We have a problem with our son, and I feel so helpless right now. Usually I'm the type to keep pushing for a solution, to try something new, to parent him better. But I feel broken and can't stop crying.
I have two kids. My 7.5 year old was diagnosed with ADHD a couple years ago, and his current psychologist suspects he might also be on the autism spectrum. His verbal/language abilities are above average, but his processing speed, functional IQ, and emotional intelligence are below average. We've been seeing therapists off and on for the past 4 years. We've changed schools, changed diets, done everything short of medicating him because we didn't want to ameliorate symptoms if we could instead address the cause... especially since his teachers say he's angelic at school and just kinda spacey (they don't support medicating him either). We even moved to another country in part because we hoped the new culture would be a better fit for him and that learning a new language would complement his verbal strengths. I think the move was good, he has adapted very well and it's true the culture and new language proved fantastic for him. Overall it was a good choice for our whole family, but honestly his welfare was top of mind for us.
In short, my partner and I have turned our lives, ourselves, and our relationship inside-out trying to help our son to be a happy member of the family, but the fact is after 4 years the basic problem remains the same: he's miserable.
I don't know how else to put it. He is a miserable person the vast majority of the time.
Everything we do, everything we say, it's never good enough for him. He's the child who, when I say good morning to him, scowls and yells that it's a bad morning because he doesn't want to go to school. When I drop him off and say I love him he barks back "no you don't!" When I pick him up in the afternoon and kiss him he only snarls that he's tired and why didn't I bring him a snack? When he doesn't get his way he stomps, yells, hits, calls us bad parents, accuses us of completely fabricated stuff, threatens to run away... this goes on for hours. He was 3 or 4 when he started gaslighting me: he'd pretend to trip, do a fake fall, then scream that I had pushed him on purpose. Note: there was no one else in the room, the purpose of this was entirely to fake anger and try to force me to defend myself. He still pulls this shit.
Let me say, he does NOT get what he wants by acting this way. When he throws a fit or acts rudely he 100% will not get what he wanted, and he'll usually lose something else too. But it doesn't matter. It still happens over and over and over again. The fit isn't about getting what he wants, it's not even a fit really. It's not like he's lost his temper; his temper has perfect, precision aim, and we're the targets. He's not just venting, he's needling us to get a rise so that we're just as miserable as he is.
This afternoon the kids were supposed to go to a carnival. The long and the short of it is he picked a fight with his sibling over nothing, then reacted violently when his child-minder tried to intervene. When his dad stepped in and removed him from the situation, he hit and scratched his dad. So, obviously, he was told he wasn't going to the carnival. His sibling went with the child minder and he was left at home with us. Now, the thing I don't understand about consequences is, what exactly are they supposed to do at this point? Is he supposed to feel remorseful? If so it's not fucking working. He just loses his mind even more and (and this was recently confirmed in therapy) entirely forgets what the punishment is even for. He instead focuses 100% on getting revenge for having lost a privilege or item. So tonight he lost the carnival and he became level-9 miserable: He followed his dad around yelling, hitting, threatening to break stuff, running down the block saying he was "running away." We ignore this stuff as much as possible (per his therapists instructions) because it's all for attention, and honestly what choice do we have? I've gone down the road of taking away more stuff and trust me, it only ends when there is literally nothing left—not a sheet on his bed, not a rug on his floor, and then he smiles and says "thank you for cleaning my room." He was 4 when that happened.
Anyway, so tonight he was angry about not being at the carnival. So I took the dog for a walk and said he could join me if he wanted. He wanted to because he knew that would be guaranteed attention, then after 10 minutes he started just outright lying: "You made me come! I'm tired and you made me walk because you hate me!" I ignored this or laughed a little and said nope honey, it was definitely your choice. So he escalated. "Now I could fall in the street and get hit by a car... that's what you want. You want me to get hit by a car and die! You'll probably even push me!" Over and over he shouted that I wanted to push him in front of a car, and that he'd be happy because then he'd be dead.
I kept walking, I kept holding his hand to keep him safe. And I just cried. I'm crying now. I can't understand how I ended up with a child who says something so terrible. He stopped when he saw I was really crying and he even mouthed an apology, but this wasn't even the first time today that I've cried after hearing him say terrible things, and it's not the first time today he's said sorry.
His dad feels the same at this point, like we're trapped in an abusive relationship but instead of a partner it's our child. We wanted kids, we planned for kids, we've done everything in our power to give our kids happy, healthy, amazing lives. And our kid seems to despise us.
His psychologists have assured us that we're doing everything right, that we're great parents, that he doesn't have callous unemotional syndrome and that he does, in fact, love us deeply. But I don't know how it's possible for good parents to be in this situation. I sometimes think about suicide but would never EVER do that to my kids. It just hurts so damn much being constantly berated, criticized, and vilified by this little human whom I love so dearly. I just feel out of options. I've started seriously considering boarding schools, but I feel like that would only deepen his obvious emotional issues.
I don't know how this happened or how we can possibly climb out of this pit. I'm desperate.