kaliko
New Member
Very glad I found this group. So here's our story. My husband and I have just committed our 7 yr old son. "Difficult Child" is an incredible kid, very full of life, energy and questions. We describe him as curiosity with legs, lol. He was diagnosed at 5 with ADHD and at 6 with high functioning Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), he also struggles with an unspecified mood disorder and anxiety. We've struggled hard with schools (2) since 4K and we made the recent decision to pull him from school completely and homeschool as the public school was not following his IEP and using his accommodations to help him. Homeschooling was going well, but his moods were continuing to get wilder and his focus and ability to control his body when frustated or angry were nonexistent. On Tuesday he ran from the yard when it was time to come inside and actually forced his way into a neighbors home and ran upstairs to hide. Thankfully we got him safely back home, but everyone was upset and the situation was highly charged. The next morning was rough from the get go examples: defiance, oppositional behavior, not listening and becoming more and more angry. "Difficult Child" escalated to ripping up his assignments and breaking pencils, then making verbal threats and telling me he hated me etc... We've heard about threats from school, but this was beyond. He wanted to kill all adults, specifically me. He described how and with what. Then he started scratching, pinching, hitting, kicking and punching where ever he could reach. The last straw was when he restated his intention to stab me and burn me up with a lighter then made a lunge to get past me to where he thought those things would be. (We've been cautious to NOT have those items in easy reach for awhile now, by the way) Never has he ever tried to act on his threats before. I managed to wrestle him to his room and the decision was made for everyones safety to admit him. It's been 2 days now, both drastically different in terms of behavior according to the staff. It's been nerve-wracking for his father and I. I range from guilt that we put him there to determination that we are doing the right thing. I keep wondering what's going to happen? Will we finally have answers and a plan? I constantly feel guilty for everytime I lost my patience with him, snapped, yelled or had to restrain him or even give swats. I keep on thinking about what we may have done wrong that made him into this angry, violent child. My heart breaks daily when I have to tell him 'I don't know when you can come home.' We just keep telling him we love him so much and we all want to help him learn to help himself, but we need his help to do that. The house is too quiet, too calm, too empty without his personality and life filling it up.