Help with sons violent meltdowns 10yo

[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.

I read how desperate you are but I am not sure I would pay for any private therapy until CAMHS/ Ed psych carry out an assessment and provide a diagnosis. This is because a diagnosis will help you understand how your son thinks/feels what interventions are more likely to be successful.

@SortYourLifeHelp

Do they have problems at school too?

[quote Ellie56]@SortYourLifeHelp

Do they have problems at school too?[/quote]
Yes he does.
He usually saves his epic meltdowns for us though.
Although he has had them at school as well but that's when he was a year or so younger.

I could be you apart from the fact that school are supportive. We have an ADHD diagnosis from CHMS now but waiting to go back later this month for consultation about meds.

I've just walked out after him punching me. We've banned Fortnite as he's been excluded for 5 days following bullying online. He was caught on a live stream verbally abusing a classmate.

He won't accept responsibility and it's just escalated from that. He's destroyed so many things. I just don't know what to do about the violence.

Please, please don’t despair. Our eldest (adopted) was like this between 6 to 8. It also included an exclusion (which I fought and asked to be erased because it was clear school had not put in place any procedures to help him - they did...). We went down to a reduced timetable and had a couple of assessments done and have been having DDP therapy now for 7 months - he has really turned a corner. His outbursts are now probably once a month (instead of daily), he cooperates at home, is polite. He still has issues, still huge anxiety but he is learning to manage it all.

Have you tried taking him to somewhere like Anna Freud for advice (they helped us)? Have you tried talking to Beacon House which is a therapeutic school and provide loads of good advice? Did something traumatic happen in his early years, such that he has some sort of PTSD?

My cousin is autistic - it was awful for his parents for about 5 years - from 8 to about 13/14. He used to smash up his next door neighbour’s shed. But then he matured and he gradually eased, the meltdowns reduced and now he is the kindest, loveliest young man who we all adore.
Change can happen - but I do think intervention is the key. And as someone said to me “it’s much easier dragging a 8 year old to therapy than it is a 13 year old...”

Feel for you. Am so sorry you are going through this. And you @adhdpunchbag

Thanks @Hels20. I did wonder whether to challenge it with school but the fact they they have been so supportive to date made me think that he's crossed a serious line and needs this kick up the arse.

I'm going to speak to them next week. Interesting that it didn't stat on his record. I'll look into that.

@adhdpunchbag - you have up to 3 months to challenge. Has your son been excluded before? It is quite difficult to exclude legally if your child has a disability...they have to be very careful. But not sure what year your son is. I took legal advice.

Have they put in place appropriate procedures to avoid it?

He's Y7, not been excluded before. Incident happened outside of school, verbally abusive and threatening playing Fortnite which his mate was live streaming. The mum of the lad he was doing it to recorded it and sent it into school. I don't know what school could have gone to avoid this? Unless school haven't addressed the feud as it were appropriately before now (there was an incident before Xmas too at school).

This lad has recently expressed to a teacher he is worried about coming back into school this week because of threats my DS has made to him.

My DS says he's just retaliating as this lad provoked him and started it first. I don't know who to believe.

But the exclusion did seem like a bolt out of the blue.

@Hels20 all we had was a phone call telling us of the incident followed by a letter. Should we have had a meeting with the school to discuss matters leading up to this incident?

I'm aware this boy is picked on by other students so there's probably quite a bit of back story I'm not aware of.

@adhdpunchbag - I honestly would take legal advice as not sure. This seems like a massive penalty to me - something that happened during lockdown and outside school hours. He is 11/12. Have you spoken to SOS SEN?

DD was very violent (ASD) - similar to your DS OP.
There were two things that I found helpful.
Have you read The Explosive Child? That was the only book that helped me.
The other was school.
She only stopped being violent when we found the right school for her. Then the violence stopped almost overnight. She was 13(y9) when we found THE school. It is a teeny tiny (max 20 per year group) independant school where she weekly boards - her suggestion.

Feel free to PM me. The violence is exhausting, and depressing. Let alone dangerous to all around. But they DO grow out of it.
Find the smallest school you can.
Hang on in there.