Saturday night we decided to go and get Chinese for dinner.  The change in Corey was incredible.  We’ve never been able to pinpoint any exact food that seems to set Corey off until now.  It’s possible that he’d been good for a week so was due for a bad change anyway, so perhaps it may have happened and it wasn’t the food, but it is strange that the timing of it was just after he’d eaten Chinese for dinner.

It didn’t take long for him to start being naughty.  He was naughty but quiet too, between naughty moments he would go and lie in his room and watch TV.  Then at bed time, about three or four hours after dinner, he went crazy.  He was at his worst.  It was incredible and I’m surprised to know that his behaviour still surprises me at times.  Perhaps it surprised me because we had had a reasonably good week with him and then this just came out of the blue.  He screamed, yelled, screamed, banged his head, threw things around, screamed some more and well you know how it goes!  And there was really absolutely no reason for this meltdown, it just happened because it was bed time.

So could it have been the MSG?

Is it a coincidence that his behavior had been reasonably good and then once he ate MSG he became very bad?  Today is about four days since the Chinese dinner and he has been pretty awful for the last four days.  Today his anger seems to have subsided and he is having a ’silly’ mood.  I wonder if this is the end of the reaction to the MSG, if that’s what it was.

So today is grocery shopping day and I’m taking my list of additives and preservatives to avoid from the Sue Dengate book ‘Fed Up’ and I’m only going to buy foods without those additives and preservatives and in particular MSG.  Let’s see if I keep him off MSG for a while whether it will make any difference.

My older son Ben, he felt really sick after eating the Chinese.  He picked up fairly quickly, but he did lie down on the sofa for a while after dinner because he felt sick, so perhaps a reaction from him to the MSG also.

I wasn’t sure how this visit was going to go but I am really happy now after the visit, it went really well.  Julie was really good with Corey and he did open up a bit and talk to her.  Being our first visit we went in together but in the future she will want sessions with just Corey, maybe some with just me and some with both of us.

Corey seemed to relate to her quite well which is a huge thing when it comes to therapists because if he takes a disliking to them he will just refuse to speak to them EVER.  But he seemed to like her so that is off to a good start.

She started by doing our family tree with him and then once she had the family tree drawn up she asked him who the people were that he had the closest relationships with and then the not quite as close but still good relationships with.  Then she moved on to who were the people that he had conflicts with.  She marked these things on the family tree in different colours.

It was interesting to see that I was the person that he said he had the closest relationship with but I was also the person that he has a lot of conflict with.  I knew that already but it’s just interesting to see that come out in a session like that.

He was late to school because our session was at 9:00am but his teacher knew he would be late so that was ok and he actually went into school without any issues.  Mind you today is the last day of swimming lessons so he wouldn’t have missed school and missed swimming, especially since they get to swing on the tarzan rope today.

The school had their assembly meeting this morning which they have every second Friday so we got there just in time for that starting so I stayed for the assembly.  I’m glad I did because Corey received a Principals Award for ‘fantastic work in all areas of maths’ and he was really quite proud of himself standing up the front with his award.  Ben also received a Principals Award today for ‘improved effort and attitude towards his learning’ which is great to see too.

So we’re having a happy day so far today, everything has been good, although I’m a bit concerned about tonight.  Corey wanted to have his friend sleep over last weekend and we said no due to his behaviour not being good enough.  Last time he had this friend over for a sleep over they ended up having a huge fight and I had to call his Mum to come and pick him up.

So last weekend we said no but we told him that if his behaviour was good this week that he could have a sleep over this weekend.  He has been trying really hard this week and although he’s had some bad moments, generally it’s been a pretty good week, so we told him that he could have his sleep over tonight.

So we contacted his friends Mum and asked if Dylan could sleep over and she said yes.  However, when we got to school this morning she was having trouble with Dylan and he refused to get out the car and go to school (she has a lot of issues with Dylan too).  So because Dylan didn’t go to school then he probably wont be sleeping over tonight, which Corey isn’t too happy about.  I do feel really bad for him because he’s tried so hard to be good this week to have this sleep over, but unfortunately there isn’t much I can do about it.  And I completely understand my friend saying no if Dylan is misbehaving so there is no blame there I completely understand her decision, it’s just unfortunate.

