At a loss what to do | ADHD Information

I hope that someone has a suggestion that will prevent my child from destroying my house.  At night after the stimulant has worn off, occasionally he gets so distraught over something that he slams and throws things.  I've always told him that he could hurt someone or break something, so he needs to calm down if he wants to be around others.  He usually continues raging, and I'll then separate him.  I also separate him for excessive screaming (he can scream at the top of his lungs for a very long time).  Usually he won't stay in the spot where I take him, so I have to lock him in (reverse lock).  He's pounded on the basement door so hard that the doorframe is messed up.  He now knows that, if he pounds on the door, I have to take him outside.  But he's smashing our outside door so hard that I think he's going to damage that, too.  Tonight I told him that he needs to treat our house with respect if he wants to be near it, so I was going to put him in the car and let him out away from the house if he continues to smash the house.  Of course he continued, so I put him in the car and drove to the end of our block, let him out and got back in the car really fast (he was trying to get back in).  He ran home so fast that he actually got there before me in the car.  He seems calmer now, but I know that's just until next time. 

To make the situation more complicated, my child has generalized anxiety disorder.  He has tremendous anxiety about being alone, so forcing him outside alone exacerbates his anxiety (but sometimes the ADHD is so out of control at night that he does not learn from past mistakes and impulsively does the same things again). 

How would people handle this situation?  I will not let him destroy my house or hurt people.  I know he has difficulty controlling himself due to ADHD (he never does these things when meds are fully in his system).  Nonetheless, I think it's reasonable to expect him not to destroy my house or hurt people.  What do I do?  I can't always be driving him away from the house.  It's not reasonable when it's dark out, and I can't drag the younger sibling into the car at any point that his brother acts up (DH happened to be home tonight when this happened).

Edited to add:  He's already taking guanfacine at night to help ease the stimulant wearing off.  A stimulant booster dose isn't an option because he needs to eat a lot at night after the stimulant wears off.

Also, these rages happen once every couple of weeks.  They're by no means daily, but they're a definite problem.

Mom2ADHDboy39314.7460416667I bought DD a kick bag to take her frustrations out on, she is unbelievably calmer. When she gets irritated or downright mad she heads to the garage and beats the H@ll out of that bag.......it's all better later.

Hi,

I am no expert but my son and my daughter both had terrible rebound on Concerta and Adderall. It was so horrible I won't even go into details.  However, we switched to Ritalin LA and get NO rebound. Maybe an occasional grouchy evening but we are all grouchy sometimes.  Good luck.

To keep from having rebound, we give Clonidine 0.1 mg 1/2 of a tab at 4
p.m. The doctor wants me to give a full tab, but it knocks him out for an
hour and that is not my goal!!!!

WE love the Clonidine at our house!!i LOVE WHAT JADEROCK54 SAID I THINK THAT IS SO AMAZING...YOU MAKE THEM HAVE TO PAY FOR THE STUFF THEY BREAK BY WORKIGN IT OFF SHOWS THEM A LITTLE SOMETHING

I wonder if he rebounds at the same time or around the same time if you could all possible go to a park or something for him to express his energy in a more positve way.

My son has ADHD/ODD and somedays when he rebounds it is a fighting match in my house recently I started allowances and chores and behavior and respect is on the chore list and when it is payday i give them their however for evert red mark that you have received for poor behavior they pay me poor Cody a few weeks ago got his (in ones) and had to pay me that was the last week he has had to pay me..maybe trying to reward the good behavior will promote it more.

My son punched a hole in my hall closet door a few months back, and broke his bedroom door from repeatedly slamming it (on the same day) during one of his rages.  We had talked previously about not damaging the house, as he's prone to throwing things when he's like that, but when he's that upset he can't think.

After he broke the doors we talked about my brother (who broke his hand punching a wall last year)- thankfully our house has the cheapest hollow doors you can buy.  He had to do extra chores to pay for the doors- and I didn't have to clean the bathroom for weeks.   He actually hasn't thrown/kicked/hit anything since, but it's hard to tell whether it's because he learned something from the extra chores or he just hasn't been quite that angry again.

My husband actually handles it better than I do when something is destroyed though- he reminds me that kids are going to destroy stuff, and we just have to accept that and try to keep it to a minimum and make them pay for it when they do.  It still pisses me off though- I guess I'll have nice stuff when they move out.     

