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Wildflower's picture

This is my first post, and I’m sorry, but this is going to be very long, but I don’t have a lot of support and I really need some. So, please, if you have the time to read this, I would appreciate it. Also, if you have any ideas, please let me know because I don’t know what to do to change any of this.

DH and I have been together for two years. He has five children and I have one. His older three are out of the picture for the most part. They live with DH’s first wife out of state. His younger two, SS10/SS6, and DS19 live with us full time. DH lost his second wife to cancer three years ago.

My focus today is on SS10. SS10 has been a difficult child his whole life from what DH and second wife’s family tell me. He has been diagnosed with ADHD, sleep disorder, detachment disorder, emotional growth of a 3-4 year old, and anxiety. He is extremely defiant, lies all the time, tells everyone they are wrong all the time, rejects authority, has well beyond normal childhood narcissistic tendencies and is a bully. He is extremely intelligent, but doesn’t use his intelligence to learn from his mistakes. He is impulsive, and I understand this is part of what causes him to have problems. DS19 has ADHD, so I have experience in this area. However, he needs to manipulate every single situation to his advantage, so a lot of what he does IMO is intentional (DH and I do not necessarily agree completely on this point. I feel he is 75% intentional while DH thinks it’s more like 50%).

He has been to at least four or five counselors/psychologists/psychiatrists from the age of three. The earlier ones doped him up on ADHD, anti-anxiety and sleep meds. He is not seeing a counselor currently (DH says all he sees them doing is enabling the behavior).

At the end of the school year last year he was having sudden onset extreme night terrors…like Freddy Krueger is chasing him. He would scream at the top of his lungs, but DH couldn’t wake him easily. He says he remembers the dreams, so maybe night terror isn’t the proper name for it. I am not involved in the night time care of SSs, and this went on every night for two weeks before I became involved. What I saw that night scared the crap out of me. SS10 was screaming bloody murder and there was nothing we could do to wake him up. Something was not right, and I demanded DH take him off the medication immediately. I was afraid he was going to have a mental breakdown. DH took him off all meds, and SS10 immediately stopped having the night terrors.

We decided to keep SS10 off his meds through the summer to see how he would do. SS10 has daily behavioral and emotional issues, and daycare during the summer was hit and miss with him. Mornings were generally fine, but he was out of control a lot in the afternoons...inappropriate behavior, hitting kids, throwing tantrums, etc. However, he was doing better in some areas. He was sleeping better and starting to grow again. He always ate well even on the ADHD meds, but he wasn’t growing very fast. SS6 is only one size below SS10.

Fourth grade started, and we decided to continue to go med free to see what would happen. SS10 was very disruptive in class during the third grade even on his meds. There has been no change. He is still just as disruptive regardless of whether he’s taking medication or not. His teachers say he is constantly demanding attention from them. He rushes through his work to be the first one to finish and then disrupts all the other kids who have not finished. He frequently gets up and wonders around the room disrupting everyone. He challenges his teacher’s authority and tells her she is wrong in her lectures. He throws massive temper tantrums when he doesn’t get his way. I have been asked by fellow students if SS10’s desk is permanently assigned outside the classroom because they see him there all the time.

I stopped working at the end of October because it was too difficult for me to deal with the demands of my paralegal career and then deal with the demands of the household. The boys’ grades were slipping. DH was trying to help them, but he admits he doesn’t have the patience for it. I have firm boundaries and am consistent in my expectations. When SS10 disobeys, lies or won’t stop with his poor behaviors, I send him to his room. He is constantly acting out, and it always seems like he’s in trouble for one thing or another. It’s heartbreaking and stressful. I do not believe it is my place to spank him even though DH has given me authority. On a whole we try to correct SS10’s behavior with timeouts, natural consequences, losing privileges and extra chores. Corporal punish is DH’s last resort.