Anyway, fingers crossed he wont be too upset.  I told him he could invite another friend over after school if one of them would like to come over.  So we’ll have to wait and see what happens.  He has football training tonight at least so that should take his mind off things for a little while.

I was quite happy when I saw they were offering this course and had my name down for it straight away.  Today is the first session so it will be interesting to see what they offer or suggest or if this course can help at all.  It would be good if Derek had been able to go to it also as it can be quite difficult if I decide to change things around here and he doesn’t change also.  We need to be in agreeance (is that a word) with our parenting methods and that bit can be quite frustrating.

Corey is also going to be attending a course called ‘Friends for Life’ which is a worldwide course and the counsellor at our school did some training to be qualified to run the course.  This course is aimed at kids with anxiety and even signs of depression.  It was suppose to start last week but didn’t for some reason, so I’m not sure if he starts that tomorrow or not.

I still haven’t really started on the ‘Out of Control Child’ course – I know I’m slack and I always do this.  However, things have just been so busy around here lately with kids sports and then last week they all came down with the cold and I had Lachlan home all week sick, Ben stayed home for a day, Corey missed three days last week, although only one of them from being sick!

This week they have very nicely shared their cold with me and I’ve been feeling terrible all week.  Corey and Lachlan had swimming at school this week too and I was a bit hesitant to send Lachlan to swimming worrying that he would get his cold back since he had only just gotten over it and sure enough this morning he woke up with the sore throat and coughing again.  I’ve kept him home today but hopefully  he’ll be ok to go back tomorrow.  Tomorrow is the last day of swimming and they get to swing on a ‘Tarzan’ rope and he is really looking forward to that so I think I would struggle to get him to stay home tomorrow.

Mind you it doesn’t help me attending this course this afternoon when I have to take Lachlan with me, hopefully he will sit quietly and draw.

I’ll give an update on how this course goes and anything else that is happening.  Sorry I haven’t been updating much lately, it just seems that I always just complain about the same sort of things so I just haven’t worried about it so much.

On Sunday they have their football game and during the game Corey got tackled and thrown to the ground and he hit his head on the ground.  So on Monday he didn’t want to go to school because he had a headache.  I don’t know how much of it was real and how much of it was him just not wanting to go to school, but I let him stay home anyway.  Lachlan is also  home this week sick with a sore throat and cold which doesn’t help trying to get Corey to go to school when another one is home.

So yesterday (Tuesday) Corey just wouldn’t go to school.  He was in a foul mood all morning and would get really angry over silly little things like not being able to get his lid on his lunch box.  So after a foul morning, he just flat out refused to go to school.

Corey’s class has a camp coming up and they have a strict behavior policy when it comes to camp so because of his behavior recently he has been put on a chart and has three chances.  If he gets three strikes then he doesn’t get to go on camp (there are a couple of kids on the same sort of thing).  Strikes include when he doesn’t go to school for no reason, so yesterday he got his first strike.

Now this morning he just refused to get out of bed.  Why????  Because he was scared of getting in trouble at school for missing three days.  No matter how much I tried to explain to him that the first two days were for medical reasons so he wont get in trouble, he just couldn’t get passed the thought of possible trouble.  I explained to him that yes he does have one strike but that is it, he wont get in any further trouble than that, but his anxiety over returning to school was quite high.  Then I tried explaining how if he doesn’t go to school today then he will get himself in trouble and that the longer he leaves it the worse it will get.

Then Dad tried bribary.  Dad has a motorbike and Corey loves motorbikes so Dad tells him that if he goes to school he might buy him a helmet so he can go for a ride with him.  You have no idea how much I struggled with this as I hate motorbikes, I hate my husband having one and I hate the idea of my kids going on one.  And beside the fact that I hate motorbikes and really don’t want Corey getting on one, there is also the fact that I think it is extremely unfair on the other two kids who go to school every day and they don’t get rewarded like that.

