for an immediate care assessment. Don't be fobbed off if they say he doesn't qualify: under s17 they don't have a choice because me meets the definition of a disabled child. Push hard for respite care and referrals to experts such as an Educational Psychologist.

Whoever told you that you can't medicate an ADHD child due to them having tics is talking out of their arse!
My ds has ASD, ADHD and tourettes all of which causes tics and has been on ADHD medication since he was 6. The same is true for all of the children in his support group.
Talk to your gp and ask about a referral to pediatrics about his adhd asap

A colleague of mine was having huge problems with her 12YO son and she got him therapy privately with someone called Reeves (can't remember his surname) in Brighton. The practice is on one of the roads off the London Road, just north of Preston Park.

She found it immensely helpful.

If you can't track the therapist down from that scant info, pm me and I'll email her and ask for more details.

The Challenging Behaviour Foundation focuses on those who have severe learning difficulties but a lot of the information they provide on their website can be used in general for those who don’t have severe learning difficulties.

What I always try to remember is that behind every behaviors is a reason and once that reason is found things can be put in place to help with coping.

And please don’t run yourself down as a parent when the fact is that we are generally better equipped to deal with our children than professionals.

If your son has ADHD that means his brain works differently from the typical. It is more over sensitive to some sorts of stimuli, it's under sensitive to other stimuli, and the filing system is ineffective: stuff gets filed away more haphazardly in poorly labelled drawers by his brain "secretary" so when he needs to access information quickly it's much harder for his brain to go to the correctly labelled cabinet, open the relevant drawer and find the blueprint for "handling this situation". The bit of the brain that is meant to take stock and write the notes on information that is being presented has got stuck as a two year old ( "oh look a squirrel!" ) and the notes that are written on the files in the filing cabinet are often pretty rubbish as a result, because the two year old writing notes kept getting distracted.

Brains of this type have to work extra double hard to get through the day in a world that is arranged for brains which have decent filing systems and standard responses to stimuli. This means they much more easily get to a point where frankly they lose their shit "I just can't take this anymore!". The last straw event is often very minor but the reaction is not just about that event, it's like a dripping bucket that has filled throughout the day and when it's completely full just one drop makes it overflow. This is a meltdown. It's a loss of control due to overwhelm and during a meltdown the brain organisers have basically buggered off so the child needs to be kept safe in a prearranged "fire drill" until they have calmed down. There's no point trying to reason with or tell off a child in meltdown. AFTER the meltdown you can have a chat about how that could have been handled differently. If you are in their during a meltdown trying still to impose a consequence or an instruction then you are just feeding and perpetuating the meltdown.

This is not about "accepting bad behaviour". It's about understanding why and how that sort of behaviour is more likely to arise in this child than my other child. Clue: it's not his fault, it's the way his brain is wired that needs non standard parenting and some adjustments to his day. There is no "solution" you can just apply because he has the brain type that he has. The solution is empathy, adjustments, and training of the brain over time and maturation. Why didn't you try the parenting course that was suggested? It's not that it's your "fault" or that you are poor parents; it's that children with atypical brains need things handled differently and as the adults around them we can learn to a certain extent how to do that too. You can't expect to carry on just the same and for him to make all the changes: after all, it's his brain that is different and less good at that stuff.

Children do well when they can.

Recommend PACE for parenting while you wait for hep

Playfulness Keep as much as possible playful and fun. Honestly be silly, mess on the floor comedy fall over and get him to help pick stuff up including you. Bedclothes in a mess have him lie in the bed and throw the sheets over him. Hair not brushed out your own in a embarrassing style or hat and make a pact to both brush hair at same time. Etc.

Acceptance simply accept that no one is smily and compliant all the time! Let him be grumpy or whatever at that age such things are his business mostly. Get in his world a bit play with him on his choices don’t even steer him towards your preferred games play his.

Curiosity really wonder why he kicks off. Try to really understand. Do you notice triggers there may not be anything obvious but as a middle child at that age I wonder if perceived ‘fairness’ is a thing. When my kids were that age equal was their definition of fair and they would insist that a rabbit and a cow should get equal portions of grass! This means that if you kids have for example different age based bedtimes this may feel really unfair! But if everyone goes to bed after their hot choc and mum time might be less of an issues. Also is bedtime a hard lights off situation. How about a kindle to read in the dark. Fun and a reason to go to bed.

Empathy Really believe that he likely wants to be a ‘good’ kid and it
Must feel rubbish that he is not achieving this. Can you imagine your favourite people being disappointed with you all the time. Horrid.

