Uncle of ADHD Child | ADHD Information

Hello. I've read around these forums and what I've seen seems to relate heavily to what's going on with my nephew so I decided to join.

Though the mother of my nephew is very loving and toilsome in her efforts to help him, she is reluctant to try out support from others in the same boat. So I have to see what else I can do for him.


My nephew is eight years old and he's struggled with behavioral problems since he was 4. There have been an unbelievable number of instances in the past where he has acted out in public by running off, talking to his mother very disrespectfully, screaming, and also having a VERY smart mouth with adults. He also has speech difficulty that requires him to go to a speech therapist. Because when he speaks, he often has very incoherent sentences and I'm unsure if the way he speaks is realy just normal for a child his age.

Fast forward to now and all that feels like it's gotten worse. Because of his current behavior issues, he is only allowed to stay in school half the day and to make things worse, he almost NEVER manages to stay the half day OR the full week in school going half days. At school he is pushing and kicking teachers, cussing, always getting into fights and blaming others for his problems when we all know it's him.

The teachers (god bless em) are trying their hardest to work with my nephew though because they know he can be a good child. It's probably because they see that his low level of patience in understanding a concept always leads to his outbreaks of anger.

Sometimes the things he does make me feel so horrible. Because of his outbreaks, his mother is constantly called away from work and she must now work a 3rd shift to accommodate the school when she has to pick him up. Which means she may work all night and come home to sleep in the morning only to be reawakened an hour or two later because my nephew is misbehaving. There was also an instance where he completely shattered a glass door and his mother had to scramble to get the 0-400 to pay the business because of legal circumstances that may have arised if she didn't..

What's so hard for us is to get into his head that what he's doing is extremely serious. When he does these things, we spank him and sit him down and explain the severity of what he did but he never seems to fully grasp it. As a child, when I did something bad, I felt the shame that accompanied what I did after my parents disciplined me. But with him, it's nothing. When he shattered that glass door, he only felt bad about it for a minute then he started getting displeased with us  as if to say he didn't understand why we should be mad at him still.

After awhile though, we the adults all just feel SO lost. It doesn't feel like talking to him does anything and neither does discipling him. We're trying medications (not certain of the names) and his mother says it seems when they increase dosages he just acts worse instead of better.

I myself feel like such a bad uncle too. There are pretty much no other male figures in his life since my father is distant and he rarely even sees or talks to his father. When my mother and my sister tell me about what he does, all I can do is stare at the floor and think about how much trouble we have with him. When I get the opportunity to talk to him after he has done something bad, I just stupidly say nothing. I want to hope he can do better, but whenever I think about speaking to him concerning his behavior, I feel like it's all for naught.

I just don't get it though, when he's around immediate family, he's fine, but when he gets around others, everything just goes downhill fast.




Muzer1239733.4921296296

My son was was going through a heck of a bad time last year.  I thought for sure he was going to be expelled.  He was unbelieveably frustrated with the overstimulation of school.  He was purposefully getting in trouble so he could go to the principal's office, which was a small muted room with only one person to deal with.  He recognized he needed to get out of his classroom, and did it the quickest way possible.

First of all, I would get a diagnosis so he can get some help at school.  The tests are a pain (and can be expensive) but they're worth it.  They give you some teeth so you can get him the environment he needs in order to succeed.

With my son discipline didn't work at all.  He'd only remember how "mean" I was to him, not his misbehavior.  What works for him is goal setting.  This takes some time to set up.  You can't withhold any normal activities - actually, keeping a precise schedule will help tremendously.  Instead, find something extra my son really wants, and make him earn the priviledges.  For my son, it was a certain cartoon on tv.  I moved heaven and earth to get him home to watch it when he earned it  - I would leave family events, you name it, and tell everyone why.  They thought I had lost it; my son knew I was doing it for him, so it reinforced how important the process was to me and how much I appreciated the hard work he was doing.  He earned things like me dropping him off at school rather than going on the bus.  He wanted more time rather than expensive stuff.  Every once in a while he'd request a "date night" - dinner and a movie.  And if he earned it, we'd do it.  Plus we got to spend a lot of time together, so we bonded positively rather than me being the monster who punished him all the time.

By the way, goal setting worked at school, too.  This time last year the school told me they thought my son would never learn to read.  In the spring he noticed the charts his teacher was keeping concerning his progress.  She showed him where he was and where she wanted him to be.  That's all it took - he had one more entry that was under grade level, and since then he took off.  He now hyperfocuses on reading, and will read a 100 page book in one night.

