Hi all, am newish. I have one son (age 6) who has been dx with ADHD and SPD. His psychiatrist also says that she is positive that he is high functioning autistic too and has done the first stage of the assessment, just waiting for an ADOS test now to confirm when he falls on the spectrum.
He's always been really violent, at home and at school, and even with a full time one to one behaviour support assistant, the school have had trouble with him. Son still sees his dad a lot, but dad comes here cos son needs his routine or he flips completely, so has never stayed at dad's house.
The violence is random, at home and at school, and can be caused by something as simple as something being moved. Sometimes he just lashes out but other times goes into full blown tantrum where entire rooms get destroyed unless he is restrained. He's hurt many staff at school and also me and his dad when having his flips. We've coped OK, as you just have to, don't you, but now he's getting very big and strong, it's really hard and I worry about the future.
Had a really bad night with him the other night. We had another child here (first time this year) and he lost it, kicking me, throwing things at her, screaming uncontrollably and then said he was going to get a knife and kill me. He carried on like this all evening, and at one point, I cried. He was disgusted that I was crying and asked what I was crying for, saying 'go on, keep crying, it's just because you hate me'. No empathy, but I guess to be expected with autism.
Anyway, I wrote all this down in the home-school book and was then called out of work to go to the school who said they were concerned for us both and wanted a child in need meeting. I work in education, so get that that doesn't necessarily mean anything bad, and the school reassured me that this isn't about criticism, but about getting extra help for son.
Which I want! I did ring SS last month but was told did not meet criteria for assessment by the disability team as ADHD was not a complex disability and until the autism dx is confirmed, they won't help and won't even assess us.
So I see this meeting as a bridge to getting extra help. But ex is worried that A) Social Services might start telling us what to do - I pointed out that we are good, consistent, caring but firm parents and so we have nothing to fear from SS (am I being naive???) and worries that B) everyone will think I/ we can't cope.
I worry that A) Social Services will still say we don't meet criteria and so still not help , in which case the CIN meeting will be a re-hash of the Annual Review which happened last month, with all the same people (OT, Behaviour Support Service, Ed. Psych, psychiatrist, teachers, SENCO) or B) it'll be the usual run of 'try this strategy' and then everyone loses interest while I quietly lose the will to live and eventually am put out of my misery by being stabbed by son!
What do you guys think?
(sorry it's so long )
Sorry, forgot to say that he has been on Equasym since September. I thought it was improving his concentration until it wears off at about 4pm. School say it's hard to see the impact.
Did speak to psychiatrist tonight and she made us an emergency appointment for next week but said to keep on with the meds. I'm concerned that his rebound behaviour is worse because of the meds, but I'll leave that until we've seen psych to decide.