Modifying

I have come to a crossroads with Aidan lately, not in a good way. Aidan is fighting some major internal battles that I cannot fully understand, but I can no longer excuse his behavior and write it of as "It's because his dad was arrested or he's being this way because his dad got divorced again, or he is acting out because we moved around a few times in the last few years.

Aidan was diagnosed a Bi-Polar in 2007 and put on medication which changed absolutely nothing so we took him off the medication and it was decided that he was misdiagnosed. He was then diagnosed with ADHD. I agree with that diagnosis based on the research I have done but I have resisted using any medication to handle it because I don't like what the medication can do to your child, and also he has always maintained a straight A status in school, so I thought as long as I could be extra patient with him and manage it with diet and at some times herbal supplements, if it didn't affect his education I was doing the right thing.

I have always struggled with the aspect of nurture vs. nature on kids like Aidan. I think some of this is built in to his genes. He has had family members who have spent most of their adult life in mental institution for some thing or another, another member committed suicide. I myself have battled depression in the past. After years of this I have realized that I don't can who's fault it is that Aidan is like this, Blaming his dad for having family members with problems is not going to help our situation at all. Blaming myself for not doing or knowing enough is not going to fix this. Action now is the only thing that matters. I don't care why he is the way his is, I just want to get him back to the sweet, loving, never hurt a fly kind of boy that I knew and loved for so many years. He is in there, we just have to break him free!

Over the last few months Aidan has been displaying increasing signs of emotional disturbance and anger management issues. The situation has come to a boiling point now and I have to take some pretty drastic measures....... the main problems we are having with him are:

Lying: He lies alot, he lies to keep himself out of trouble and he lies to both me and his dad about things that he thinks might make each of us mad about what happens at the others house

Not accepting responsibility or consequences: Everything is always someone Else's fault, according to Aidan he is always in the right no matter what he does, but he gets in trouble because people just won't listen (Yeah we won't listen because he needs to accept responsibility for the things we know he did)

Arguing: Aidan argues about every little thing with my husband and I. It is exhausting. I can ask him if the kid he was just playing with was around 11 or 12 and he will look at me like I'm stupid and so "No, he is 12" Its that he tells me I was wrong, then he gives me his answer which is one of the ones I presented to him.

Trying to barging his way out of EVERYTHING: Aidan does not accept punishment well. We recently had a morning where he was not acting nice towards his brother. I gave him 3 warnings in a 1 hour period, the 4th time I sat him down and told him I have asked you 3 times this morning to speak nicely to your brother and to treat him with kindness, you are still not doing that and for that reason you are now grounded. He went to rage, he yelled at me that it wasn't fair that I didn't give him a specific warning that if he did it one more time he would loose privileges, he threatened that by taking away the "Only things that bring me joy in life" I was just going to make him more angry and my punishment would backfire. I don't take that crap at all for the record.

He has become increasingly more and more violent over the last few months. His temper is like a very fine piece of thread that is pulled tight and ready to snap at a moments notice. He didn't use to hurt anyone when he was angry, but he as been hurting his 4 year old brother, which is something neither me or my husband will take lightly, that is the only thing he can do that makes me truly angry at HIM, not just at his actions.

Aidan also lacks any sense of guilt when he does something wrong. He will sit and look at the person he hurt with just a dead look on his face. I have taught him to say sorry, but it is nothing but a word if you keep doing the same thing over and over again. I can teach Aidan why rules are in place and why he has to accept the consequences for what he does, I always hope that this will remind him that the next time he thinks about doing that specific wrong he will also consider the consequences. He can recite it all back to you, say he understands, give you a high 5 to go off to play, but he seems to be unable to put any of this into practice in his real life and therefore he makes the same mistakes and gets the same consequences over and over.

I have changed my plan. He is not going to get the same old consequences anymore. I feel that this is an extreme case that calls for extreme measures. Aidan is loosing ALL privileges, we will have a point system where he will start at 0 and also with 0 toys or privileges. He can earn or loose points depending on certain criteria. He will be able to slowly earn back his toys and privileges over time by getting up to a certain amount of points. I am going to use something like balls in a big jar so he can see the progress going up and down in relation to his behavior.

He is not going to like this, he is going to tell me I am ruining his life. I have given him and will again after we have our meeting to go over the new plan tonight, that if he chooses I will support him in going to stay with his dad for a while to see if his dad's methods work better that what I am doing, it usually makes him very mad when I suggest that at all, he says that he can't just Can't live with is dad, he goes to a rage when we talk about it so I try not to bring it up much.

When he goes into a rage it is a full out rage. I often have to physically restrain him, I sometimes need my husband to help me restrain him because I can't hold him myself. He fights being held down, but I feel it is necessary at those time to protect him from hurting himself and/or his brother, and even our house. (I don't want fists through doors) So today at about 4 after homework is finished and dinner is planned out we will have a talk, just me and him. There will be yelling (Him) there will be crying (Hopefully only him, but I may loose that battle) there will be insults and ultimatums that will not be met. Then hopefully he can go to his room to calm down for a bit and we can have a pleasant evening together. I hope this is the punishment he needs to stick, along with counseling which we just go started with the process. Wish me luck!