Dr. Riley checking in

[susiestar]

Dr. Riley,

This has been very helpful. My oldest child was VERY explosive and physically violent. He no longer lives with us. My parents took him on 3 years ago when he had to leave our home because I refuse to be beaten and even with intense therapy we couldn't get this to stop. My dad had just retired from teaching jr high, and my son was jr high age. My dad is an undiagnosed Aspie, so they really were quite a match.

Now my son is rarely explosive, doing well in school and has plans for tech school next year and college the year after! Part of this was accomplished using methods from your earlier book.

Now I have a 13yo daughter with chronic pain and a 9yo son with sensory integration disorder at home. They are usually only explosive with each other, but my younger one has real problems with "stinkin' thinkin'" He is clearly the smartest child in his class (not maternal bias, teachers from pre-K on have told us this) and now the other kids are teasing him and some are even angry with him for it. We are trying to make him see that it is NOT a problem with him, but with others.

But after a long day at school, he often will explode if given a chore. Yelling, crying, etc.... He has the same chore daily (empty the kitchen garbage can) but reminding him about it can end up with a real explosion. I know it comes from the stress of a tough day with the other kids, but am not sure how to help him so that he is less stressed. He is NEVER asked to do homework or chores before he has a snack with protein and at least 30 minutes to unwind.

How can I help him?

Thanks so much!

Susie

 

[Nomad]

Hi Dr. Riley!. I've been around here for many years, but read sporadically and have missed your posts. My concerns have centered around my now young adult "child," adopted as an infant and diagnosed early with Bipolar Disorder and ADHD. Throughout her years in school "explosions" were a common thing, particularly in the classroom. I especially could have used your book at that time. I thought it was interesting that you said that there has been an explosion of explosions. I understand diagnosis's of bipolar illness are also on the rise. Approximately one year ago, our daughter moved out into an apartment. Approximately one year ago, I began graduate studies in the mental health field. I will soon start my field work! It's hard to believe! Much of what you said resonated with me...for example...the difficulty adapting to change in routine. However, you said CBT is often not helpful. Same with Exposure Therapy. Then, what is? We tried medication and CBT. This, along with time, created some in roads. Today, she does not tend to "explode," when having difficulties. She does have mood swings. Disordered thinking is still prevalent. It's highly likely that I will get your book. Thank you also for the other book suggestions. That explosive behavior is heart wrenching for child, parent and all those in the presence of the child. It was nice to meet you.

 

[nvts]

Thanks Dr. Riley! I'll order the book this week. He was in a private kindergarten and was beaten with his own hands by the Director. He wasn't able to read or write and was made to feel stupid, so he's been acting out since Hector was a pup!

My big concern is that I've put so much time and faith into the school and psychiatric communities and it seems that no matter what type of placement (except his current one!), he ends up worse instead of better. Now he's moving into Intermediate school in September and the only choices that we have are very large, densely populated general ed schools OR a school for extremely behavioral violent kids. Since his immediate pattern is to try to be "cool" (let's be real: he's an aspie! ) so he mimics the behavior of the most behavioral child in the bunch. The restraining techniques in his prior placement brought everything back up from kindergarten, but they didn't believe that it was an issue. I basically feel like I've made so many poor decisions (although with the best of intentions and research) that if I make one more bad one, I'm going to push this kiddo beyond help (ahhh, a mother's guilt!).

Thanks so much for taking time to respond!

Beth

 

[SRL]

I will clearly encourage people not to somehow pit my book and Dr. Greene's book against each other. This has happened frequently with my earlier book about defiant children (if you read my newest book, you will see that there are vast differences between defiant children and explosive children, and that their symptoms cannnot be treated using the same methods). Both Dr. Greene and I, as well as other writers, are really in the business of trying to improve a child's life. My own viewpoint is that each of the writers out there has something to teach me, and that a broad viewpoint is much better in helping children than a narrow one.

I really appreciate your mention of this. What this is all about is searching out the way that works best for your child. I think with us we really used both approaches in a complimentary manner--even after having a good idea what the root causes of the explosions were, we still needed the basket approach. Getting a grasp on the reasons was like finding road signs telling us where we needed to look for help. Using the basket approach helped undo the both the knee-jerk reactions and habitual responses and bought us time for the interventions and the maturation process to work.

Happily I believe we're in former difficult child territory now but I'll check out your book. Thanks for letting us know about it.

SRL

 

[aeroeng]

Sorry for not chiming in earlier, been fighting fires. I am intrigued with the sensory integration issues. My difficult child is 13, and has always been very picky about the textures in his clothing. Absolutely will not ware jeans, only cotton sweat pains. When the school had a dress code we had to let him wear the cotton sweat pains under his dress slacks. (he would fight to the death on this one).

