Glad to finally find all of you! I NEED HELP!!!!

[opposchizochaos]

Greetings everyone, I hope someone will respond to this, I am new to your site, and I have been searching endlessly for some help. I have two children, my son is 6 yrold and my daughter is 8 yrold. From Sept. of 2011 till Nov. my daughter was hospitalized 4 times at different institutions. She is violent, her rages are unbearable, she becomes dangerous to herself and everyone around her. She is unsafe in cars as she frequently tries to throw herself from them while I am driving. She has run away twice. She has broken my bones without any remorse. She's been diagnosed as Bipolar, Schizoaffective-Bipolar, ADD, Depressed, and most recently "unspecified mood disorder with ODD and conduct disorder". She on and has been on every medication. under the sun. She sees her doctor every week, and a weekly therapist. We have Intensive In-Home therapy which is here 4 times a week, and we are being hounded by DSS for the second time since she was last hospitalized. I am exhausted, I've been up all night tonight trying to find some help before I lose my kids or she hurts someone. If anyone out there has any advice on coping with a rage while you are in public with the child, please let me know. I just want to help her, but my family is being destroyed, and Im tired of being her punching bag. Punishments DO NOT WORK, timeouts, spankings, taking things away, even when she was hospitalized she made friends and had a blast so that wasnt even like being in trouble. Any advice is greatly appreciated, we are hanging on by a thread-Thanks

 

[HaoZi]

Greetings and salutations, glad you found us, sorry you needed to. That's a wide morass of diagnosis's, has anyone checked for autism? High functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) especially can hide under some conflicting and confusing diagnosis combinations. Might be worth looking into to rule in or rule out. Are they your bio kids? Can you tell us more about problemss during pregnancy and early development, or if this started after some traumatic event?

In the mean time, a good starter book is The Explosive Child by Ross Greene, you might be able to borrow it from Amazon's Kindle library or find it at your library.

 

[LittleDudesMom]

Hello oppo. Like HaoZi said, glad you found us, sorry you had to.

It's common, when a new member arrives, for us to have more questions than suggestions. How does your daughter react with her little brother? Is he at her mercy as well? I too am curious about whether your daughter has had issues all her life or things appeared to change after an event(s). Any family history of mental illness?

Sounds like keeping everyone safe, including your daughter, is your primary job at present. "The Explosive Child" is like our holy book around here - I suggest you getting a hold of a copy as well.

Welcome to our little corner of the cyber world. You've found a place of tremendous support and great warrior parent advice!

Sharon

 

[BusynMember]

Hi and welcome to the board, although I'm sorry you had to come here.

It sounds like you have done everything to try and help your little one. It is not uncommon for the parents to get into trouble because we have "differently wired" child so having DSS around is not unique...I'd maybe do a day-by-day diary so you have documentation of what is going on at home with your daughter. They may even be able to offer you help, such as respite on weekends and other services. Do you have a safety plan for your family? Some people put alarms on their children's doors at night so that, when they leave their room, it wakes them up and they can monitor the child's night time behavior. Your son may need a lock on his door and you as well.

You may want to try a neuropsychologist evaluation to try to pin things down. Does your daughter have hallucinations? I know this is probably tedious, but could you list the medications your child has been on and what she is on now? Did ANY of them help? How about the family dynamics? Is Bio. Dad around to help you? Was the child's early life chaotic?

Hugz to you...we are here for you.

 

[slsh]

Hi, and welcome. So glad you found us.

Only question I'll throw into the mix is how is she doing in school?

My son was very much like your daughter - virtually impossible to take out in public by the time he was 7-8 due to violent rages and unsafe behavior. Our solution wasn't much of one - we simply didn't take him out unless we had no choice, which meant his excursions into the community consisted of therapist/psychiatrist appointments, and other dr. appts for my oldest when husband couldn't take time off from work. We were trained in therapeutic restraints by his therapist (trainings well documented in our son's chart for if/when DSS became involved), and there were several incidents where I ended up having to restrain him in public. Got a *lot* of stares from strangers, but... you gotta do what you gotta do, and letting him rage simply wasn't an option. Even with our limited outings, there were still some simply horrendous events.

I hear you about the hospitalization being "fun time". It frustrated me no end because I thought they would be able to "cure" him, just as if he had appendicitis. psychiatric hospitalizations are simply for medication tweaking and stabilization, and in my experience, they worked to get him stable enough to come home to continue outpatient treatment (until the next explosion and hospitalization).

What is DSS expecting you to do? Are they offering any additional services?

Again, welcome and glad you found us. Hang in there.

