sorry forgot to add title. Any ideas???

[TLESinChristmasStockings]

first of all apologies, for the lack of capital letters, my shift key is broken. secondly apologies if i miss anything and have to fill in later,i am sitting here in tears as DS1 is off on one again.

he was born in 1998, no problems, he was a highly strung baby, a brilliant toddler and has been an almost impossible child.

he tantrums over any given thing. a prime example is bedtime, it can take up to 4 hours to get him into bed, and a further hour for him to settle. if you ask him to do anything then this causes a reaction of him tantruming. he is destructive, aggressive, oppositional and very defiant. we have had periods where he was prescribed phenergan for sleep issues, which works for a while but the moment you stop it he stops sleeping.

he has a child psychologist who comes out weekly, we had a trial period of him not coming and nothing improved. he now tells me that while he is coming he will just continue to get worse.

i have tried, rewarding the good ignoring the bad, confiscation, treats, time out, putting him in his bedroom, money jars, pasta jars reward charts, giving him more freedom taking freedom away etc and none of these have been for short periods as this has been going on for 8 yrs now since he was 3 1/2.

he steals money from me, damages his baby brothers belongings and mine.

he always has an excuse or reason for the things he does....and always blames someone else or denies it. for example i found 3 gauges in the hallway on the wall, asked him if he knew anything about them but he said he didn't, he then 3 hours later admitted to having down them with a knife when unloading the dishwasher.

he steals money and denies it blaming ds2 who is 2. yet it is always found on his person or in his bedroom.

he is spiteful to ds2, to the point that i cannot put him in his room so ds2 is still in with me.

I'd suggest you ask school or gp for an urgent referral for assessemnt as he soundn as if he may have SN , perhaps Oppositional defiance Disorder, perhaps one of many , perhaps none at all. iirc there may have been behavioural issues resulting from his early years and your reaction, treating him perhaps older than he is and avoidance of setting boundaries, however it is clear you cannot find a strategy to work and need some input from outside. The longer you leave it the more difficult it will be to get him to cooperate with any assessment. He may even be grateful to be taken seriously and helped.

ODD is something I have mentioned many times and the CP now agrees with me that this is a strong possibility. He is coming back next week with leaflets and advice on how to deal with ODD, he asked me some details of his fathers family and when i explained that his fathers cousin and 2 nephews had ODD, he said it can be biological and that he will look into it further.

I am just worn out i wish he was back at school!!

That is a start but looking at only open aspect may not be helpful in itself . Such conditions can often coexist with likes of ASD and you really need a full picture before working out how to proceed. Can the psychologist refer him ?

lizs, i will know more next week. tbh at the moment, i am just trying to get through everyday without conflict, but unless i leave him to do whatever he wants when he wants this never happens.