However, I see his explosion relating to "lack of the ability to deal with frustration" more. Example: last week he wanted his brother to fix a software problem on his computer, yet he did not want his brother to touch his computer. He could not deal with the conflict of these two wishes and became angrier and angrier. I knew I had to break the cycle and said to the room. "Who ever, rakes the leaves in the back yard will get $10". He put on his coat, snarled and walked out. 2 minutes later he was back in, but in a happy mood. He found a rabbit hole and was completely distracted from the computer issue. He would take 15 min brakes from the leaves and. For each break he would deal with the computer issues. Because he did it in smaller pieces he managed to get through without a major kaboom.

Does the sensory integration issue result in difficulties with frustration? Guess I'd best read the book.

 

[Star*]

Are you CHARGING for this session? So how many difficult child's do you have?

We've never cyberly met, but welcome to the board.

Star

 

[Dr. Douglas Riley]

Good evening. I'm going to try to respond briefly to some of the messages that I have not hit yet.

aeroeng: You bet, sensory issues leave children with immense frustration. Either the world feels bad to them due to textures, tastes, or smells, or they can't get their bodies to do what they want them to do. A pediatric occupational therapist is invaluable in their treatment.

Nomad: Didn't mean to confuse the issues. CBT works great with depression, although the research says that it can be hard for kids uner age 8 to use it because they cannot distinguish between thoughts and feelings. CBT, being a psychological intervention, cannot work on the food allergies. You have to either eliminate the offending foods, or get specialized shots. CBT can be useful with ADHD, but as we all know, nothing yet approaches the efficacy of stimulant medications (see my book, however, for very, very interesting findings on prompting). Each of the treatment types has issues that they work well with, and issues that they will not be successful with. You can't do too much Rogerian therapy, for example, with explosive children - doesnt' really work with them.

nvts: Sorry to hear about those details. Try to talk to his teacher about doing some "social engineering." She should make an attempt to see that he is hanging out with appropriate kids. She should also make sure that on occasion he gets a round of applause from the class for either a morning or an afternoon of appropriate behavior (this is a potent reinforcer). I routinely make signs for kids that say "Big Guy" in bubble letters, and as long as you are getting good reports, the sign stays on their door. Most kids hate to have the sign come down. If he becomes indifferent to the sign, tie several of his favorite rewards to it being up, such as his favorite sweets, or a special toy.

Star: Thanks for the welcome. Have two sons, 21 and 23, both fine young men. Love the quote at the end of your page. My youngest son has a saying from a fortune cookie taped to his laptop that he uses for inspiration: Get knocked down seven times, get back up eight.

Best regards, Doug Riley

 

[JJJ]

Dr. Riley,

Your books have been a tremendous help in my home. Currently my 10-year old is having panic attacks before and during school. His psychiatrist just added Buspar to his medications today but I'd also like some suggestions that we can use at home and the teacher can use at school to decrease his anxiety.

Thank you for posting here.

 

[Shari]

Hi and Welcome.

Guess I'm going to jump into the question session, as well. My son has several diagnoses, of which I think half might be relevant, to a degree. I don't think for an instant that the professionals who have diagnosed him have a clue what they are dealing with. The people who work closely with wee difficult child agree (therapists, etc).

That said, how do you go about identifying what is causing each of the particular behaviors you are trying to improve on?

 

[gcvmom]

What JJJ said. Same issues. I guess I should start looking for that book!

 

[Dr. Douglas Riley]

gvcmom and jjj: Anxious kids are among the hardest to get information from on what they are feeling. If you ask a depressed kid what is bugging him, chances are he can give you some info. Ask an anxious kid the same question and you will always get "I don't know." And, they will be telling you the truth.

Anxiety, as a symptom, is a sign that a child does not feel safe. If a child gets anxious to the point of panic prior to going to school, you want to ask if they are being picked on or bullied, if they are being excluded, if they are afraid that they will be called on in class and end up looking dumb, if they are afraid that someone will hurt their mom while they are at school, if they just don't feel right when they are separated from mom, school phobia, and so on. Once you identify the particular worry, which will take some doing, you can begin to design an intervention that will deal with the specific symptom. For example, one child I worked with was so fearful of separating from his mother that he would yell so loud that it would disrupt an entire wing of a school. We ended up doing several things with him. After some digging, it was evident that he was afraid that his mother was going to die while he was at school. We took care of that by having him look at how many days he had been to school so far, and how many times his mother had actually died. I know that this might sound odd to the casual reader, but when he realized that he had been to school hundreds of times and nothing bad had ever happened to his mom, it made him feel better. I also had him practice being away from his mother at home, by going into various rooms with a stopwatch and staying by himself for periods of up to five minutes. He got to trade the minutes in for money and privileges. Over time, he became less fearful.

Anxiety is like this. You have to dig out what the child fears most, and then get inventive. Punishing the child I just told you about for screaming would have done no good, nor would it have worked to try to get him to tell himself not to scream at school if the underlying fear had not been addressed.