Anyway, Corey finally went to school with the thought that he might get a helmet and even one day his own motorbike.  So this is something I will need to discuss with my husband as I’m not willing to buy a helmet just as a reward for going to school today – then what happens next time he doesn’t want to go to school, does he get another reward if he goes.

What about Ben, my oldest boy, he goes to school every day.  He is doing great at school and is captain of their house team at school as well as being ‘Fit to Lead’ leader.  He has taken on a few responsibilities at school and is doing great – shouldn’t he be the one getting rewarded for these great things that he is doing???

So as much as bribing Corey to go to school might work on the day, is it really fair???  And is it going to help long term?  Perhaps it needs to be if he goes to school every day for the rest of the year or even the term, then he might get a reward.  I don’t know, this is one I need to think about and discuss a bit more I think.

Anyway, at least he’s finally at school, even if he did get there late.  Poor little Lachlan is still home sick though

Thanks for reading
Sheryl

He is allowed breaks at the usual time that he would at school – recess and lunch, but other than that he is doing the things on the list I gave him.  He wasn’t too impressed but after much arguing and yelling and throwing things, realised that I wasn’t going to back down and started doing them.

I haven’t had much of a chance to read the ‘out of control teen’ ebook, I am probably about half way through it.  It sounds quite good and the thing I like about it is that it is done over a period of 4 weeks, so rather than read a book and then just find that you are suffering from information overload and just don’t know where to start, this one is done as a course over 4 weeks which should make each strategy easier to follow.

There are also video’s to watch along with the ebook, but I think I will wait until Thursday when Corey is back at school as I don’t want to sit and watch them while he is here with me.

Corey has now been taking the Mindsoothe Jr for just over 3 weeks and I think I’m starting to see some effect.  Not a great deal, he is still angry and still throwing tantrums, name calling, slamming doors etc, but….. I do think that his tantrums are just a little less intense than usual.  So it’s still a bit early to tell, but I think the Mindsoothe might just be having enough effect just to take the edge of it all.  He has been very good with taking it too, and often he will remind me that he needs it if I forget.

So that’s my update – two more days with Corey home after today and then I’ll have them all back at school and can sit and relax with a bit of quiet

We are getting really desperate!

Coreys violence has gotten out of control, I can’t even leave him in a room with my other children anymore because I can’t trust him not to hurt them.

Yesterday he punched his 7 year old brother in the head and then the mouth because he wasn’t ‘playing the game right’.  The night before he had a friend sleep over and I ended up ringing his Mum to tell her to come and pick him up after him and Corey had a big fight and were threatening to break each others neck.  Corey apparently pulled a knife on him too when I was in the shower.

Coreys behavior is getting bad at school too, where in the past he has always managed to control himself at school.  He has had a couple of detentions and has now been suspended from school for 3 days, which is to happen after the school holidays which we have another week off.

So as you can see, we really are quite desperate now as his violence really is out of control and I am so worried that someone is going to get badly hurt again.

The natural medicine that I got doesn’t seem to be helping at all.  I know it said it could take 3 to 4 weeks before you start seeing results and it’s been about 3 weeks now that he’s been taking it, but no change yet, if anything he is worse.

Today he slammed the door against his brothers leg and when I heard him crying and asked Corey what he had done to him, he grabbed a glass that was in his room and was going to throw it at me.

We have been told that he doesn’t have ODD (oppositional defiant disorder) because he doesn’t display his symptoms at all times in all places.  Although now he is starting to.  Anyway, I don’t know whether he ‘technically’ does have it or not but look, here are the symptoms taken from MyOutOfControlTeen.com

=> Are you concerned that your child:

• Is going to hurt himself? YES
  
• Is going to hurt someone else? YES
  
• May end up in juvenile detention someday? YES
• May experiment with drugs or alcohol someday? YES
  

=> Has your child:

• Lied to you? YES
• Stolen from you? YES
• Destroyed property? YES
• Ran away from home? YES (although he usually just goes to the end of the street)
  
• Refused to do any chores? YES all the time
  
• Refused to follow any rules? YES
• Been verbally & physically aggressive? YES VERY
  
• Had temper tantrums that knew no limits?!! YES DEFINITELY

So, these are the symptoms of ODD and yes he has every single one of them to a HUGE DEGREE – so you tell me – do you think he has it?