 

[Bunny]

I have no advice, but I wanted to give gentle (((hugs))). I know how hard it can be when you have to protect other family members from one of your children. Does she do well in school? Does she get along with her peers?

You have found your own soft place here.

 

[Wiped Out]

Just adding in my welcome! You will find much support here.

 

[buddy]

Greetings and salutations, glad you found us, sorry you needed to. That's a wide morass of diagnosis's, has anyone checked for autism? High functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) especially can hide under some conflicting and confusing diagnosis combinations. Might be worth looking into to rule in or rule out. Are they your bio kids? Can you tell us more about problemss during pregnancy and early development, or if this started after some traumatic event?

In the mean time, a good starter book is The Explosive Child by Ross Greene, you might be able to borrow it from Amazon's Kindle library or find it at your library.

Welcome! i just bought another copy on amazon.com for under three dollars shipping and handling free....

by the way, my son is 15 and I still have some yucky and dangerous car rides. I pull over when he is going for me...

BUT still to this day (and he hates it) I have the child locks on my doors so he can't open them from the inside and of course the windows are locked.

You are not alone, lots of us have violent kids here.... I for sure do.... sigh

 

[TeDo]

Welcome Oppo. You HAVE found a great place for support and advice from parents who have been in your shoes, and worse. They have been my sanity on many occasions. Sorry for all the questions at first but we HATE to steer people in the wrong direction so we try to prevent that by getting as much information as we can.

I only have one question to add: What medications was she on in Sept at the first hospitalization and what changes have been made in medications and/or dosages since then. The reason I ask is that in our case, 2 different medications at 2 different times caused the type of violence in my son as you're describing. Wrong medications can cause HUGE problems and many psychiatrists do NOT always see it or even believe it (our 2 didn't).

{{{{(((HUGS)))}}}} to you all.

 

[TerryJ2]

Welcome, Opposchiz. I hope by the time you read these responses, you have gotten some sleep!

Frankly,the only kids I've heard of or read about jumping out of cars are on this board, and most are bipolar. Yes, it's possible that your grandd has more than one diagnosis, so I would still have her given a neuropsychologist test (it's long, hrs long).
You are so right, punishment doesn't work.
She doesn't get it, and more than that, she can't control it.
Re-directing and re-doing the way you do tasks, meals, errands and school is the way to go.
Find her triggers. Transitions? Or just the word, "No"? Certain fabrics?
Certain people? Tones of voice?
You get the idea.
You have to seriously redo everything, no spanking, no yelling, nada. It's going to be a hard transition because you are all wrapped up in a certain type of behavior right now, (been there done that!!!) but you can do it.

Sorry, gotta go--I'm having a serious hot flash and can't focus and my fingers are slipping off the keyboard.

 

[susiestar]

Hi and Welcome! the others have given great responses. You are not alone anymore. Now you have us and we understand and have been there done that. I know how hard that is to find in real life. The Explosive Child is an excellent book and most of us have found a LOT of benefit. I also highly recommend "What Your Explosive Child Is Trying To Tell You" by Doug Riley. Dr. Riley posts here now and then and really knows our kids. It is a great companion to The Explosive Child even though they have different authors.

Has your daughter ever been evaluated for sensory problems? A lot of us have learned that sensory issues are HUGE for our kids. they freak at textures, sounds, tastes, movements and seek out other stimulation. While I doubt sensory problems are the main problem that your daughter has, getting the sensory things under control can make it possible to help the rest of the problems more effectively. Schools have OTs but I would not trust their assessment fully. A school Occupational Therapist (OT) looks for things that cause problems at school, not in your daughter's entire world. I found private Occupational Therapist (OT) evaluations to be much more thorough and then school was a lot more cooperative.But not all schools are like that, of course.

Years ago, long before I joined, some of the moms created an outline for a Parent Report. It is probably the most powerful tool in your Warrior Mom arsenal. You write the report and use it to keep EVERY scrap of info about your difficult child in ONE place. You share relevant parts with the various docs, therapists, teachers, etc.... as needed. The link in my signature will take you to the thread that explains the Parent Report and has the outline.

None of us can fix your child, but we can and will support you, listen to you and care about you and your child. we will also share info with you - sometimes that gets you a lot farther than anything else because it lets you ask the right person the right question.

DSS, sometimes called cps here because each area calls it something else, is not likely to actually remove you kids. they may threaten, but you have a lot of help in place and they cannot argue that you are not doing all you can. One thing that can be a big help with them is to write out a safety plan - who goes where, does what, etc... when difficult child rages. It shows cps that you are doing all you can to keep all your kids safe. If you search the board there should be some threads in the archives about creating safety plans.

(((((hugs))))) and welcome!