Shari: Re how you go about diagnosing the cause of symptoms: symptoms all have a logic to them. The symptoms I talked about above that are anxiety related are often tied to safety fears. In prepubescent children, tweeners, and teens, depression is usually about self-concept issues, external stressors, or biochemical imbalances. ODD always has a power component - these kids are always trying to pull equal with the parents and prove to you that you cannot tell them what to do. Explosive behavior in young children most often has to do with what I refer to in the new book as "roadmaps," or a person's internal vision of what they think is going to happen. If you have a child who blows up and you notice sandpaper rashes on their wrists, dark circles under their eyes, or red ears, there is a good liklihood of a milk sensitivity. To try to answer your question, once you learn what symptoms connect to what underlying cause, often the fix is relatively simple. That is the reason the new book is entitled What Your Explosive Child Is Trying To Tell You. Their symptoms are a message about the underlying cause.

Best regards, Doug Riley

 

[Sunlight]

Dr Riley, I can remember years back when you told me I could not walk the path with my son. he was on drugs or alcohol since age 13. After spending most of his years from 13 to 25 incarcerated some where, I have to say that "detachment with love" was the answer for him. No medications worked, I tried four psychiatric groups without success, and if anyone suggested it, I tried it for him. As he aged the only thing that helped was throwing him out and letting him suffer his consequences of his own choices, but I always made him know he was loved and that when he was doing the right thing, I would be there.

I wish I knew what would have truly helped him as a young child. I do have to say that educating myself in how to react to him helped me cope. Knowing what ails your child can prepare you for how to handle it and survive.

I agree with you on what you said about their anxieties over their moms in some cases.

if they are afraid that someone will hurt their mom while they are at school, if they just don't feel right when they are separated from mom, school phobia, and so on. Once you identify the particular worry, which will take some doing, you can begin to design an intervention that will deal with the specific symptom. For example, one child I worked with was so fearful of separating from his mother that he would yell so loud that it would disrupt an entire wing of a school. We ended up doing several things with him. After some digging, it was evident that he was afraid that his mother was going to die while he was at school.

Part of what we learned was that my son feared his father and that his father would hurt me. his father was diagnosis with schizophrenia and is now not a part of our lives. it seems that is when my son started to heal and face his own anxiety and change the ways he was dealing with things.

My son is now an upstanding citizen with sole custody of his own 5 yr old son-he cares for him on his own with no partner involved at all. (I had his son myself until my son proved he was able to take on a child.) He got a good union job since he was released from state prison. It will help him pay the 20K in fines ( I tell him to think of it as the school of hard knocks tuition). He takes good loving care of his own son, pays his own way in life and is drug and alcohol free....seems to not desire either at all. Power of prayer I think...as well as a firm detachment from him and only giving him a hand up when he was helping himself. A long path it was and we are still walking, but it is much more smooth walking these months.

 

[JJJ]

Ant's Mom -- Thank you so much for stopping in. I've kept you and your son in my prayers. I'm so thrilled to hear he is doing well.

 

[TerryJ2]

Ant's mom, wonderful story. I love the "School of hard knocks tuition" phrase.

 

[WSM]

What do you think of this Jordan Anthony Brown who killed his stepmother?

Also, have you experience with very manipulative children who are helpful and charming, and oh so put-upon and sad and mistreated; but within the family are absolute nightmares. Ours never has explosions or even much talks back unless to talk about how unfair everything is to him, but is relentless in sabotaging undercover everything and causing as much chaos as possible? He's ODD, attachment disordered, thinking disordered, slightly obsessive compulsive (but seems to be growing out of it) and a couple counselors have raised the possibility of personality disorders.

He's 12 now, and has a horrible genetic background (schizophrenic mother, and two maternal uncles; severely autistic paternal aunt; aspergers paternal grandfather; lifelong institutionalized maternal great grandmother; and very neurotic paternal grandmother. He also had a number of trama abandonments in his first 3 years.

The danger is that we will just withdraw and be content with 'containment' rather than help until he's 18.

 

[Dr. Douglas Riley]

WSM: When I began to read your post, my initial thought was "Oh my God." However, the very best news is that, as complex as your son is, he is only 12. It is easy to bring up the idea of personality disorders when talking about the symptom set you describe, particularly if we are talking about someone who is 18 and up. However, he still has lots of growing and development to do. My strongest suggestions are that you force him into group-based activities in which he will have to interact with others and take their feedback, with the overall goal being for him to become aware of the impact he has on others. When I use the word "force," I use it with with clear intent. He is likely to fight you hammer and tong, will insist that everyone in the group is stupid or hates him, and will find every way to quit. Don't allow this. Ideally, one of the groups would be a sport, like soccer, where he will have to put up with the bumping and the banging so that he can learn to be one of the guys, so to speak. You should also consider school clubs, scouting, church youth groups, or community service organizations. Kids like this, unless you keep them engaged in groups, become hit and run specialists - they engage briefly, insult you, and disappear, thinking that they have created a victory for themselves over others whom they assume to be hostile toward them.

You have lots of hard work in front of you, but you still have time.

Ant'smom: Yes, I remember. What a moving, elegant story you told. Hope all is well with you.

Doug Riley