I have ADD and have two boys with ADHD 10 and 12. I am also a single mom, the dad has nothing to do with the boys.
My 12 yr old is making me crazy. He lies about everything, sneaks food and hides the wrapers behind furniture, has bowel movements in his underwear and will wear it until I notice and make him clean up.
He is a genius, was tested and put in gifted classes years ago. Last year (6th grade) he brought home about 8 F's total on his reports cards. He is good at working the teachers and I so that know one knows the truth about anything.
I considered putting him in a mental hospital as out patient over the summer. We went to the hospital, but I was uneasy about it and felt weird so we left. It scared my son for a few weeks, but things are bad again.
I told him that he had until Wed to try and make changes or I wil admit him. He says that he understands but makes no effort to change a thing.
I have just cried for hours tonight. I dont know what to do. I have ADD, but cant understand why he does what he does.
I ask him why and ALWAYS get "I dont know"!! I am so sick of hearing that I want to scream.

Any advice????

I'm not a psychologist, but I have my advice...take it or leave it. One, incapricice (bowel or wetting the pants) is a sign of an emotionally traumatic stage or event in his life. This is not to be ignored, but it does not require a mental hospital inpatient treatment plan either. It is actually quite easy to treat on an outpatient basis, with the right therapists and doctors. More on that in a minute.

Second, lying and sneaking food is a behavior that is going to be annoying and drive you crazy, if you let it get to you, but it too can be treated on an outtreatment basis.

All three of these behaviors are signs, and you are right to recognize, that he needs some professional assessment and treatment. This does not mean he is "mentally ill" or "Crazy" or hopelessly lost. The prognosis is probably excellent because 1) you are recognizing there is a problem, 2) you are willing to get help and 3) he is very young.

My suggestion is this: Look up all the "Developmental Pediatricians" in your area, and be willing to go out of town if necessary to find one. Make sure the one you find has a reputation of being good at diagnosis and treatment. Have an appointment for assessment with a developmental pediatrician, and follow that advice. They will treat the incaprice in very short time, and you boy will be happy to have that over with, as much as you will be. Then they can start determining if there are any developmental issues to look at, and make sure to bring him up to speed in those areas. They will be able to look at his diet, and consider the reasons why he is sneaking food, and decide upon a program. Ultimately, this could be very very very manageable in the right hands, and you could all be happy you got the help you needed at the right time.

This all sounds wonderful, right? There is always a downside....and that is the other choices: 1) do nothing....could make the problems get worse or appear to go away but come out later in another way worse. 2) Overreact by skipping all the intermediate steps and go directly to JAIL (Inpatient hospital treatment), and have your son resent all figures of the psychology field and ignore all their advice, and develop a negative relationship with those who can offer help to him.

I don't actually know if you have already consulted psychologists, or what you have done, so my answer is limited by a lack of real information, and I apologize if I have made any erroneous assumptions.

The bottom line, developmental pediatrician is the best place to start. Other resources, someone with a doctorate in school psychology to unravel the causation between genius ability and seriously poor school performance. Frequently this is a sign of any number of learning disabilities, which when treated or recognized, can be overcome, and grades and school can become normalized or even exciting and accellerated again.

I have been through some of what you are experiencing with your son. I have had great results. So don't give up!

Jonathan

Thank your for replying so quickly. We have a psychologist and therapist that I am crazy about. My son doesnt spend time with the therapist much and I am thinking that he should.

I got pregnant when I was 18 and the father split town. I saw him years later and accepted my son (I had married another man before my son was born).
Anytime I went around his bio-logical fathers family the father would deny my son. We have talked about DNA test, but something always stands in the way.
In the meantime, I had another son by my hubby and later divorced him. About 2 yrs later I re-married and that lasted 4 yrs, he had drug problems and I could allow my kids to live like that.
I gave my boys to my parents for about 1.5 yr, got a job and my life on track.
My boys have been back for 15 months and things are great. I have a great job, make enough to support us. Have great hours. My kids have great manners and respect for others. Both tested as genius.
Both boys say they are fine with the fact their fathers are not around. I believe my youngest, but my oldest is having a hard time dealing with it, but hides it from me.
I have a b/f that lives 200 miles away. We see each other twice a month and he gives them that male role model. My family lives 330 miles away and we get to see them 3-5 times a year.
I have 2 friends in town. One is a lady older than my mom and she *****es at my son so I keep him away from her.
My other friend only calls when she needs a sister and her husband (allthough I have known them for 7-8 yrs) doesnt have anything to do with my kids.

Both kids were dX with ADHD years ago. Oldest was said to have ODD and bi-polar, but we are not sure now.
Youngest just has ADHD, I have ADD and OCD. I wasnt dx until I was 23 or 24. I managed to be a teen with it and graduate in the top 20% of my class. So it makes it more difficult to understand why my son would just flunk out of classes.

Anyway, we see the therapist Tuesday afternoon. Any suggestion???

Thanks again

Glad you have a therapist. Is your therapist aware of all the behaviors you are inquiring here about?

I feel that your child did not "just flunk out of classes." If you remove the shame from your expression about your son's school issue, and remove yourself from your own perception of how school was for you, it will be easier to begin giving your son the support he needs right now.

