Help! struggling to cope with teenager with ADHD and ODD

[NAR4]

My 15 yr old Ds has had the diagnosis since he was 4. Over the yrs several people have tried to work with him (CAMHS, YISP) to name a couple, but all have stopped because he is uncooperative. He can't take Ritolin because of his heart and paediatrition won't prescribe anything else. Main problem is ODD though, which medication doesn't help.

Does anyone know where I can get help or advice for parenting him?

I dont have much advice bit have lived with an undiagnsoed demand aviodant teenager and totally understand hoe hard it is.

One of the main lessons I learned was to choose my battles, it was hard but I had to learn to ignore as much as possible eg, the bedroom, the hygiene, the clothes.

Dd1 wrecked the lovely teenage den that my DP made for her so we put her back into a very basic room with minimal expensive furniture.

Probably the best thing my Dd1 did as a teenager was to go to work away for the summer, she changed so much durin that time. Unfortunately she came back pregnant so it wasnt all positive at the time.

Have you been on Maryz thread in the teenage section? There are quite a few people over there with teens with SN's.

Remember you are never alone on here and good luck

Oh, have been over to teenager board and cant see Maryz thread it may not be running any more but if you do a search you might find it

Thank you.

Is 'the explosive child' a book?

At the moment we have several letters from the school telling us he will fail his GCSEs if he doesn't do more work, which he simply refuses. He often gets off the school bus early and phones us drunk, when he wants a lift home. He regularly swears at everyone including calling his 2yr old sister 'cunt', which I find particularly upsetting. We can only take the other children out separately (as in one parent at a time) because he can't be trusted to be in the house. In short he drinks, smokes, lies, regularly breaks everyone's stuff, steals and bullies the whole household.

Punishments do not seem to work. For example when he told social his father had been hitting him (he hadn't), I took his phone charger while he was out, to remove the privalige of his mobile phone. In retaliation he stole my mobile and to this day claims to know nothing about it. I had to buy a new phone.

Any ideas for regaining some control over his behaviour? At the moment we feel we are completely powerless to stop him doing whatever he wants and just have to bide our time until he moves out.

Where does he get the money to drink and smoke?? I would be stopping all funding.

I am sorry to be harsh but in order to actually get some help you may have to phone the police if he steals from you again.

Is he in a special school or mainstream??

Was he dxed with ODD as well as ADHD at age 4? Does he have any sensory processing difficulties?

You may find PDA strategies helpful for him as well as Ross Greene.

What's the plan for next year? Is he in a specialist setting?

Book now ordered.

He sells things to get the money, by even when I know he has no money (most of the time) he still goes out drinking and smoking. It is a mistery to me where he gets it from.

He has been in trouble with the police after hospitalising a boy during a classroom fight, which is how we ended up with YISP trying to work with him. They stopped before they did anything because my son 'wouldn't engage with the service'.

He was diagnosed with the ODD at 4 as well as the ADHD. We have quired if he has sensory processing difficulties but the hospital pead isn't interested so don't know where we can get this checked.

What is PDA?

He is in mainstream school but the only help he gets is extra time in exams due to his dyslexia.

Feeling completely useless and need some hand holding and directions. I have no idea what to do next or how to help my son get his future sorted out.

I am assuming school have never involved the behaviour support service?

They would be able to offer advice to school and might be able to help you with strategies at home.

The Paed sounds rubbish and unsupportive, could you ask for a second opinion from someone who knows more about what you are dealing with, there is a PDA specialist clinic in Nottinghamshire who might be able to help.

I know he doesnt have PDA but I have read that it presents in a very similar way to ODD.

Oh and it is Pathological Demand Avoidance.

Sensory processing disorder can be dxed by an OT.

If he was younger I'd probably be thinking that you needed to apply for a statement to try to get him support from professionals who aren't going to pull out because he doesn't want to co-operate, but I don't know how that would apply now that he's already in Y11.

I'm wondering whether there's anywhere locally that you can get him into next year that's going to be more suitable for him.

We tried to get a 2nd opinion on his diagnosis several years ago but were not able to. The GP said the hospital paed had to release his notes or something, but she refused. I did argue that we had a right to a 2nd opinion but GP said there was nothing they could do. Tried to get him statemented when he was in yr6 but was unsucessfull. Parent support said it was almost impossible to get a statement for anything in our area.

Ds options next yr are to stay on in school 6th form, which he doesn't want to do and I looks unlikely he would get the necessary grades, go to college, which he doesn't want to do, or try and get an apprenticeship. His school work experience as a blacksmith fell through and he ended up being placed in a garage. He has now decided he wants to do an apprenticeship there or nothing, because he had a good time there. I don't want to control his future but am quietly concerned that he is choosing his future career based on having a laugh during work experience placement rather than what he had carefully researched and decided he liked all aspects of.

Nottinghamshire is a long way from us (we're in Dorset). Is it on the NHS of would we have to pay privately? Couldn't afford to pay.

What I find shocking is that the people who simply gave up on my Ds are there to work with difficult children. If he wasn't difficult or uncooperative we wouldn't have been seeking their help first place.

My son has a social worker who does nothing to help but moans I am being uncooperative by not taking him out of school for meetings with her. She also seems to struggle massively with understanding my dh needs notice to book time off work for meetings, complaining that dh needs to make more effort. We actually got a letter in the post yesterday (from the social worker) saying she would be coming to see us on Monday at 10am. That is my dh's first day back to work after Christmas and clearly did not give him time to book the morning off. Really annoyed because her letter also said she had assessed that 'as the 2nd oldest of 5 children D's was clearly marginalised'. What rubbish. We couldn't ignore him if we tried. He takes up far more of our time than the other 4 put together. Why can't she accept he behaves as he does because of his ODD and ADHD, instead of finding reasons to blame us?