Hi everyone. I am new here and seeking guidence. My son is 14 ADD/HDand is currently in anger management therapy. He sees a case manager and a therapist once a week. I am also ADD/HD and this presents its own set of problems. I am married to a non-ADD man. This also presents probems of its own.

While my son does have his good points and these are rewarded, he does have several issues that cause conflict between my husband and I. This is where I am seeking guidence.
I have spoken with his case manager and his therapist and have been told that taking privledges away is the appropriate action for bad behaviour. He has the following things:
Television
Game Cube
Stereo
Telephone calls
Friends
My attention
Step-Fathers attention

I can take all these things away from him and he could care less. They don't mean anything to him.
He is very self-centered and his whole world revolves around him and what he wants. He gets very angry when he doesn't get what he wants and yells(mainly at me, sometimes at the world in general). He is disrespectful at home but can behave if at others homes.

When he yells at me I take away my attention and ignore him during the bad behaviour. When the behaviour returns to an appropriate level I will return my attention to him. My husband belives that I am not punishing him because I am not taking something physical away. The physical things do not mean anything, my attention does. Does this removal of attention work? It works for that instance but then happens again. Am I consistant in the attention removal? NO! This is where my ADD comes in. It seems like I forget that I am supposed to ignore him. I try.... I really do but sometimes it just flys out the window.

Am I promoting bad social behaviour by ignoring him when he yells at me? Do you think this will carry on outside the home due to the fact that this is the punishment within?

I have a list of chores that he is supposed to do and a contract that all family members are to sign. This part of the phase will start 08-18-05 as this is when he returns from his fathers home to start school. The chore list has times that chores must be done before an infraction point is added and infraction points if the chore is not started promptly(5 sec).
The contract contains what my sons responsibilities are as a part of the family, community, and society in general. This also contains a list of rewards for good behaviour and the consequences for bad behaviour.

What can I do to correct this situation and keep a happy family unit?

cantdoitright,

Welcome to the forums.

It sounds like you are already doing pro-active things to improve your situation.

Have you sought therapy / medication for your own ADHD?

Thank you for your response and warm welcome.

I have MVP(Mitral valve prolapse) and have been told that the medications can pose problems to the weak valve.

Pro-active or not, am i promoting bad social behaviour in society by using ignoring at home?

This is a conflict that must be solved.
My husband claims that I am allowing him to yell at me at home. Even though my punishment for this is to ignore him.Am I promoting a non-socially acceptable behaviour by allowing him to yell without doing anything except ignoring him?

welcome, Cantdoitright!

You said you reward his good behavior? Good!! Make sure you are acknowledging, to him, when he is behaving appropriately. Are you rewarding his good behavior with praise only or items?? Reward him with things that will motivate him to want to change, to continue good behavior.

Your post was a behaviorist's dream!! You explained everything so well, and with great detail! It sounds like you're doing it right. Anytime there is attention seeking behavior - the best thing to do is to ignore it (or put it on extinction).

Ignoring your son while he is yelling works, if his purpose for yelling is attention seeking.
However, if your husband is responding to your son's yelling, while you are not - your son's behavior will continue, due to inconsistent guidelines.

You and your husband need to get on the same page - or any guidelines regarding your son's behavior will not work. You could consult a behavior analyst in your area to talk with you and your husband and to do an eval on your son.

when your son is yelling - do you stay in the room with him? Do you leave?

Can you tell when he is building up steam to yell??
The trick is to catch the signs he's giving you before he yells and try to diffuse it then.

Your son's behavior will change only if he is motivated to change it. Sometimes, you need to provide the motivation until it can be internally developed, which is what you're doing when providing rewards for good behavior and ignoring attention seeking behavior.

Best wishes!

cantdoitright,

First off, adolescents are very self-centered; it's the nature of the beast. :faint:

* * *


Think A,B,C.

A = Antecedent. What occurs before the behaviour.

B = Behaviour.

C = Consequence.
* * *
A = ?

B = yelling at Mom

C = Mom ignores son's behaviour.

* * *
It is said that people yell because they FEEL they are not being heard or listened to. Pump up the volume, maybe someone will hear me.

If I feel that no one is listening to me, I might get angry.

Hey, Court, we were busy typing at the same time. :D

LOL, we were Imnap!

Imnapl is right on about the ABC stuff.

She's also right about the yelling -- it's usually because they feel no one is listening. Which is why it's so important to head it off before he yells.