But, it’s getting worse. SS10 is now telling lies with serious consequences. The beginning of last week he told his teacher that he was depressed because I grabbed him by the neck. She called CPS, and they came to interview both boys. Neither DH nor I have heard anything from CPS or the school, and the only way we knew anything had happened at all was because SS10 joyfully told me his teacher had called CPS on me. I didn’t grab SS10 by the neck, but what I did do was pull him closer to me by the back of his neck and turn his head so he was looking me in the eye and told him to stop his bad behavior. We were at the grocery store and both boys were acting inappropriately, yelling and bumping into people, aisle displays and me, and had refused to stop after I had asked them to more than several times. I am distraught by this. He always embellishes his stories and lies. Now I feel I can’t trust to even parent him without him turning my actions into lies that might get me in trouble. This weekend DH made the boys clean their rooms. SS10 threw tantrums all day. DH made him stay in his room until he cleaned it. I stayed out of it. It took SS10 all day to finally clean his room. Yesterday, SS10 didn’t bring his book home so he could work on his book report which is due this Friday. He lied to me and told me his teacher would not let him bring it home. I knew this was a lie because I had this conversation with the teacher during the previous book report. SS10 has a history of not bringing work home, so he doesn’t have to do it. I called DH and DH told me to send him to his room until he got home from work. SS10 ran from his room screaming that he wasn’t going to spend another day in his room. He ran outside and half way down the road toward the cul-de-sac, screaming like a crazy person. I called DH, but couldn’t get ahold of him. I stood at the door calling SS10 to come back into the house, but he kept going, so I calmly walked toward the cul-de-sac until he ran out of places to go. I told him to go back to the house. My initial thought was to take him by the hand and take him to the house, but because of what happened last week with his teacher, I did not touch him. He ended up walking with me to the house and then I tried to have a conversation about what is going on with him. During our conversation he told me that he had lost the book for his book report on the bus, but later told his father a different story of how the book was lost.

I am stressed beyond belief. DH too. We have tried everything we can think of, but nothing seems to get through to this child. My instinct tells me to run like hell far, far away, but then again, my instinct always tells me to do that when things get hard. It is easy for me to pick up and leave everything behind. I’ve done it many times throughout my life, and I’m good at it. But, I don’t want to do that this time. I love DH very much, and he has been so loving and supportive though DS19’s poor decisions. Plus, I don’t think it’s right or fair for DH to have to deal with this nightmare all by himself. DH and I are good for one another, and if SS10 wasn’t here our family would be peaceful and happy. SS6 is easy. He listens and learns from his mistakes. He is cooperative and cheerful. He does well in school and has many friends. He’s not perfect. He has his normal 6 year old issues like anyone. I feel sorry for SS6 because all the attention and focus ends up being on SS10. Any time I spend time with SS6, SS10 becomes angry and does something to divert that attention to him. I feel like I can’t spend positive time with SS6 because SS10 will say I’m playing favorites.

I try to treat every day like it’s a new day, but every day is a struggle. I really only have DH to talk to, but sometimes I don’t want to vent to him because I know it will hurt him very much. Both of my parents and extended family are gone. All I have left is DS19 and my sister. My sister tries to be supportive, but she has her own battles to deal with, and I don’t like to burden her with mine. I can’t talk to second wife’s family because I have my own issues trying to fit in with them. I used to have a good counselor, but she is no longer seeing patients. I haven’t been able to find a counselor I’m comfortable with since.

I’m scared that this is only going to get worse, especially as SS10 gets older. I’m hoping puberty will calm him. DH says he was worse than SS10 as a child, and puberty helped a lot. DS19’s ADHD got better at puberty as well.

Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks for letting me vent.

Wildflower's picture

I've thought about going back to work. DH prefers I don't because the attorney I worked for was extremely difficult and I was stressed out by him all the time...and then I would come home to be further stressed out by SS10. He thinks I'm less stressed by not working. He also likes that I take care of everything at the house and cook dinner most nights. I wasn't cooking as much when I was working even though I like to.

Not all attorneys are the same, and I've worked for some good ones in the past. Perhaps I could go back part-time, so we could afford daycare, and then I can spend my off time doing things I want to do and not have to handle the boys.

I appreciate your advice about not being alone with this child anymore. I've told DS19 to not be alone with him anymore as well. I don't believe I'll be asking him to watch them for us anymore.

Exjuliemccoy's picture

Of course he doesn't want you going back to work. He wants you dependent on him and doing the heavy lifting with his child.

Wildflower's picture

I'm torn.

Part of me wants to stay home, run the house, tutor the kids, cook, raise the puppy, go to the gym, hike, garden, quilt, art, etc. I've been working for attorneys for 25 years. I was kind of enjoying the break.

But the other part of me is scared of what SS10 is going to do next. This part of me thinks I shouldn't be alone with him anymore, that I shouldn't help parent him anymore. I look at the posts about disengaging, and that's hard for me to do when I'm still here and still seeing what is going on. I spent all of yesterday afternoon in my art room listening to all the chaos...I nearly bit a hole in my tongue.

