Julie,
First off, I'm glad you have found your way here. We will try to "hold your hand" as you get your son properly diagnosis'd and begin to get the services he is legally entittled to at school.
As you see, we always have tons of questions for new posters. That signature will help. In my opinion, it is really important that your son be seen by either a neuropdoc or be taken to a children's hospital or local teaching university and have a multidisciplinary evaluation (which is testing by a team of docs).
Could your son have adhd? Perhaps. But honesty, he has a lot more than adhd going on. He has some behaviors, already at seven, that need attention and need attention now. He should not be allowed to be alone with his younger siblings and you need to get some type of alarm system on your doors so he is not able to leave the house without your knowledge. I'm not talking about some ADT monitoring (although I have it), you can go to radio shack and get some simple "alarms" that you can put on the doors in the home (that won't cost you as much).
Those two suggestions above are to keep him and his siblings safe. Now I do not even assume to be a doctor, but it would appear your son has some type of emerging mood disorder. It is vitally important that he is stablized; and that may take a correct medication, combo of medications, or some type of impatient program.
Leave your mind open to the possibilities of treatment. What kind of doctor does your son have an appointment with? I highly suggest you work on a parent report/parent input report. Follow this link:
http://www.conductdisorders.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10
It has a kind of template for the report. Don't try and do it all in one sitting. Basically this report is something you take to the doctor that gives a history of your son. It puts everything into one place so that you don't have to remember everything and take so much time to give the doctor all the background. Ideally, drop if off a few days before the appointment with a cover letter that you are leaving this for the doctor to go over prior to your appointment in order for him/her to become somewhat familiar with your son. I can tell you that the report is a wonderful tool that I have used numerous times over the years for my son.
As you have experienced, spanking does not work with our difficult and challenging children. I would cease that because it's doing no good and could actually be destructive to both you and your son.
On a side note, I was interested to read that your daughter has Neurofibromatosis. My brother has this as well. It's not something that you hear about every day. My brother is 47 and was diagnosis'd in his late teens. He's doing great!
This is a very stressful situation that you are living with. Normally, newbies find their way here in the middle of the nights while searching the internet for answers and options. It is usually a little "mind spinning" here at first because you are given so many opinions and suggestions.
Remember that the most important thing right now is to keep all your children safe and get your son properly diagnosis'd and come away with a treatment plan that can improve the quality of your home life and your son's life in general.
Once that begins to happen, we can help you deal with the school issues. But first, stability for your little one.
Glad you are here.
Sharon