I know a little while ago I talked about having a forum where parents can get together and chat with other parents in similar situations, but I really just haven’t had a chance to get it established.

So, I am just looking at the MyOutOfControlTeen.com website and it looks quite good and it’s only $29 (which compared to the money I’ve spent on natural therapies and pscyhologists and pyschiatrists isn’t much) and they have a members forum which would be good.  So I might grab a copy of this and see what it’s like, it has a money back guarantee too so if it’s no good I’ll get a refund, but hopefully I wont need to.

Like I said – I’m desperate and I know many things online are just to make money and don’t actually work, but I’m desperate so I’ll give anything a go at the moment.  So I am going to get this and have a read.  I believe it has an ebook, videos and a forum.  I think we are going to go away for a few days in the caravan on Sunday, so I might print it out and take it with me to read.

So – wish me luck!

Corey’s anger is getting so bad that it is almost constant all day long, almost every time you talk to him he will have an outburst.  It is getting ridiculous.  He spends so much time pulling his hair, punching himself in the head, banging his head against things and punching and kicking doors and walls.

He had an outburst the other day over something so silly that my other son and myself just stood there with our jaws dropped as we couldn’t believe the way he was acting (it was a really strange outburst) and the fact that he was acting this way over nothing.

I just don’t have the patience for him anymore and I know that doesn’t help matters.  But i’m just so tired of having to fight with him over everything.  Last night I asked the boys to do their homework and he just starts yelling, then picks up a jigsaw box and threw it across the room (yes all the jigsaw pieces went flying everywhere).  Then he can’t understand why I want him to pick them all up, he basically told me that I was lazy and don’t do anything around the house (this is after I just spent 2 hours doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen and decided not to ask for the kids to help, that I would let them have their free time).  Needless to say, I ended up picking up all the jigsaw pieces after he stormed off to his room screaming and swearing.

I’m just so tired – I’m sorry, I know I’ve already said that, but it’s my main emotion today, if it is an emotion at all.  I get enough sleep at night, but I’m still so tired all day because I’m emotionally exhausted.  I just feel useless, like I can’t help him, I don’t know how to help him.

Tuesday – this is the day that I had a meeting with the school counsellor, a lady from the education department and Corey’s teacher.  This is also the day that Corey decided to wake up in a foul mood and absolutely refused to go to school.

I’ll talk about the Corey situation first.  I don’t know if he just woke up in a foul mood, whether me having this meeting at school was on his mind (although I hadn’t really mentioned it much) or what the reason was for his behavior, but on Tuesday morning it was terrible.  He was foul right from the moment he got up, then when I was in the shower I heard Lachlan screaming, then Lochie ran through to my room and refused to go out and get ready for school because he was too scared Corey would hurt him.  Apparently the scream was because Corey had hit him across the face. 

We have a reward system where they get a pin on the board if they are good or lose a pin if they are naughty.  If they are naughty in a violent or abusive way toward a sibling, then that pin that they lose is given to that sibling.  So because of the hit across the face Corey lost a pin and Lachlan got that pin – well you would have thought the world was ending, he was not happy at all.  I wasn’t giving in though as they are our rules and I’m sticking to them.

Anyway, that just made his mood even worse and he just refused to go to school.

So then when I had my meeting at the school, he was left to sit in the car.  I parked the car in the taxi spot right outside the office door so the receptionist could keep an eye on him.  The meeting was good.  His teacher is new to the school and she is really lovely – yay, finally he has a nice teacher.  His teacher last year just didn’t care about kids with needs, it was like they are a big inconvenience to her (and already this year there have been issues with that particular teacher with another child but I wont get into that).

