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.

Op, Dr Westgarth has travelled to see my son in a different part of the UK when we couldn’t get my son to him due to him not being well enough to travel. Would that be a possibility for you to have a wee think about?

And I’m sorry you’re boy is struggling so much and that the whole family is going through such a hard time.

@imyournextdoorneighbour did it make his tics worse?

It’s just come to me after reading the above that it’s possible you’ve heard of some medications causing Tardive Dyskenisia but I just wanted to say that it’s mostly the old medications such as Haliperidol that can cause this long term and newer medications are generally very different.

Hey I think we had crossed wires
I asked how many people have said NO to obtaining medication
And how many times ?
And who ? Was it GP or child pysch

I ask as many people have been given it and you have clearly had many years of issues and tried many other options already

My granddaughter (adopted from a horrific background) has similar behaviour issues. Her parents were duly ignored by CAMHS (a chocolate teapot of a service if ever I saw one) the social services, adoption support and many other agencies until they said the adoption had broken down and asked for their daughter to be put into care. That did make the agencies move, and they have had more support (not from CAMHS - they were worse that useless). One thing they have found useful is therapeutic parenting techniques which they were given help with, and a support group of parents dealing with similar issues. They called the police when the attacks got too violent, and that did seem to cut these down. It's been a long, slow process, but the therapeutic parenting seems to have given them some more effective strategies, and things are improving. I'm so sorry you are dealing with this - there is so little support out there.

This must be terrible for you. I wonder if you have ever heard of what is quoted below from ‘kids pot’? You could look up more about it.

“Research into magnesium effects on children with ADHD
A 2008 Spanish study looked at children aged seven to 14 suffering from tics and Tourette’s. They found that given magnesium and vitamin B(6) supplements the total tic score among the children decreased from a rate of 26.7 to 12.9. This was considered significant and there were no reported side effects.

Because it’s a muscle relaxant there’s ongoing research into its use in treating hyperactivity and ADHD. In a 2015 study at Ain Shams University, Cairo, 25 children with ADHD were tested for magnesium levels and supplemented with magnesium over eight weeks against a control group.

Magnesium deficiency was found in 72 per cent of the ADHD children. The magnesium supplemented group was found to improve on neuropsychological tests carried out by the researchers.”

This is exactly how we have been with ds until recently. He is 14 now.
Use meds with caution. We tried lisdexamphetamine with explosive results.
Had to ring police as he was violent on it.
Things that work for us are melatonin 2mg at night to get him to sleep. Sleep is incredibly important. Routine.
No late nights. And good food. Protein is important as it seems to have a calming effect. I don't react to any bad behaviour and have knives locked up.
We give lots of exercise to provide sensory relief. Indoor climbing is excellent

Sorry your struggling. NVR has helped us but the key thing has been discovering and controlling triggers and reducing his anxiety levels. The NATP do a Managing violent behaviour course which I've heard good things about. A good clinical psychologist specialising in trauma was our best help. CAmhs hopeless in our area.

I found that tailoring strategies for pathological demand avoidance was very helpful.

I have been where you are now. We tried everything we could think of so I'm not sure what eventually worked (unhelpful- sorry) but just wanted to let you know that those days do appear to be behind us now. It does get better.

My DS has ADHD. He is medicated but only very recently, and only on school days, so I can't really make a judgement on it yet.

He was at his worst last year- probably made worse by lockdown, missing the ending of primary school, starting secondary school. He eventually had some counselling sessions, basically because it was the only thing I could access. (CAMHS weren't interested even though he was self harming and talking about suicide, couldn't get an appointment with a paediatrician, he wasn't at primary school to access support there then when he started secondary school the support was limited due to covid.) I've no idea what they discussed in his sessions obviously but something did change. He's generally much less violent and doesn't anger so quickly. It didn't seem like the right route to take, rather clutching at straws, but I'm really grateful for it.

My son would have outbursts, tantrums and throwing thins including in the classroom. I knew there was something going on with him and he has just recently been diagnosed with ADd inattention. Before that I stumbled across an over the counter med called Brillia. I believe it’s European but under a different name there. The difference it made in him was incredible. He’s currently on the off month taking it and his behaviour is slipping again. It costs about $30US a month. His neurologist said she would have tried that first too but we’re already on it. Here’s a picture of the packet if you want to read about it and try to find the European equivalent

He sounds very much like a good friend of mine was at that age - but less extreme. I remember his behaviour vividly: it was terrifying. He could cause thousands of pounds worth of damage in one night. The only way to stop him was for a burly adult to physically grab him and pin him down until he was exhausted. There are good reasons why he was like this, including abuse, neglect, adhd and a host of other diagnosed conditions - IMO it was a rational response to things that had happened to him and were still happening to him.

