Since difficult child has no desire to get himself back on schedule (in his mind- it's a Basket C), I've been trying to cut it back 1/2 hr to 1 hr each day. Obviously, that didn't work because he stayed up til 4:00 this morning and is sstill in bed. I went up about 1 hr ago and he spoke a min then went right back to sleep. EW & Steely- I'll work with your ideas and see if I can get them to help with going to bed earlier. Thanks!!
As far as getting more serious help- I just got off phone with social services. She had to get off phone unexpectedly and is supposed to call back later. Anyway, she said it sounded like I needed to use the "Parental Placement" option. This was something I read about last month and was trying to pursue. I didn't realize that it was actually only signed into law Dec 1- she said this might be a lot of reason why people are giving me conflicting info- that all people don't know about it yet. It still ends up in front of that county team and social services can't get me there. A parent can pursue, UNLESS the kid is on probation, then it must be requested, or at least bleessed, by the probation officer. Wonderful....
Now that I know a little more "correct" terminology, I'm going to explain this to principal at school- I'm not asking for IEP recommendation to place difficult child in Residential Treatment Center (RTC). I'm asking principal to refer county team so I can pursue parental placement. (There are many advantages to this- the parent can remove child at any time, the parent discusses and agrees with placement, no court orders are involved). So, this is Plan A.
Plan B (which I will pursue concurrently) is to see if difficult child's therapist will write a letter recommending this. If he will, I will present it to PO and request her to request this. If she won't, I will go to her supervisor and also see if I can get the rogue GAL back in to help. Hopefully, I won't have to take it to the judge. But, if therapist recommended it and county didn't provide it, then difficult child did something horrible, it would appear to me that the county would be as responsible as they would hold me if I didn't follow therapist's recommendations.
Anyway, another point is that the soc services lady said if we got to the tablee to discuss parental placement, the county team would still look at whether or not anyone (the community) could provide anything to try keeping difficult child in home first. The placement would be temporary, if it comes to that. He'd come back home when treatment goals are met.
I explained some of the history and recent events to this lady. She said she could see why I was so frustrated. She also said that unfortunately, due to the current legal involvement, it is unlikely that this plan will work. She said unless I can get the probation officer to see this as a mental health issue and get her to see this as a better option that commitment to state, that difficult child would probablly end up in state Department of Juvenile Justice correctional facility.
The way this probation officer is though, she doesn't think outside whatever box the court order says.
I don't know if I'm explaining this well, but when in-home therapy was an issue, the GAL said in court that she thought psychiatrist meant MST services (one type of in-home therapy), so judge wrote MST in the court order but said that PO could change that to a different type if another type was needed. The PO refused to hear anything I said about it when we were actually meeting in her office a month later. She said "well, judge wrote MST in the order, so that's what has to be provided".
I think PO is going to look at this situation and say "well, judge has difficult child on a suspended sentence to commitment to state Department of Juvenile Justice, so if things aren't going well at home, then I can only take this back to judge and request suspension be revoked". It's like she can't or won't consider that she has authority and perogative to recommend something else. What's worse, is that she doesn't get the mental health part- she is one who thinks there is no such thing as a mental health problem like this in a kid. Even worse, she's 20-something and never raised a kid like this, so of course, she thinks she knows everything about parenting.
I don''t see how I'll ever get her blessing. And whatever I need to tell to get her to see the severity will only serve to make her think difficult child should be locked up in Department of Juvenile Justice. I have no faith in her supervisor to do anything other than back her up. I called him for something last year- I thought it was cut and dry that she was out of line. He backed her up and just talked to me like I was nothing more than another complaining parent- this was after she wanted to know specifics about what we were discussing with therapist and after she tried to play therapist with us and told me I was wasting my time to take difficult child for an MDE.
I think I better get therapist on board quick. I called and he's out of office until Monday.
If anyone has any ideas, thoughts, experiences about any of this, please share.
FWIW, psychiatrist won't help with this one, I don't think. I think he'll defer to therapist, for one thing. For another, any time difficult child is sympotommatic, psychiatrist says he's ODD. When difficult child isn't sympotommatic, psychiatrist removes that diagnosis/label. Yett, it was psychiatrist who says difficult child is BiPolar (BP). Whe I told psychiatrist difficult child was in psychiatric hospital 2 weeks ago for cutting himself and should I consent to that new medication to help prevent impulese, psychiatrist said it won't help if difficult child is just doing this to manipulate. Well, I agree, hhowever, I look at it like irrational thinking on difficult child's part, whether or not difficult child is trying to manipulate or not. Just like when he used to try to jump out of the car- it was a sign that something was wrong, no matter what difficult child was "thinking". But, conveying something in writing from psychiatrist to courts saying difficult child is just ODD when he does things like this only pushes the GAL, then judge, to lock difficult child up in a correctional facility.
Whatever it takes, but I would make this a basket A or his cycling will continue to flare.