You can sit him down, before he yells, tell him you're ready to listen -as long as he doesn't yell.

cantdoitright -

do you have an idea as to what the antecedent is?? That's pretty important to know. antecedent is: what happens just before the behavior (what causes the yelling)

A= anything and nothing. He yells if he doesn't get his way. He yells when hes angry with a game, toy, paper, blade of grass. Sometimes he yells if you are in his way of the tv screen,door,sofa. He has been known to place his hands on a teachers desk to "get in her face".

Sometimes I know what the cause is and sometimes I don't

B= yelling,clenching fists,holding breath,punches things,kicks things.

C= Ignoring the behaviour until he is ready to talk in a calm voice and attitiude.

Conflict with husband comes down to the teachers will not ignore bad behaviour, neither will job sites or other people. Husband thinks that he will feel that its ok to act this way in social circumstances because I punish by ignoring at home. Social peers,employers,teachers will not accept this.

Husband does not acknowledge the bad behaviour when its happening, he and I DISCUSS the matter later because I only ignored him. He is not yelling at my husband, he is only yelling at me.

Something you can do to try to get a pattern down is to keep data.
Everytime your son yells write down its ABC's, after a couple weeks look at it as a whole and look for patterns. Then, you can also bring this to your son's therapist. You may want to consider family therapy - you and your son.

Has he told you why he yells at you or why he yells in general?

How long has your son been in anger management? do you think it's helping?


Do you know why your son doesn't yell at your husband?
My brother does the same thing. He yells only at my mom - not my dad. I think he does this because he knows my mom loves him unconditionally. Although, dad loved him unconditionally also. However, my mom is more manipulable than my dad.
(sorry, just random thoughts on my part)

What are the situations/environments he has good behavior? are there some situations/environments he has good behavior all the time? or bad behavior mostly?

You're doing it right :) I have a 14 year old son who's not add but I can imagen you have your hands full...having a normal(whatever that is)teenager is hard work. I got tired of taking things away from him so not when he gets into trouble he can't use anything that needs power to run (power meaning electricity). I'll let him have his light on if it's night but that's it. If you're afraid he'll turn something on when you're not looking..take the power cord.
If your son in special education?

The only advice I can give beyond what has been given here is that both you and your husband need to change your view of his behavior.
By this I mean his behavior is not "bad" or "good".

This is just adding fuel to the fire. Remember back to when you were a teen.
When your parents said you were "bad" it made you feel bad about yourself and you took it as a personal attack and shutdown. Everyone does. It's subconcious.

So, when you tell you son he is behaving badly you are putting him in a NO-WIN situation. By changing his behavior he is validating the label of "bad" and by not changing his behavior he is denied privileges thereby having the "bad" label forced on him.

If you don't believe that something as simple as the words you use can have this HUGE an affect you need to take a serious look at the dozens of books and studies that have shown this to be true.

Now, what is the solution? Excellent question!

It's very simiple. Use the word "INAPPROPRIATE" instead. This is more accurate and allows him to save face and learn because displaying inappropriate behavior is something everyone does. Especially when learning to deal with new situations and new emotions...which is MOST of what dominates a teenagers life. Every day IS a new day.

So, explain to him that his behavior is inappropriate and why it is. You husband is already voicing this and so are you. You just need to use a little more specific language to drive the point home.

I've done this. I have 5 kids. Two are in their 20's and one of them is 12...and he is going through similar issues.

He gets it when I explain that his rants or breakdowns or flipping out over stupid little things is INAPPROPRIATE. I explain the effect that has on him mentally. How he is programming himself to behave this way as an adult and this will not work to his benefit. I explain to him these are ALL normal feelings, emotions and reactions to life. Once he learns how to deal with them and manage himself he will be able to determine the man that he is going to grow up and be....rather than his situations determining what kind of man he becomes.

Whenever we address his behaviour toward him we NEVER address it either a GOOD or a BAD behaviour. It ia ALWAYS addressed as APPROPRIATE or INAPPROPRIATE behaviour.

No one seems to see the question asked. You have all given me very good information and told me that I am being pro-active in this situation, or am I just not seeing the answer?

The question is: Am I teaching him to be socially unacceptable by using ignoring as punishment for the behaviour of yelling? Will this lead him to believe that it is acceptable in other places such as school or any place he goes because of the punishment at home.