He’s 25 now, and wonderful. Works hard, has a good job, lots of friends and is in many respects a lot more mature than others his age. It hasn’t been plain sailing, he’s made stupid mistakes, but he’s learned from them. I just wanted to mention this because there IS hope.

We’ve spent many hours talking about his childhood and how he moved on from it. He says the key was a small number of people sticking by him through thick and thin. I think the key was the fact that he’s always been able to take responsibility for his actions after exploding, and fell into work he enjoys when school had (understandably) given up in him.

Get a second opinion re stimulant meds. They can help with the effort and reduce the cognitive load of the day. Tics are not a contraindication to stimulants. I would pay. Medication will be more helpful than therapy right now, therapy plus medication would be ideal.

What about Intuniv? There’s a few studies around showing it’s actually helpful for tics in children with both ADHD and tics.

Brilliant was mentioned by a poster. If you look at the ingredients the main one is magnesium.

BRILLA not brilliant.

From oatext.com

“Brillia is found both safe and impactful and is widely accepted as a safe alternative to prescription pharmaceuticals that have harmful side effects.”

Hi OP have you gone the PALS route? You shouldn’t have to go private.

*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*

Sorry. I disagree. Therapy HELPS. It's not always about medication.

No one is disagreeing that therapy helps
But OP is in crisis mode
And has been trying therapy and many approaches for quite some time here
And - reading hers son issues - finding a decent therapist who can handle that is very very hard
If not impossible
As many PP said getting the right MH support for kids like this is draining and gruelling
I used to be really aghast as medicating kids , thought it was a horrible American thing

But I have changed my tune massively
If OP can get a combination of strong bespoke MH support and an appropriate dosage to calm things down ....

If you are really in crisis you need to turn off the tap. A child acts out like this out of fear self preservation and basic instinct. There is absolutely no way he will be scared, punished or disciplined into good behaviour. He needs to get to a place of safety and trust the adults around him. Maybe medication is a part of that but I would try to work backwards and reduce the triggers. A big part of it is self care as its draining being that safe base no matter what. There are parenting strategies that work (I really believe in PACE/therapeutic parenting/NVR type of thing) but it's easier with professional support to help you target your particular family dynamics.

Looking back I was so stressed with kids that I was angry all the time
I felt guilty that their behaviour was bad parenting
I felt they were turning into mini abusive little men (like daddy) !
But with hindsight even basic conversations were fraught

However it’s very hard to be a kind and patient parent when a simple request is responded to with ‘fuck off
You cunt’.
It’s very hard to stay nice when they throw a load of stuff down the stairs.
It’s very hard to calmly walk away when in anger they break something precious to you , or throw food.
It’s hard when they are unkind to their siblings

OP a lot to thing about . If nothing else proactively do things for yourself . Whatever might cheer you up , do it
And start a small diary
Look his worst meltdown and try and see any common build ups
Even no common build up is useful data
And look after yourself please

I have a 9 year old son diagnosed with PDA. He used to be very aggressive, don't get me wrong he still has his moments and parenting him generally can be exhausting, but he has really improved over the last 2 years, the main successes we have had are -
Lessons learned from Yvonne Newbold's group on Facebook
Dr Ross Green's Plan B strategy
Very very low demand parenting
During high trigger periods (Christmas, new class at school, moving house) high quality high strength CBD oil

We also ensure his sensory needs are met, he is a seeker and significantly oral so he always has chewing gum, ice lollies, smoothies etc, plus stretchy bands, fidget toys, weighted blanket.

We're still figuring it all out but it's definitely a better picture than before.

Hi OP.

This person is based in Brighton but also offers a free 121 consultation on Fridays you can book in too www.capauk.org/

Good luck

Hope op is ok
It’s an interesting thread . Lots of food for through
I hope ?

My dd is in the middle of being tested for ADHD, as am I and ds is just starting the journey.
We all have meltdowns (I can usually control mine now but my child and adult life have been littered with incidents of anger and rage over what appears to be a little thing but it isn’t necessarily the little thing that caused the rage but a lot of tiny things that have added up over the day/week etc)

The advice of just walking away is correct.
Make sure he can’t harm himself or others or anything valuable and let him simmer down on his own. I know if someone tried to “fix” the problem it just angers me more and carries it on for longer than it would probably normally last.
Think of it as an explosion. Once over everything settles
I am hoping with a diagnosis we can get some help into controlling the rages even if just through breathing and recognising when things become too much.

I know our brains don’t work the same as other people. None of us can hold down a job for any length of time and we look at people who can get up and go to work in awe and wonder how they do it but on the other hand we find doing multiple jobs with the uncertainty of income more in line with our brains.