debr

frustrated mom
I just joined today and I am not quite sure how to begin. my daughter is 9 and will turn 10 next week. we have been dealing with behaviorial issues since she was 2. the terrible 2's led into 3, 4 and beyond. we found out when she was in kindergarten that she had learning issue. she was evaluated and we found that she has a disconnect between what she hears and what she writes, she still has limited writing abilities. she is a grat reader. we went to her pediatrician sho referred us to a child neurologst. after testing it was determined that she has add and odd. she currently takes daytran 20 mg patch since she is unable to swallow a pill. things were going along smoothly until after the easter break. she is constanlty being defiant with her gym teacher, lunch room monitor, bus driver but up until now her teacher and Special Education teacher have been her allies. but yesterday she had a melt down with her teacher when the teracher asked her join in on the group for social studies she refused as she has been all week when the teacher borrowed her book she stormed to the middle of the group and took the boojk away. we see a therapist every other week as family therapy. i am reaching my breaking point.

i wish there were medications to give her to help we adopted my daughter at 3 days old we think there may have been crack use but tests at birth showed that she was not addicted, my husband was injured at work and is delaing with his own depression and main mangmt which does not give him alot of patience. i commute 1 hour each way to work and i am the only calm one in the house

Any helpful hints will help
 

busywend

Well-Known Member
Welcome!

I moved your post to a new thread - I hope you do not mind.

How long has your difficult child been on the Daytrana patch? Did the attention improve at school at all?
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Any child who was adopted and has a drug using mother in my opinion needs to be intensively tested by a neuropsychologist AND neurologist, but the neuropsychologist is very important. If she didn't say "no" to crack, she didn't say "no" to alcohol. Alcohol in utero can do far more harm than even cocaine. There is something called fetal alcohol spectrum and these kids sort of have swiss cheese thinking--they may remember something one day, forget it the next. They have serious learning disabilities and trouble understanding right from wrong. Therefore, they do the same wrongs over and over again and don't really "get" why they are being punished. Less severely, they can have autistic spectrum disorder (my son does) or other neurological quirks and problems or mental health issues that they inherited from their genetic tree (birthmother and birthfather). Do you have information on them? This will help a neuropsychologist.

medications probably won't fix the problem. Some may be permanant, depending. I'd definitely get a workup. We got every test under the sun for our son, even genetic testing to see if he inherited anything that was giving him autistic symptoms. He is pretty lucky for a crack/alcohol affected kid, but he still has his issues. These kids are different than kids who were born to us, therefore knowing what we put in our bodies while pregnant and what is on both sides of our family trees. It often takes a long time to figure the kids out. If they are alcohol affected in any way, this is organic brain damage. They need to be in a supervised environment. It does not sound like your child is that severe, but she does seem to have been affected by her birthmother's pre-natal choices.

Welcome to the board!
 

debr

frustrated mom
Welcome!

I moved your post to a new thread - I hope you do not mind.

How long has your difficult child been on the Daytrana patch? Did the attention improve at school at all?

she has been on the patch for 4 years and improved at school until this past April. While on vacation she was sick so we were unable to medicate her upon return we had dropped down to 15mg earlier in the year when we returned from vacation she wentback to 15mg we have just upped her back to 20 mg
 

debr

frustrated mom
she has had a neurological work up. the dr had wanted an mri but she has a metal spacer in her mouth so we are unable t have one done at this time. she was very angy upon return from vacation, not sure why and was using bad language. this has now stopped but the therapist has suggested we give her time outs or take away something when she has a temper tantrum. how do you accomplis this when she is already yelling, physically restrain her in her room? this is where i need the advise.

here's an example of what happened last weekend. we were visitng my mom and were going out to eat grandma was sitting in the front seat but daighter wanted to sit there, daughter refused to get in the car. grandma finally left the car and went in the house. we took separarte cars to dinner but daughter would not get out of car. the entire ride to dinner she was yelling and swearing and trying to open the car door, what do you do?
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
OK, a neurologist is different from a neuropsychologist.

Because she was adopted and probably exposed to prenatal substances, that HAS to be affecting her behavior. Kids who have that sort of prenatal background usually have all sorts of problems and we, the parents, are the ones who have to make sure they are sorted out. We need to learn what to expect from the kids and why they are unable or unwilling to learn or behave. In her case, she probably has some pre-natal damage and you have to deal with it--a neuropsychologist can help you pinpoint her areas of weakness and figure out if she has a disorder of some sort that needs interventions. If so, she is unlikely to respond to regular parenting techniques. This is especially true if she is alcohol-affected in any way. Do her birthparents have psychiataric diagnoses? This is also important because they are inherited.

We made sure we took our son for several extremely thorough evaluations and, in the end, they were VERY helpful on all fronts. We found out that he is on the high functioning autism spectrum (probably due to his birthmother's habits while pregnant). He is really doing well, but I don't think he would be if we hadn't really explored what was wrong and gotten him involved in interventions. This helped a lot more than behavioral therapies, which he did not respond to at all. You can not adopt a child with her background and expect not to have some problems, possibly severe ones. We got our son at two, so we already knew he was wired differently--it took a while to figure out exactly what was wrong and how to help him though. We had to keep plugging along and getting him evaluated.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do.
 

busywend

Well-Known Member
You can contact your pediatrician for a referral. Tell them you want a Multi-disciplinary evaluation done at a local Children's Hospital. It might take several visits to complete.

A neuropsychologist will be part of the team of people evaluating.
 
M

ML

Guest
Welcome! Please keep in mind that with the proper treatment and support she truly can improve. There are many functioning adults out there with some kind of brain impairment. The road may be rocky but with you being her warrior mom don't rule the value of nurture completely. Hugs, ML
 

debr

frustrated mom
Things have gotten worse this past week. The ODD seems to have become a real issue at school. Thursday started out with the ride on the bus to school, when the bus stopped she stood up the bus driver yelled for her to sit down, and of course if someone yells at her she will not do what is told. Then we move onto gym, they were playing dodge ball and someone hit difficult child with the ball, she immediately lashed out when kids started laughing. she started swearing, tried to step on the other students feet, when the gym teacher tried to remove her she scratched and tried to bute her. husband ws called to school to remove her. when he arrived she was in the principals office hi\ystical crying.

at home I asked her why she did what she did and of course her answer is I don't know? but she was very remorseful.

she was suspended for the day. difficult child is 9 and will turn 10 next week, she takes daytrana for adhd. on top of this i asked her dr to renew her presciption and was told they would not until i get a blood test. difficult child is deathly afraid of blood tests, she gets herself so worked up and alsmost passes out. how do you force a difficult child with odd to get a blood test?

I am at my wits end!!

80% of the time she is my loving difficult child but when someone laughs at her or accidently hits her she freaks out.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
Something you can do while you're waiting to have her assessed or whatever - read "The Explosive Child" by Ross Greene. It's a book which has been very helpful for a lot of us on this site. It helps with a broader understanding in how to handle the difficult, contrary kids.

There is also some discussion on this book in the Early Childhood forum, if you want a quick idea of what it's like. However, your child is older than those in the Early Childhood forum, you wouldn't need to adapt the book in the way those posts discuss.

Check it out, it can probbaly give you more direct help.

Marg
 
Top