I also feel that the up and down periods in your life, the transfers from household to household, marriage to marriage, would have a deep emotional impact. It's good a therapist is involved, but I'm wondering why the therapists are not answering these questions. Do you have confidence in your therapist(s)? If not, have you ever told them you are having second thoughts about them?

If you have therapists who are good, they are already ordering tests to determine if learnin disabilities are present. This is extremely common in children with high intelligence, to have specific learning disabilities. ADHD is only one of the possible specific LDs. Once the other LDs are known (if any), through testing by a "School psychologist" (specifically trained as a 'school' psychologist, you will have a better picture of why your son's grades are lower.

Also, check your son's breathing in his sleep to see about snoring or labored breathing or periods of holding his breathe in hsi sleep. That is sleep apnea sign, which can cause a serious drop in school performance.

As in most situations, there are many possible reasons why your son is doing poorly in school. Obviously, something needs to be done, but blaming him is not one of the answers. There is no reason for him to feel worse about himself in a period of time in his life, where things are not going well for him. Puberty is just around the corner. I would recommend you get aggressive in your strategy now, and nip this in the bud, by getting him the A#1 BEST TOP doctors resolving the issues immediatly. sometimes a parent needs to know when to go into overdrvie mode....in my opinion, this is the time.

Second, I would highly suggest that you not be afraid to look at yourself and consider if you are in some way a contributor to the overall dynamics of the situations you are describing. Frequently, the most frustrating and debilitating thing for child therapy, is that the adult parent(s) are in need of therapy and the child is the only one the therapist can treat. The child often displays the symptoms of the dysfunctional or inoperable family situation, and ends up getting lots of treatment and blame, while the parent(c) continue in their dysfunctional ways. This pattern is unfair to the child, who is expected to do the psychological work for the entire family, which is literally impossible, and will develop a feeling of failure in him.

I hope this helps

Jonathan

I agree with much of what Jon has said.

You may also want too look into the possibilty that you son also has an anxiety disorder which very often co-exists with AD/HD.

His eating may be a form of self-medicating. I have AD/HD and just also became aware that I also have an axiety disorder. As I look back a lot of my behaviors are related to the anxiety. I did the same thing you son did with the food. I ate to calm the anxiety and I snuck food and hid wrappers because I knew I wasn't supposed to.

I also had similar problems in school I didn't know I had AD/HD or other LDs. I would just get so overwhelmed by everything and the anxiety would cause me to shut down. I lied to my parents and my teachers about things too. For those brief moments I didn't have to deal with the everything when I lied.

I also drove my parents crazy with "I don't know". A lot of the time I didn't know why I did things. And when I did know I knew the reaction from my parents would be even worse than the I don't knows.

You didn't mention if your son is on medication (or if you did I missed it). If he does suffer from anxiety stimulant medications can make anxiety even worse when taken alone.

Your son is 12 and it sounds like he feels really badly about himself. If he's self-medicating with food now he could move to something else too.

He takes Ritalin LA 80mg, tenax (?MG) mornings, Ritalin (short) 40 mg and tenax at 3 PM. And clonidine (?mg) at bedtime.

He has tired almost everything...lithium, adderall, dexadrine, buspar, etc

Also you may want to get him a complete physical exam by the pediatrician if you have not done so lately and mention the physical symptoms to him........since it seems he's having uncontrollable bowel movements or diarrhea, it may partly be due to an infection OR he may have some other g.i. troubles that you're not aware of.....Is your child overweight, may I ask? In any event, there's a childhood disease characterized by overweight and uncontrollable eating, (usually sneak eating), and never feeling satiated....called Prader Willi Syndrome....In any event, I would get ruled out any physical causes for his symptoms....start with your pediatrician or GP.

My son is not overweight. I dont allow much 'junk' food in my house, but I do beleive in letting them have candy once in a while. I was hidding it in my closet. Well he figured that out so I started locking my door.
If I ever forget and leave 'junk' in the kitchen he eats it all.
I do inventory on sodas etc twice daily with him.

When he was 6 months old he was very constipated and admitted to Stanford Childrens Hospital. They ran every test and wasnt able to find a thing wrong with him.
When he was 3-5 we did it all again.
When he was living with my parents (10-11 years) they took him to all the specialist and couldnt find anything wrong.

I have been constipated all my life too.
My son's great-grandpa on his dad's side died from polups (sp?), I was also told that my sons father has dealt with this too. (His father is in denial and will not speak to me).

Yesterday my son walked pass me and smelt *aweful*. I asked him if he was 'dirty' and he said yes. He admitted that he was sitting in his room playing video games when it happened. (i might understand if we had been out shopping for hours)

Polyps are benign growths which develop in the colon (large intestine) which may or may not be cancerous. A fecal occult blood test (and even better, a colonoscopy) is done to determine if polyps are cancerous. Chances are your son's grandfather's ultimately died from cancerous growths. And Mundy if you can ever get your son's father to visit a doctor, that might save his life. Polyps if detected early enough does not mean a cancer sentence.....

