stopping son from coming on weekend family trip

[ClarkL]

So my son has a lot of behavioral issues, nothing like ADHD, simply a pain in the rear end. Hes 11, on report at school, hes manipulative, hurts people and quite honestly is horrible. I am working hard with the school to turn this around, we have a trip to Edinburgh this weekend and he was told if he doesn't behave he isn't going. A friend has volunteered to have him. We had 2 good days last week, the calm before the storm! This weekend was bad, kicking his step Dad, screaming and shouting over homework and angry at me for talking to the neighbor on the phone for half an hour. SO I explained final warning, his teacher has said final warning, yesterday he apologized. not great behavior last night but no fights. Today I get a call from the school to say he's bullying another child and grabbed him by his neck and pushed him. I don't want him to go this weekend, his sister is very down from his bullying of her and becoming withdrawn I cant think of anything worse than him kicking off and ruining this trip...but is it really terrible to stop him from coming? Will I scare him for life and give him more reasons to be aggressive or may it be the kick he needs to realize being part of a family actually is conditional and you do not behave the way he is??

Your ds does need to be an active member of the family. He is 11 not an adult child living at home.
Your ds should not be denied medical help without his fathers consent. I would ring children's services and explain the situation to them ( re the parental consent)
I hope you can get a camhs referal because it really sounds like he needs the help.
We are currently having family counselling with cahms and it is really helping us to understand dd2 better.

Can you find some time for just you and your son. He has been through a lot for 11 years.

Bipolar takes many forms and often looks different in children and even boys and girls. The symptoms that the op is describing are exactly what my ds went through (having been quite a sweet placid child up until then) for the year before he was diagnosed. It also turned out he was having psychotic episodes that he didn't understand enough to tell us about. The (mis)behavior was very much the tip of the iceberg and a symptom of the frustration of his lack of control over his mind. My ds currently suffers much more from the manic side of bipolar and not so much from the depression side. But he is a teenage boy, so it may look very different as he becomes and adult.
My intention was to suggest to the op that there may be something more serious going on than just "bad" behavior and I am resentful that when I went around asking people what was wrong with my ds, I was given many of the same platitudes that posters are giving here and no one ever said to me "this may be more significant and you need to fight your ex to get a proper mental health assessment done." My ds' treatment was delayed by several years because of this. And current research suggests that the sooner you treat bipolar (particularly the psychotic episodes), the less severe it is in the long run. I think that the OP is smart enough to know that my suggestion that her ds might have bipolar is simply that and not a diagnosis from a mental health professional (which I am not).
I truly wish that the OP's ds does not have bipolar and she gets him assessed and finds that it's something much simpler and easier to treat.

Sofia, I am a clinical psychologist. It is not commonly accepted in the medical community that mental illness is genetic. There are various 'nature or nurture' debates but no scientific evidence that it is genetic at the present time.

As others have said, it sounds important that the OP's son gets assessment and support from his local CAMHS, who will be able to help him and his family to develop a better understanding of what may be going on for him, and how to best deal with it.

Symptoms of BPD tend to present differently in children than adults, umbongo. In children, it's more common for mania to express as irritation and aggression, so I can see where Sofia is coming from, even if an armchair Internet diagnosis is inappropriate.

I wouldn't leave him behind. I think excluding him from the family is not a good idea and will make him feel worse and the situation more volatile. If your DD needs separate time then the parents need to take a child each IMO.

In these situations there's an argument for some counterintuitive behaviour, you need to strengthen your relationship rather than diminish it. Have you thought about love bombing?

I agree it might be worth asking for a referral for CAMHS. Family therapy could work for both your children.

thankyou ZZZZ1111 A SENSIBLE VOICE FROM SOMEONE QUALIFIED suggesting mental health is genetic just makes the parent of said child feel even worse .and drug addiction is not genetic just if you are brought up in that atmosphere you think it acceptable .

Has your DS been thoroughly checked out for all the usual suspects - MH issues, ADD, ASCs, communication issues, anxiety... etc?