Wildflower's picture

I agree with you about his father enabling SS10's behavior. There was extremely poor parenting and inconsistency going on prior to BM's death. DH worked two jobs and wasn't home a lot. I am told BM wanted to be their friend and gave them everything they wanted. There were no boundaries, no consistency, no discipline. I have been told they both gave them whatever they wanted to keep them from throwing tantrums. Things were much different then than they are today. DH knew changes in his parenting needed to be made, but he wasn't totally on board until about six months ago. I do talk with DH, every day. He knows how I feel about this situation, but I had been careful about not saying exactly how I feel in an effort to keep from damaging our relationship. I guess I was just hoping it would get better now that he was taking a much more active role in parenting. After this past week, I have been saying more of how I truly feel because I simply cannot handle much of this anymore. He knows now that I have the urge to run from all of this. He knows that I feel I shouldn't help parent SS10 anymore. He knows I am afraid SS10 will lie to get me in trouble again. I've told him SS10 needs to go back to counseling, and he has been trying to find a family counselor to help. DH has been taking the lead in parenting, and I have been trying very hard to step back to let him do it. I've been reading about disengaging on the forums...sometimes it's hard to stay out of the chaos, but I'm trying. DH may not of had the best parenting skills prior to BM's death, but he has been trying very hard in the past six months to be a better parent.

I asked DH's mother if he was really as bad as he says he was as a child, and she said he drove her to Prozac. She was trying to be funny, but I know she was a single mom for most of his childhood and things were not easy for her.

Wildflower's picture

Thank you, Tommar. I haven't directly changed his diet, but it's something I've thought about. I've slowly been trying to change our diet to high protein/low carb for a while, so perhaps it's something I should look more into.

I like your idea about rewarding him with something he can take apart. I'm sure I can find something cheap at the second hand store, or maybe if I talk with the manager they have things that are broken that they will throw out anyway and save them for me. I'll definitely check into that. SS10 spends a lot of time outside. I try to leave the iPad and video games as an evening reward for having a good day.

Wildflower's picture

We've tried a lot of different ways to incentivize SS10 to change his behavior. Nothing really seems to work on a consistent basis. The one thing he really doesn't like is being sent to his room for time out. He hates to be alone because then no one is paying attention to him, and he can't disrupt what other people are trying to do. When SS6 is doing his homework, I have to put SS10 in a different room. Otherwise, he will continually distract SS6 from doing his work. If I am helping SS6 figure out his homework, SS10 will continually interrupt because of some emergency I need to help him with now. I try to explain to SS10 that he has or will have his time with me, but right now I am helping SS6. He never stops until I remove him from the area, and even then he will throw a loud tantrum. Many times I will tell SS10 to go to his room or outside to play while SS6 is working on his homework. I do this with both when one has homework and the other does not. SS10 will still throw a tantrum.

I like your idea about making him read chapters and then write a paper, even though it will not count, when he doesn't bring his materials home. I'll will definitely put that in place next time.

Thank you for the helpful ideas.

notsurehowtodeal's picture

Do not ever have SS stop all his meds at once. It can be dangerous to suddenly stop some medications. Also, having him take them and then not take them is not a good idea.

Clearly this kid needs to be getting professional help. He needs someone to deal with his emotions and actions and a Psychiatrist to manage his medications.

Do you have a good children's hospital in your area? We have one and they have a children's psychiatric department that will do a full work up on a child. They even have a locked psych ward.

This behavior seems to be beyond you DH's ability to control. He needs outside help and for your sake you need to insist that he get it.

Wildflower's picture

I agree with your concerns about medication. We took him off with the care of his doctor, and we would never put him back on without the care of his doctor. Even if we did decide to put him on meds again, he would need to be re-evaluated because what he was on in the first place wasn't working anyway.

We have okay doctors here, but we don't have great doctors. We're in a decent sized city, but the pay is low compared to the cost of living, so we don't draw the good talent I was used to when I lived in San Diego and Dallas. On top of that, our health plan doesn't cover mental health issues very well, so that narrows our choices because many in the mental health industry will not accept our insurance.

I'm not trying to make excuses. It's a hurdle that we have been trying to navigate. I have been telling DH every day that he needs to find suitable counseling for SS10 immediately, and when he runs in to dead ends, he needs to keep trying. I am very concerned that if SS10 doesn't get good help, he is going to have much more major issues down the road.