ADHD six-year-old now angry and destructive, need wider support advice

[Happclappydays]

Posting here for traffic.... SEN help request....

Really need some advice. I’m an incredibly positive and proactive person but our DC is completely grinding me down and dominating our whole family life, daily. I feel crap saying that and cried a lot in the car today in front of both our DC (younger sibling is 2) and my other half.
Our older DC, 6, was diagnosed with ADHD a few months ago. Over the last 12–14 months their personality has completely and utterly changed. A real 180. They are bright and used to be SO happy, fun and lovely to be around. Now they are angry and moody so much of the time. Their mood can change at the drop of a hat over something completely insignificant.
They have always needed a lot of our attention and can barely play independently for long. Everything we do seems to centre around them. Bike park, activity, day out etc… then they moan and moan for the next thing until it becomes unbearable. If we stand our ground, we risk the house getting trashed, a remote being smashed or similar.
We have tried psychology, but because of their age they would only offer expensive ‘parent sessions’, which we found utterly useless and condescending — basically telling us things we already know and already do. They won’t actually work with DC for a few years, so we stopped.
There are still glimmers of the lovely child we knew, but far fewer than before. It genuinely feels like a personality transplant. I’ve wondered whether their pretty formal single-sex school could be contributing, but the summer holidays have been just as up and down. (DC didn’t meet enough criteria for ASD — I specifically asked during the assessment.)
Life simply couldn’t continue with the level of purposeful damage to belongings and sometimes us, so for everyone’s safety we turned to medication.
We started Equasym 10mg, then 20mg, which seemed to work… until it didn’t. Xaggitin was awful — appetite disappeared and DC hugely went into themselves. We then tried Elvanse, but the angry outbursts continued/worsened. Today we went back to Equasym XL 20mg and I was hopeful we might get back to the semblance of balance we had a few months ago.
Instead, we went to a fair. DC played a football game, lost but was still offered one of the ‘lower’ prizes. They hated the choices, I picked one up, and they snatched it and smashed it on the ground. We left after 15 minutes.
Later at home they randomly thumped me because I didn’t know where their shorts were. Then 30 minutes later they picked up their 2-year-old sibling (which we repeatedly say not to do), dropped them onto the sofa and sibling banged their face and got a lump.
Frankly, I need a rest from the daily toll of it. I’m sick of the behaviour. We DO have boundaries and consequences but they seem to make absolutely no difference going forward. DC is very smart in many ways, but lessons just don’t seem to get ‘learned’.
And that’s the bit I struggle with most — this is a child who genuinely used to be SO happy. They feel like a completely different child.
Could some of this be anxiety about school returning? I’m clinging to the hope that getting back into a routine after 8 weeks might help. But then I worry — what if the new teachers don’t ‘get’ them or support them in the right way?
I constantly ask for help. GP etc. sent us a council family support worker who regularly checked in, but again it felt like someone reading from worksheets rather than actually helping. Our ADHD consultant seems useful mainly for medication and we lead that by feeding back behaviours.
I strongly feel now that we need someone to look at the WHOLE child rather than simply trying another ADHD medication — perhaps a child psychiatrist/second opinion.
I don’t really know what I want from this post. Maybe just to hear from someone who has been through something similar and come out the other side. Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Did anyone else see this kind of huge personality change at 6/7, and did you ever work out what was driving it?
Any constructive thoughts or experiences would be hugely appreciated. Thanks for reading if you got this far! X

DS might benefit from an EHC needs assessment. He could have hidden SEN, such as problems with information processing, very poor working memory, or receptive (comprehension) language difficulties, arising from the poor attention to name but a few! As pp has said, dyslexia is another co morbid condition. As he goes up through the education system, these hidden SpLD can cause him to struggle more in school and impact behaviour at home. Look up the Coke bottle effect.

I’d put in a request to your local authority for an EHCNA, if I were you.

I found these books helpful:

The Out of Synch Child
The Explosive Child

(married to DH, and we have two DDs and DGD, all with ADHD)

I was genuinely trying to be constructive. Sorry if you've taken it abrasively, sometimes my tone isn't great written down. I'm quite direct. He's had a lot of change in a short amount of time and he will be anxious about school. My child hsdnt slept for the past week due to the imminence of school. I've accepted I can't force them to sleep!

There is limited support out there and I'm glad PPs have given you hints and tips that might work.

Some of the best advice I had for my child was around their diet. There was stuff I thought was "OK" and wouldn't affect them, yet it did. We've moved to a much more natural diet and no UPFs and it has helped. Not transformative, but small moves in the right direction. He's also a bit older than yours and growing up helps a bit too.

This sounded mad to me but my friend brought her child to anger management therapy and it helped them so much- they basically weekly went through things that made him sad, angry, stressed etc and talked with him about coping mechanisms in a child friendly way. It was in a play therapy centre so I guess that was involved too. He was 9 and it was quite out of the blue

An Educational Psychologist would be my first choice of professional. They deal with children with ADHD, and all related conditions on a daily basis. They should also be able to point you towards support for you as parents and as a family.
One thing that might help you in the immediate future is a pictorial timetable, that DC can help to record each morning, showing what they will do each day and the order in which those things will happen. Don't put times to these activities, except where school is concerned, as those times are non-negotiable. Keep timings fluid and in your control but give DC a warning/s when the activity is coming to an end. Allow DC as much control as possible over their own life, by offering limited choices " Do you want ham or cheese in your sandwich?" rather than "what do you want?", which opens the door to something that isn't available and tears and tantrums.

Probably all things you have considered or tried already but my suggestions
Diet, eliminate all junk and eliminate as much sugar as possible. Regular healthy meals at set times.
Exercise, plenty of it, preferably outdoors, ideally early in the day when practical.
When two parents available take in turns for each to do something enjoyable with one child so child has one to one attention.
Reward charts with stickers/points whatever works but must be short term and achievable (may not work until DC is older).
Call out bad behaviour, eg loud brief admonishment.
Best of luck, my 'difficult' DC (no diagnosis) has turned into the most lovely sensible adult, they do grow up eventually.

We have found no professionals at all helpful except for the above (ADHD Dude). Everything was either way too abstract or long term for DS, or made things worse (Plan B/The Explosive Child, I'm looking at you), or just sought to explain behaviour by adding more diagnoses. We don't want to be told "your child's brain is hopelessly broken and he will live in an institution". We want solutions and progress.

@Redburnett It depends on the child.

In the case of DGD, exercise needs to be in the afternoon, otherwise she has a meltdown at dinner time - and younger DGS can bear the brunt of it. If she is taken out in the morning, the benefit has worn off by dinner time, and she’ll still have the meltdown!

Thank you for saying this. It's so true and so frustrating. In a similar situation to you. A friend asked if id survived the hols. Physically just about but mentally I'm not so sure

Have you heard of VIPP-SD as a supportive intervention? It is backed by good scientific studies.

Generally involves someone recording you and your child and then watching the recording back with you to watch for subtle changes of expression or tiny triggers that everyone misses in the moment. This is not a criticism of your parenting. It is just that some children need more help from you and having some extra training to help them might be good.

We were offered that, said we'd love to have it and then the offer was withdrawn or just dropped. It was originally intended for families at risk of child protection proceedings. I'm not sure if it's been adapted for children with neurodivergent conditions or if the tips are just general.
Anyway we couldn't find any other way to get this training than being referred by school or social services - we weren't quite sure why the referral was dropped as we were keen.

It is definitely used for children with ND. A close friend (in a different country) had some sessions. They were great parents doing their best but said that this was a game changer for them.