You say your son has been seen by many specialists in the past and they have found nothing. Has he ever been seen by a pediatric gastroenterologist? That might not be a bad next step....The constipation could signify a multitude of things....

With all the medication changes, and all the diagnosis changes, it sounds like you are on the proverbial medical merry-go-round, where I have been in the past, and i know it can be very frustrating and difficult on everyone. Re-assess your dream-team of experts, who did you get to handle this case, and is there better?

I forgot to re-emphasize, the assistance at this point of getting a "DEVELOPMENTAL PEDIATRICIAN" to review his case. They do the most thorough exam, physical, neurological and psychological. They work closely with other necessary services, such as therapy, school psych testing, etc. They go over everything with the parents; they create a treament plan, they review the plan and see the patient and parents every 3 months, follow the school work, they do evaluations with the teachers, its a very complete treatment model.

Surgery for sleep apnea, treatment for incapricice, medication for ADD, testing for Auditory Processing Deficit, proper classroom seating placement to minimize the Auditory processing deficit, and a method of measuring progress in school, other than report cards was all overseen by our developmental pediatrician. By the way, if your experience is anything like ours, don't worry about the incapricice too much, it was the easiest of all the areas of treatment, and we were amazed how easily it disappeared.

The great news is, that children can be returned to their ability to do well, or excel, in school. They can become emotionally balanced and confident and successful. They can be happy and have friends. Its all about compassion, treating the whole family dynamic rather than just the individual, and having a dream team to help.

If you want some inspiration, look for the results of our daughter, now a Duke University list of Talented Academic students, honor roll student, sleeping well, waking up well, having friends, happy girl. It wasn't always that way. So have some faith, and get a dream team. Anything is possible.

Jon

My son had a colonoscopy and it didnt find anything.
I called about Developmental Pediatrician and there is not one in our HMO. (figures).
He has been on his current meds for atleast 7 months.
I will look into the apena too
thanks

You are very welcome. We have to pay for our developmental pediatrician appointments out of our own pocket, because he is the best in town, but he is not on our insurance plan.

I hate HMOs. Might as well call them Human Massacre Organizations. I've had too many bad experiences with HMOs to ever allow their decisions to guide my course of action.

Take care

Jonathan

Ooops..yes...did you detect a little anger at HMOs? Yes, I have some anger there...they are not about treatment, they are about money.

I have as a result changed to PPO at work, but also learned the hard way it is not worth the money saved to see the doc who is on the provider list, if he or she is not the best one for the medical question. I do not have unlimited funds, and have sacrificed vacations in order to see the right people. I have coverage for psychotherapy on my insurance, but I choose to see a therapist not covered on my plan, and pay out of pocket, because I am not there to save money, I am there for treatement.

Its a little different philosophy. I guess I'm unplugging from the MATRIX...lol.

:)

Jon

Well, I have no choice. My kids are on medicaid. and in New Mexico you have to choose a plan. I decided on the same one that I am on at work (makes it easier to go to same clinics, etc). I am pretty much satifised with my HMO and decided that they arent THAT bad. Except for times like these.

Mundy: If you're happy with the primary care physician assigned to you -- from your HMO -- you have a better chance of getting your medical needs met, references to specialists, etc. At least there are no deductibles for you to worry about and few out=of-pocket expenses....Do you like your primary care physican or primary pediatrician....? Would he help send your son to a specialist if needed?

I have taken my kids to a primary, but next time I had to see a PA. I really like the PA.
We all see the same psychiarist, he accepts the insurance from my HMO (once in a blue moon you can find a doc that will accept the insurance) and the kids medicaid. So I am happy about that.
I also think it helps that he knows us all.

Probably can't get a better situation than that which you describe.....and sure isn't anything wrong with PA's (those are physician assistants in case anyone else is wondering:) ).....In fact they work very hard because they want to be seen as credible. So are you still going crazy, as per your thread's name? :)What do you think is the next step for your son? I mean clearly there is something not right....mentally, emotionally, behaviorally, physically, whatever....

We have appt with therapist tomorrow.
I want to see about getting him to see her (or someone) on a regular basis.
I also want to know what I can do to change.

I appreciate everyones comments, suggestions and ideas.

COOL:) Good luck with appointment....................

My HMO was fine, as long as I was not sick. On the other hand, I had a choice, so if you don't have a choice, then insurance is insurance, and be glad for it. There are too many people who have no coverage at all, so having it is a blessing.

My problem was that getting timely treatment by a specialist was difficult. By the time I got to see the specialist, in one case, it was too late to get the treatment. In another case, a busted ACL was called a minor sprain and I was not referred to a specialist. When I finally went to a specialist, after changing my insurance plan, I found out it was not a recurring sprain, it was a busted ACL that had been busted for over a year, and I had to have surgery. These two experiences strongly influenced my opinion of HMO healthcare. However, if you can get referrals to the specialists you need, you should be able to avoid the problems I encountered. And even the PPO is not perfect...I still go out of plan for some doctors... such is life.

I hope your son and your family soon reap the benefits of all your hard work, patience, research and persistence. The fact that you are asking all these questions means you are serious about finding an answer. Thats 3/4s of the battle already won!

Take care

Jonathan



:)