I am wondering. Do you think there is a chance he is simply overloaded with ‘worries’ I need to get this level done on minecraft, ‘responsibilities’ tidying up is hard at that age, ‘goals’ my teacher wants this or that, ‘ relationships’ Bob didn’t show on mincraft today did I upset him/I was alone. Is he attending to his own basic needs toilet when needed not waiting as uncomfortable and drinking, fresh air etc. Will feel out of sorts if not.

Provide something for exasperated moments. An emoji pillow to bash maybe.

For you as parents this must be exhausting. I would suggest give yourselves a break. Rewind. Imagine he is 2 and forgive like you would a small child. Forgive him and yourself. Lower your expectations of him to why he can easily achieve and build back up from there.

Eg Is there really any need for an 8pm bedtime. So precise and seems early for his age. Might be easier to say bed straight after x on the telly or straight after hot chocolate and a story or whatever.

Accept that it is not a linear path to perfect and reliable behaviour.

I had similar problems with my son.. which all started when he was about 3.

He wanted me dead and used to lay traps for me. He used to throw furniture/toys/anything at visitors, and regularly tell me how much he hated me.

In our case it was the artificial colours and preservatives in his food. Through trial and error I worked out the trigger foods and he improved hugely, but 1 small packet of haribos (they've changed since) and it would take 36 hours of screaming, fighting and throwing the furniture for him to come down again. My nephew was the same but with natural colours (one orange or strawberry would set him off).

Finding out what caused it and getting it out of his system took a lot of reading and research, and he also was diagnosed with ADHD along the way. Once he was diagnosed all the specialist unit offered was "coping stategies" so I had no choice but to do something because I couldn't survive the way he was. There was no help forthcoming from the medical community, and they really weren't interested in doing anything other that medicating him.
All in all it took about 2 years for the devil's spawn to turn into a nice kid, who had friends and could go to school and come home without me dreading "could I have a word" from his teacher..

I don't know if you have been down the food route, and apologies if you have, but if he was fine until he was 3 it might be worth exploring.

@LakieLady

A colleague of mine was having huge problems with her 12YO son and she got him therapy privately with someone called Reeves (can't remember his surname) in Brighton. The practice is on one of the roads off the London Road, just north of Preston Park.

She found it immensely helpful.

If you can't track the therapist down from that scant info, pm me and I'll email her and ask for more details.

Micheal Reeve, I emailed him a couple of weeks ago and he pointed me in the direction of the other therapist who does NVR, the one that suggested the way we deescalate a violent outburst is to do what we feel is right at the time However, I'm going to call him and go from there.

Thanks all I'm looking at every single thing that has been suggested so far.

We also avoid food colouring and enumbers, I'm not sure if they are triggers or not.
I do know that he hadn't eaten anything like that before his most recent outburst.

Keep a diary of the outbursts, what happens before and after. If it's the case that official help is not coming through, you might, meantime, be able to analyse yourselves what function the behaviour is serving for your son and try to tweak the routine. Does having sensory input help; more exercise eyc.? This may help you now, and it will be useful when you do get to speak with a therapist.

In terms of managing the behaviour now, remove as many hard and sharp objects you can, like the metal toys. Maybe put them in a room or cupboard which you can put a lock on. Safety-proof the house as possible, and then remove yourselves and the other kids to the garden or somewhere for the duration of the outburst - that is if you think there is a real danger of you getting hurt. Call the police if you need help to keep him safe.

I don't know if BILD ( The British Institute of Learning Difficulties) would be able to address the needs of your son, but they help with autism. One service they offer is to send a specialist practitioner to do an assessment over a few days. It costs around 3.5 k. They might point you other services, such as The Challenging Behaviour Foundation, if they can't help. I believe that reports from experts saying xyz ought to happen often highlights to other services that it should be happening now, and helps strengthen your case to receive support.

Direct payments would enable you to receive help from paid and trained carers. Could the school help with getting that?
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Getting help from local services would be best, but of course, in reality, this takes time.

OP, are you familiar with the ABC approach to behaviour? If not, it might be worth a read.

Also, when your son is upset it can help to remember that behaviour is a form of communication and that what we see happening is just the tip of the iceberg and that there is way more going on underneath it all.

Hi OP

I've been in a similar position with a DS. He was diagnosed with ADHD very young then later on with autism.

Others have given good advice already so I don't want to be repetitive but what I will say is don't think there isn't light at the end of the tunnel. When my DS was your son's age I could only think about how much worse things were going to get as he got older but actually the opposite turned out to be true.

He's 17 now and he actually calmed down with puberty, he chose himself to stop taking medication at about 14 and it's been okay. He still has difficulties, needs support and can be a bit crotchety/shouty sometimes but he hasn't been violent towards us or his siblings in quite a number of years now.

Sorry you are going through this it's really hard. We also found there was little in the way of actual support too.