Oh and you don't "have" to follow through. Of course you don't want to make a habit of hollow threats but if you think this one was a mistake it's fine to withdraw it and rethink your discipline strategy so you can be consistent in future. You may want focus on safety for your DD, this doesn't really look like something that any amount of reward/punish discipline is going to fix. Maybe the idea of the weekend away has triggered anxiety in your DS and hence all the extra kicking off in school and at home. Do you think staying with your friend might make him feel more calm?

Anyway I agree with others that (a) you should try to get some more professional help and advice about what might be causing this aggression; and (b) do look at Explosive Child - it has a practical approach to discipline that may work when reward/punish doesn't help.

I am surprised that your GP is insisting that your DH has to consent to counselling - has the GP insisted on joint consent for any other medical procedures? Especially given your ex's own MH problems. Does the GP know all the circumstances? From the NHS website on consent and parental responsibility If one person with parental responsibility gives consent and another does not, the healthcare professionals can choose to accept the consent and perform the treatment in most cases.

It sounds like a really difficult situation for you and your family.

Go back to gp and ask for referral to family therapist via camhs. There may also be other local services that support children from complex family situations. Ypur situation is complex gor an 1w year old. A bio dad who he was seeing til five months ago and he maybe doesn't fully understand the mh issues. Step parent. School change etc. Get some professional help. I found family therapy v useful. They did need to see both parents but if your ex is under mh services then there should be some joined up coordination to decide whether it's appropriate or not for him to be consulted. Family therapist was v useful for dds and myself. They used various tools which were helpful in seeing things from dd s perspective. You can't ignore the external factors . The probs with dad maybe having bigger impact than you think. For ds this is his dad.

Sorry phone typos.
For him the family situation is complex. Your op talked about being part of the family but he has a bio dad with severe mh issues. That can be hard to handle. If there was contact til 5 months ago then something happened.

zzzz1111 I guess you don't keep up with the current literature. It would probably behoove your patients to do so.

Study from 1999 citing genetic risk connection for bipolar: jmg.bmj.com/content/36/8/585.full

Ok so situation with the GP was we went, they said he seems fine come back in a few weeks if hes still difficult, we did that, we went back 5 times and each time they said well he sees fine to me, hes talking to me if you want a referral his Dad will have to agree. His Dad is not seeking help for his issues, a reason why I have refused supervised visits and actually he hasn't thought to ask for them, hes simply decided it doesn't matter what he has done nothing is his fault and im the horrible woman for not letting him have his children. He lives 2 hours away, will not come to us and I refuse to leave them there.
As the GP is pretty useless I will look into a private counselor I'm sure there must be someone who does private work for parents not willing/able to wait for a CAHMs referral. The GP (who admittedly is useless) has told me he has no learning disability, The school he goes to has an excellent reputation for dealing with children with learning difficulties and they have said they do not believe he has any sort of learning disability, when he wants to he can be amazing, quite simply though if he does not get 100% attention he flips, which is why his sister gets the brunt of his temper so often. They talk to him once hes calm, he can tell them exactly why what he did was wrong but that person has annoyed him so it is their fault (apparently the reason why he should be able to bully this boy, the boy annoys him)
My daughter had a tutor session last week, I was sat with him trying to get him to do his homework (so he had attention), the tutor wanted a word at the end of the session and he continually interrupted and thrust his work at her until we stopped and gave him the attention he wants.
Yes he has had a lot going on, but he is a dominating person who demands attention and will not stop until he gets it, he has had plenty of professionals access him, none have diagnosed anything because when he talks with them he choose to behave, he chose to behave for my husband when they first met, until he got comfortable with him and now treats him like crap and makes no secret of the fact he will do it until he leaves as he prefers when its just him and I and he wants his sister out too.
He knows it is wrong, but he knows if he is good he gets equal attention to his sister, when hes bad he gets more attention, usually because he escalates it when he is ignored until he is hurting people so you HAVE to interfere. We have done time outs, we stop what he is doing to others, he goes to his room - he will time exactly what his time out is then walk out and do exactly the same again and scream we don't want him. He had all these traits and behaviours before he stopped seeing his Dad, except then I had some respite from him on the weekends he'd go and we could cope.
Now I have him full time, I'm exhausted.