My sons therapist has told us that if he acts up in school that he will be notified, juvenile will step in and he will be sent to "boot camp". Am I adding to this issue by not doing "something else other than ignoring"? He takes Adderall 20mg x 2 and Triliptal 125mg x1 daily during school(he is not medicated during summer months). His metabolism is such that it is gone from his system by 2pm.

Regimen he has been on in the past is as follows:
StratteraXR 40mg x2 and AdderallXR 25mg x2 and Respirdal .25mg x2 daily

AddreallXR 25mg x3

AdderallXR 25mg x2 and Adderall 10 x1 daily

Concerta x2

Ritalin x3

This is the various combinations he has been taking since he was in the 2nd grade. He is now in the 8th grade.

He spends the summer with a non-custodial dad who could care less what he does as long as he is "out of his hair".

He does have other issues than this. This issue is the one that is causing the conflict.

Does he yell at other people outside of home now?

I don't think you're teaching him an unacceptable behavior. I think you're teaching him that yelling is unacceptable - and you're teaching it to him by ignoring him while he is yelling - as long as the function of his yelling is for attention seeking purposes.

If his behavior changes from attention seeking to a different function - then you have to change the consequences.

There are other things you can do - taking away things he enjoys when he yells. However, it sounds like you've tried that and it doesn't work.


Best wishes!

The question is: Am I teaching him to be socially unacceptable by using ignoring as punishment for the behaviour of yelling?

Does ignoring your son get the results you want?

The only question I see in your post is: "What can I do to correct this situation and keep a happy family unit?"
This is actually TWO questions in one that IMO are mutually exclusive.

Question 1. What can I do to correct this situation?
Question 2. What can I do to keep a happy family unit?

You may not be able to have both simultaneously....and that's ok.
I think question 1 is the question I was answering. I also think the other responses were addressing this same question.

You may need to change your expectation of having a happy family unit and just look for ways to make things work well enough to keep moving forward at this time. It doesn't seem like you are close to having a happy family unit right now.
What most people need to know is that this is OK!
IMO we spend too much time trying to be "happy". Life has its ups and downs and you are in the downs. So, get all giggly and scream yahoo's and celebrate when your life is working like a finely made antique watch. But you can't expect to be giddy when you are having garbage cans turned over on your head and your house stinks like the sewer just backed up.

That's life. Your life used to be in the ups and everything was happy and you want that back. But, right now for you its in the downs. Embrace it and you will find the answer to the first part of your question "What can I do to correct the situation?"

Eventually you will be in the "ups" of life and question 2 will be resolved.

Does ignoring your son get the results you want?

It gets the results for that period in time. It does not have any lasting results.




Does he yell at other people outside of home now?



He only yells at family members(immediate and extended) and school teachers/principals(those in authority). This is usually when someone disagrees with him.
When he was younger and the punishment was grounding from privelges,it was like he would do it even though he knew he would be grounded. It was like he didn't care, he was going to voice his opinion or get someones attention in ways he KNEW were inapproperiate.

There used to be an old saying that said" If I can't be right, I will be wrong at the top of my lungs". This seems to be the the path he is following. He will loudly argue the nails out of the the fence if you disagree with him or don't gve him what he wants.



He spends the summer with a non-custodial dad who could care less what he does as long as he is "out of his hair".


This also causes a problem that I have no control over. The courts say that I can not dictate what his father does or doesn't do while my son is with him or his paternal grandparents. When he was young they thought his rants were cute. They no longer think this way and feel if the ignore the situation it will go away. This compounds the problem but offers no solution. The problem will not go away.How any one can think back talking is cute is beyond me. When I asked why they thought this, I was told that it teaches him not to be a push-over. This is one of those cases where getting what you want is not wanting what you get.


OT Rant:
I realize that things have changed and our expectations for children have raised. We expect our children to small adults from their first words. Becuase society has evolved to such a point they are no longer allowed to be children. There seems to be no happy medium. Children are froced by the rules of society to grow up too fast. I believe this is causing the problems that I am having and that most others are having also. End rant.

cantdoitright,

Have you read the book kids are worth it! by Barbara Coloroso?

cantdoitright -

have you noticed any specific thing/situations/events he yells has issues with when others disagree with him?

is it over someone telling him no?
Because they don't share opinions?
do you think he believes no one is listening?
any other possible reasons?

Have you noticed it's worse in the summer after he has spent time with his father? or no change?

The biggest thing, I think, is to find out why he has issues with others disagreeing with him. Then you will know what the best consequences are for him (ignore, punishment, etc . . )

Have you asked him why he yells?