@Psychobobble

If your son has ADHD that means his brain works differently from the typical. It is more over sensitive to some sorts of stimuli, it's under sensitive to other stimuli, and the filing system is ineffective: stuff gets filed away more haphazardly in poorly labelled drawers by his brain "secretary" so when he needs to access information quickly it's much harder for his brain to go to the correctly labelled cabinet, open the relevant drawer and find the blueprint for "handling this situation". The bit of the brain that is meant to take stock and write the notes on information that is being presented has got stuck as a two year old ( "oh look a squirrel!" ) and the notes that are written on the files in the filing cabinet are often pretty rubbish as a result, because the two year old writing notes kept getting distracted.

Brains of this type have to work extra double hard to get through the day in a world that is arranged for brains which have decent filing systems and standard responses to stimuli. This means they much more easily get to a point where frankly they lose their shit "I just can't take this anymore!". The last straw event is often very minor but the reaction is not just about that event, it's like a dripping bucket that has filled throughout the day and when it's completely full just one drop makes it overflow. This is a meltdown. It's a loss of control due to overwhelm and during a meltdown the brain organisers have basically buggered off so the child needs to be kept safe in a prearranged "fire drill" until they have calmed down. There's no point trying to reason with or tell off a child in meltdown. AFTER the meltdown you can have a chat about how that could have been handled differently. If you are in their during a meltdown trying still to impose a consequence or an instruction then you are just feeding and perpetuating the meltdown.

This is not about "accepting bad behaviour". It's about understanding why and how that sort of behaviour is more likely to arise in this child than my other child. Clue: it's not his fault, it's the way his brain is wired that needs non standard parenting and some adjustments to his day. There is no "solution" you can just apply because he has the brain type that he has. The solution is empathy, adjustments, and training of the brain over time and maturation. Why didn't you try the parenting course that was suggested? It's not that it's your "fault" or that you are poor parents; it's that children with atypical brains need things handled differently and as the adults around them we can learn to a certain extent how to do that too. You can't expect to carry on just the same and for him to make all the changes: after all, it's his brain that is different and less good at that stuff.

Children do well when they can.

So what happens when he's a strong 25 year old and his girlfriend is there when he "frankly loses his shit"?

Just to say you are doing an excellent job. You are a fantastic mother.

You are doing everything you possibly can to help your son and your family. You are doing a great job, even if it doesn’t feel like it.

Can social services help you? They’re not all doom and gloom and taking kids away. They helped me with some home changes I didn’t realise I could get.

@Sapho47
Well by then he won't be a 9 year old will he? Adhd brains mature, it just takes longer.

Who is more likely to hurt their girlfriend at age 25 - a person who has been misunderstood, shamed, punished repeatedly and never had the core skills he lacks systematically taught, or a person who has been understood, systematically taught the skills he lacked, and treated with empathy and discussion about how to change his maladaptive responding?

But you go right ahead misunderstanding that neurodiverse children need neurodiverse parenting and ignoring the part where I said "this doesn't mean that behaviour is acceptable". After all punishment and harsh "discipline" has worked out really well historically for the high numbers of ADHDers who end up in the criminal justice system.

@Sapho47 I don't think you have a grasp of the kind of 'extreme' parenting required by those of us with neurodiverse children who present as the OP's does. The whole point of trying to tackle these issues when they are young is so that they aren't doing it when they are 25.

I'm autistic and have adhd and my eldest ds has adhd and pda. The only thing that has ever helped us is medication.

We're both on an SSRI and ds is on methylphenidate (I can't take it due to side effects). I really think you need to find a suitably qualified practitioner who can prescribe for this problem.

Parenting strategies and 'therapy' do not help the person's brain functioning system. They might help the parent, but the child is still neurodiverse.

My strong advice would be to go down the meds route.

Hi bellropes, a very similar situation here ADHD and ASD and PDA in both a parent and child... but we have had a great deal of success with PDA strategies and I mean success in terms of less meltdowns, everyone (very slowly) learning what precipitates them and how to deal with them better when they do happen. I think they have genuinely helped both the neurodiverse adult and child in understanding themselves as much as anything.

@bellropes have you tried lisdexamfetamine ? Ds moved over to it from methylphenidate in August were still tweaking the dose but the difference is so clear already

Have you contacted the charity Amaze in Brighton? My friend there is deputy CEO and they do amazing work with families. They may be able to help? Good luck x

@Cabinfever10

I can't afford the psychiatrist fees to trial different meds. I was put on atomoxetine, but it's around £84 a month for the drug, plus private prescription fees, so I just don't bother medicating now because I can't afford it. The NHS in my area is very bad, so I can't go down that route because of my autism.