sorry just to add the explosive child has just been downloaded and reading on the kindle, Not like I need to do a day job or anything?! Don't tell my colleagues!

glad you looking into private counselling - focus less on diagnosing something specific LD wise or behaviorally and much more on a family therapist/counsellor drawing out of him how he feels about his dad/the family situation/what has gone on in his life....

he wants attention - yes, maybe the loss of his dad in his life is having more of an impact than you think. we have to remember that while for us our ex is an ex, for the dc it's still their parent.

dont underestimate the impact the family issues/his dad abandoning him etc (as it may feel like that) on him and his behavior.

behavior is often communication.

"...and scream we don't want him." - so he feels you don't want/love him? why would that be? a good family therapist will get to the root of that with him and also with you - with the whole family. (if his dad cant be involved so be it) - get to the heart of his feelings and you might find ways with him to agree on behavior.... show that you want to work with him and not just chuck him out. show that you listening to him. "how to talk so kids/teens will listen" is good for some ideas.

also he may have picked up behaviors from his dad? "you annoy me so I can do x"...

Poor you and your poor daughter.

I think you should go away for the weekend without him. Might teach him that behaving appallingly means less attention.

If he's been assessed and doesn't appear to have any SENs, and can control his behaviour when he wants to, then it suggests he knows perfectly well what he's doing and that it's wrong.

At 11 he knows that you can't bully someone just because they annoy you. And he knows that he can't have one to one attention all the time - you have other things to do, his teacher has 30 other children to teach, etc. Has he always been like this, or has he got worse recently?

he will time exactly what his time out is then walk out and do exactly the same again and scream we don't want him

I wouldn't pay too much attention to that - that's attention-seeking too.

OP, It all sounds incredibly hard for you and your dd.

It's interesting you say he chose to behave for your dh until he felt comfortable with him - this is more likely to be that he is behaving badly with those he trusts, those he feels safe with.

A GP is unlikely to know much about ASD, PDA, child's MH.
IMO you need to start researching, look into high functioning autism, PDA (pathological demand avoidance), different parenting strategies - with many children bog standard techniques just don't cut it. A couple of us have mentioned The Explosive Child - have you managed to have a look?

Unfortunately, if your child has behavioural problems, unless you are a crap parent (and I don't believe you are, as you are posting for help) you have to find out what's going on yourself. We've found that CAMHS and NHS services will see very obvious cases, but anyone falling under the radar will be dismissed and you may be dismissed as an ineffective parent, when it's probably not true.

So much of what you post sounds like my ds, who has HFA/PDA. He has no learning difficulties, he is bright and eloquent, he doesn't come across as autistic, unless you know him very, very well.

I also agree with Maryz. If you leave him behind, given all the difficulties he has, I think this could be a massive knock, and he may never forgive you.

I think you owe it to him to try to work out why he is feeling so bad that he behaves like this.

And again, fully agree with Maryz last post.

My 15 yr old has also been through loads, displayed a lot of this behaviour, and it has all been put down to attention seeking and wanting his own way.
We found out yesterday that he has ASD, OCD and anxiety. Poor boy has been battling on for years and everyone around him has assumed that he's lazy, naughty etc.

If at 11 your son is behaving like this despite you telling him off, using time outs etc, then there's something else going on.

Maryz is right. What you're doing is not working, you have to do something else, or you will end up with an adult sized teenager behaving in the same way.

Having been a difficult child.myself I really really don't think you should leave him behind.

That will cement his view that his sister is the loved one and he will resent her deeply for being able to fit in.

He has lost his father and while I agree he needs boundaries I think you are sending a terrible message to him that will really hurt him.

You must insist on a referral to CAMHS from your GP.
Have school requested an Ed Psych assessment? If not you should push for that.