Dear Mom of One= please keep the meeting with the doctor to review the testing and let him suggest some things you can do to relieve the stress levels at your home. How does your daughter do at school? Is she on any medication at this time? Perhaps your doctor can offer a med that will help with her temper such as risperadol or clonodine.
A book such as 1-2-3 Magic by Thomas Phelan can help with disciplinary actions. Your daughter needs to go to the bathroom or her bedroom when she has tantrums instead of you going to your own 'time' out.
Perhaps rewarding her for not having tantrums or being able to stop them in first - 10 minutes, than after a week- 8 minutes etc will help. A reward can be anything from you playing a game with her to an icecream: what works for her. Good luck and let us know what the doctor says.
Randy
Thanks for the reply I actually have read 1-2-3 magic last year. The key to that is consistency as well as the key to everything else. I found it- to escalate her behavior from a temper tantrum to a violent behavior that seriously can harm her or our property. So I kind of gave up on it after a year.If anger management seems to be an issue, have you sought counselling? A good family/child counselling program can work wonders in 2 ways - 1) allowing both sides (child and parent) express their emotions in a neutral environment - this allows the frustrations to release instead of building up and blowing up at one another.
2) after the emotions/frustrations have been identified, it's much easier with a 3rd party, to work through the source of the feelings, and make plans for how to improve everyone's well being.
If there are anger management issues, I'm not surprised Magic 123 didn't work - because it doesn't release the anger they feel, but backs them up into a corner even more. I love Magic 123, but couldn't really make positive progress from its use, until our family attended family counselling to air out all our frustrations, identify problem areas and work through solutions and problem solving strategies.
Hope you find the help you need, anger is such an exhausting emotion to live with.
The fact that she does well in school behaviorally is a good indicator that what you are dealing with is mainly behavioral, and not necessarily chemical imbalance. The structure and expectations in school is more rigid...the boundaries are tighter. I would suggest a behavioral therapist, plus you need to read Dr. Ross Greene's book The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Parenting Chronically Inflexible Children. This book really helped retrain me on how to better respond to my son who is now 15, but when younger, would have unbelievable meltdowns. His formal dx is ADHD Primary Inattentive w/generalized anxiety.
We all have this outdated image of a psychiatrist as a highly educated sage who derives solutions from the answers he hears from his couch. In reality, the couch has metamorphizied in to a prescription pad and the consultation is only two minutes instead of 45. This is not my opinion, its a fact and you can see it displayed through out their offices by all of the drug company freebies (pens, pads, free med samples, etc). Now I'm not making a value judgement on this change, but only highlighting it so that you know how to use it in your arsenal of weapons to help combat your childs illness.
Once your child has been identified as having ADHD then its up to you to determine how you're goint to treat it. Most of us have started with the less intrusive methods of controlled diet and vitamins. If little or no change occurs, then many of us have transited to meds and escalate until we have some level of stability. In my opinion, that's about all a psychiatrist is good for when dealing with ADHD.
Next, (and this is really the important part), find a family therapist who is an expert with ADHD children. You notice that I said a family therapist and not a child therapist. A parallel was when we trained our dog. We had a trainer come to our house, but she didn't train the dog; she taught us to train the dog. No, I'm not comparing your child to my dog only comparing the process. A good therapist gives you the tools to deal with your child's challenges and provides a forum to vent when the family is in conflict over the ADHD behaviors. A therapist can also act as your advocate with the school when you have to initiate a 504 or IEP plan.
Bottom line, A family doctor can effectively treating colds, broken bones and diagnosing ADHD, but he's not the expert to treat it. A psychiatrist is good for prescribing meds and treating the illness pharmacologically. A therapist provides and strengthens the parenting tools to deal with behaviors that accompany the illiness. Your job is to manage these resources to effectively treat your childs condition.
Good luck and please keep us informed.
AN hour of testing is not comprehensive or definitive. I would see a Neuropsychologist for an evaluation. An ADHD evaluation should and can take several hours over many visits.My advice- go to another doctor. If your instincts are telling you that she needs professional help you need to get a second opinion.
Does the counselor have any opinion on the subject? After counselling a child for 2 years they should have a better grasp on the issues than a doctor after 1 hour of "testing".
KidsInSpace39689.6361111111I found that meds increased my son's anxiety. He had no control over himself.
Talk to your daughter. If she can communicate that clear with the dr, then you should be able to talk to her and have her understand.
With my son we figured out a way of communicating that worked even in the throws of a tantrum. If he is overwhelmed, he began saying, "I can't help it", that told me he needed a way to calm before it got too bad. Also, if I noticed he was heading for a tantrum I told him he needed to rest and he knew from our talk that meant get away from the situation, and that we could always talk about it later. Sometimes the urge to get their way is so forceful because they feel that is their only chance to do something or get something. By just telling my son we will talk about it when he is calm he knew we could revisit the problem later and the outcome may be a compromise.
1-2-3-magic worked when he was younger, but when he grew his violence often led to him breaking things, then being sorry afterward.
Basically you need to recognize when a tantrum is starting and help her be aware of when she is beginning to lose control.
I good book I read was: Setting Limits with the Strong-Willed Child by Robert J. MacKenzie, ED,D.
My sister had my nephew evaluated psychiatrist and was told it all self esteem issues. There are factors in their life that suggests this to be true. I was surprised because his behavior is much more mean and aggressive than my adhd son's. So you never know and alot of things mimic another illness or behavior. Keep your appt, and if you are not satisfied with it get a second opinion.I would second the recommendation for Greene's book. Another one I liked was "10 Days to a less Defiant Child".I have never had a Psychiatrist give a diagnosis after one visit, I was always referred to a specialist for an evaluation. The Psyc did say what they expected was the problem. We saw a Neorologist, counselor and behavior specialist.
About the tantrums, I was always told that if my son was not on meds that he is to be given consequences. But when he was on meds, the fits were or could be a reaction and we should let him go through them, making sure he did not hurt himself or anyone else, then impose a natural consequence. A natural consequense would be cleaning up any mess made while tantruming, not replacing his own broken items but rather making him earn the money to replace them and putting him to bed early to make sure the behavior isn't from sleep deprivation and making sure his trigger foods are withheld for the rest of the week(he always acted up after eating candy at a friends or drinking kool-aid at a friends).
I took my son to one psychiatrist that after an hour told me he had a form