Try to give yourself a break.  It's insanely hard to deal with this stuff - you worry all the time, and it beats you down.  You can't control your nephew, you can only inspire him.  When he does inappropriate stuff it's truely not your fault, and a lot of the time it wasn't premeditated by him, either.  Guide him the best way you can, advocate for him whenever possible, believe in him and make sure he knows you're on his side completely.  You will get through this, and you'll all be better people for it.

Keep us posted.  Best of luck!

Does your nephew have an iep set up?  If not your sister should request one in writing.  This will help with getting the school to give your nephew help he needs at school.  Corrina is right about getting a positive reward system in place.  Adhd kids respond to positive so much more than a negative.  It takes time, it may seem it isn't working at first, might have to find the right one, but it works.  School can set up a reward system too.  As for talking to your nephew, maybe taking him and doing an activity with him so he has you more in his life would just be enough.  It would probably give your sister a much needed break. 

[QUOTE=Corrina]

First of all, I would get a diagnosis so he can get some help at school.  The tests are a pain (and can be expensive) but they're worth it.  They give you some teeth so you can get him the environment he needs in order to succeed.

[/QUOTE]

I've talked to his mother and she said ADD is a confirmed thing in him. She is also saying to me that she thinks there may be some bipolar there to, but that hasn't been tested yet. I'll certainly report back when I get a deeper idea of what's going on with him.

[QUOTE=Corrina]

With my son discipline didn't work at all.  He'd only remember how "mean" I was to him, not his misbehavior.  What works for him is goal setting.  This takes some time to set up.  You can't withhold any normal activities - actually, keeping a precise schedule will help tremendously.  Instead, find something extra my son really wants, and make him earn the priviledges.  For my son, it was a certain cartoon on tv.  I moved heaven and earth to get him home to watch it when he earned it  - I would leave family events, you name it, and tell everyone why.  They thought I had lost it; my son knew I was doing it for him, so it reinforced how important the process was to me and how much I appreciated the hard work he was doing.  He earned things like me dropping him off at school rather than going on the bus.  He wanted more time rather than expensive stuff.  Every once in a while he'd request a "date night" - dinner and a movie.  And if he earned it, we'd do it.  Plus we got to spend a lot of time together, so we bonded positively rather than me being the monster who punished him all the time.

[/QUOTE]

Hmm. So with a child of my nephews status, is discipline just a bad idea? I want him to learn from the mistakes, but I can't turn a blind eye to them.

[QUOTE=Corrina]

By the way, goal setting worked at school, too.  This time last year the school told me they thought my son would never learn to read.  In the spring he noticed the charts his teacher was keeping concerning his progress.  She showed him where he was and where she wanted him to be.  That's all it took - he had one more entry that was under grade level, and since then he took off.  He now hyperfocuses on reading, and will read a 100 page book in one night.

[/QUOTE]

Ah reading. My nephew is still struggling with it because the behavior problems of course interfere with his learning process. I really want him to get better at it though because I know he can do better than these rhyming books.

[QUOTE=Aaron'smom]

Does your nephew have an iep set up?  If not your sister should request one in writing.  

[/QUOTE]IEP? What would that be?

you would still discipline your nephew.  My son gets priviledges taken away for mostly just a day or two when he is bad.  There is a marble system pasted on this forum you may want to look at.  The main idea is to give marbles for good behavior.  If you want your nephew for example to not hit his mother.  Each day he doesn't he gets x amount of marbles, when he hits he looses x amount of marbles.  After he gets what amount you think is appropriate, he gets a prize.  Taken someplace he likes, money, gets more time on video games or computer.  Whatever works for him.  But the key is to start noticing when he is doing the right thing.  Praise him when he has a good day at school.  When he makes a good choice and not a bad choice.  And if you use something like the marble system you can work on certain things and not everything.  Pick what is the most important for you and when he gets that move on to another. 

An iep is an individual education plan.  It is special education.  Most services are done in his classroom.  I would suggest your sister call and talk to the school counselor and ask about what can be done for your nephew.  It will give you some rights in so much that he won't be sent home each day, it will make them find a solution other than sending him home.  I have my son in a special ed classroom but that is the last thing they should do.  It is not the special ed that we had as children.   It takes awhile to get set up so she should really look into it.  I don't know why if the school is having such a problem that they are calling her that they haven't suggested something.  Our children are intitled to a free and safe education by law and it up to the school to find the right place.  But they do not volunteer things either.  By law they have to evaluate your nephew if she asks for a special ed evaluation due to his disabilty.  Have her list all the problems he is having in school and needs help with.