I, too, had been struggling with the evening behavior. At first, it was anger over the smallest things not going as planned. I'd put her in her room and tell her she had to saty on her bed and read books until bedtime when I had had enough.  AFter she got the picture that beahvior wasn't getting her anywhere the behavior changed to  her calling me stupid, fat, and ugly for almost any reason she deemed appropriate.

I finally decided that I had had enough, and needed a vacation. I had some short acting Ritalin around and started giving her one about the time the Concerta was wearing off. I timed it so that I could put her in bed about 1/2 hour before the short acting wore off and it worked like a charm. After a week of this, her daytime behavior and self-esteem improved greatly as well.

We recently added Straterra, which gives 24 hr coverage, so I rarely give the short acting now. She is VERY hyper, so I do give if we are going to somewhere I think she needs help calming down. It took awhile for the Starterra to reach a therapeutic dose, but I have noticed it seems to help process info and remember things better - another bonus!

 

I like the punching bag idea.  That might work.  Any other ideas, guys? 

lodismom, unfortunately we can't do a short-acting stimulant late in the day because he has great appetite suppression on stimulants, and I need it to wear off so he eats at night.  The guanfacine has helped a lot at night, but its help is limited.  Maybe I was wrong about strattera.  I thought it helps for attention issues, but not for impulsivity and hyperactivity.  Is your experience different?

We give the quick release ritalin as well at about 4pm, otherwise we can't cope  with the rebound. Then at 7 pm we give him the tiniest sliver of advanza (remeron) to help him get to sleep.  Then about 8pm he gets hungry, eats cleans and then by 9 o'clock he is going to sleep.  Fantastic!!!!  He was grossly underweight and wasn't growing and now has put on 9 kg (1 1/2 stone) which is just great.  We have had so horrific nights on different meds.  For one week he raged for 6 hours distroying everything.  Then we had the insomnia - no one was asleep before 3am daily.  They don;t like the negative feelings of the rebound period either. 

One tip we got for rages from a social worker talked me through an awful raging session  was to   remove yourself from the situation.  Show absolutely no interest - go outside. She then told me to go in very calmly and tell him that the behaviour was unacceptable and he had to stop.  I was to set the kitchen timer for 5 minutes and tell him that if he didn't stop, then he showed no control so he needed to go to the hospital.  I was then to go outside and if he didn't stop ring the police/ambulance.  Worked like a charm.  He stopped.  I had to be prepared to follow through with this treat though.  After each raging session, I have told him to clean everything up -  normally leave it until the next morning after a sleep -  no TVetc until all done.  And pay for anything that needed replacement.  One time he cut his hair and it was disgusting - he had to have it like that for three weeks.  So mean!!!!  Consequences!!!!  He's always asking "Why are you so mean!" So now I try to pick up on the great behaviour and make a fuss of him. 

My son also broke his bedroom door from kicking and slamming it and would trash him room. Finally after repeated warnings, I emptied everything from his room but his bed, dresser and some books. He needed to earn his  things back. He was shocked that I did it but it did help. He still gets angry but doesn't kick or slam his door anymore. Well not often anyway. He's 11 so his video games are very important to him. When he was younger, he really didn't value anything enough to care about losing it, which made it very hard to discipline. Now when he gets angry I send him to his room to cool off and he goes. As you probably know arguing is usless when they are in a rage. I think its the age. I used to have to drag him.

I also like the kick bag idea!

Just for an opinion, we are on FocalinXR (8hr) and I see very little side effects. Almost no rebound, he eats lunch ok and dinner like a horse. We chose this med because of his co-existing condition of anxiety and it seems to have actually helped that as well. we haven't been on long, we have a week or 2 more to go to see the full effect but so far so good. This along with behaivior mod(similar to the marble system, He earns pirate money) has worked pretty well so far. Much less destruction, Less tantrums and an all around nicer kid. I also do not want to give a second pill for after school due to the appetite and sleeping issues but when we meet again with the doc, something for after school and the sleeping issue will be discussed. We now give him Melatonin 5 mg which was helping but when he takes his meds later like on the weekend, he can't sleep at night. Good Luck I hope you find an answer soon.