Coreys teacher this year though is so nice and in the last few days since that meeting I think she has really tried to help Corey.  He came home on Friday and told me that he thinks he is the teacher favourite as she always asks him to help her out and do special tasks and is really nice to him.  So that is great to see that he has a teacher that is giving him the help he needs in the class room.

The other good thing that came out of this meeting is that I think the seriousness of his behavior has finally become known.  When I mentioned how he gets quite violent and punches walls and punches himself in the head etc, it really got their attention.  So the education department is now arranging another meeting with a lady who specializes in this side of things and will know what path to take.  So I should have that meeting within the next couple of weeks.  That is their biggest concern now, is that he has so much anxiety and anger and that really does need to be addresses.

YAY – finally!

A Good Book – my Aunty was out the other day and saw this book called “Have a New Kid By Friday” by Dr. Kevin Leman.  She thought about me when she saw the book and bought it for me.  When I first heard the name I just thought ‘yeah right’ how can any kid change that much in just a few days.

But, she had bought it for me so I sat down and had a read.

WOW!

This book is really good.  I have read a lot of books on raising children, how to have happy children, how to have healthy children, do you have a tricky child, fed up (Fed Up by Sue Dengate is also a good book if you think their diet may be affecting their behavior),  etc etc etc, I’ve just about read them all.  This book would probably be the best one I’ve read.

Sometimes when reading these books I feel like they must be written by someone who has never had kids.  Not with this book, when I was reading this I could relate to it very well.  The strategies that he uses are quite good and although I know it’s going to be difficult sticking to it I’m certainly going to give it a go.

Just as an example – for sibling rivalry, when they are fighting he says to put them in a room together and let them work it out.  I really didn’t think that would be possible with Ben and Corey – I didn’t believe they could have a civil conversation together.  But I tried it yesterday, I put them in the laundry (the least fun room in the house) and told them they couldn’t come out until they had talked about why they were fighting and reached some sort of agreement.

My golly gosh they actually did it.  Instead of just yelling at each other, they discussed it sensibly and were quite serious and when they finished they called me in and told me what they’d discussed.  They even admitted to what bits they had done that they shouldn’t have done.  They had told each other how their actions had made them feel.  The best bit is – for the next couple of hours they were good and didn’t fight (I know a couple of hours doesn’t sound like much, but it is in my house).  They had another fight later in the afternoon and I did the same thing again and once again they talked about it and worked it out.

So, I’m going to be reading it again, just to make sure I know exactly what I’m doing and then these strategies are going to be enforced and we’ll see if there is any change.  I need to talk them through with my husband too to make sure we’re both on the same wave length with this.

So far though I’m quite impressed with this book and definitely recommend it, but if you want to wait a few days and see what results I get I will post back here and let you know.

Thanks for reading
Take care
Sheryl

Have a New Kid by Friday: How to Change Your Child’s Attitude, Behavior & Character in 5 Days

So last night he had a few drinks and was a bit tipsy to say the least, so over he came.  The kids and I were outside playing basketball at the time.  So Jeff comes over and starts talking about Corey.  How Corey obviously has problems and so do I with him.  Then he starts going on about how I need to just stay calm and actually when he is being naughty I should send him over to his house because he is really good with kids and kids just seem to like him for some reason.

He continued to tell me how he often hears us yelling, he often sees Corey out the front throwing tantrums, and often hears Coreys bad language.  Then again told me that I should really try harder to stay calm.

I’m sure as you’re reading this it probably doesn’t sound all that bad, but….. he went on and on and on about how I should stay calm.  He went on and on and on about how great he is with kids and that I should just send Corey over to him.  He just didn’t stop, he just went on and on and on about it.

When my husband came home I left and came inside the house and then Jeff continued to go on and on to my husband about it all.  I swear I was ready to put the house on the market and move, but like my husband said, if he isn’t happy living next to us then he should move.

Jeff says it doesn’t bother them so it’s not a problem, he just wants to give me all this advice on how I should be handling it.  I basically said to him that yeah he might hear this going on, but he doesn’t live with it 24 hours a day, he isn’t in my situation so he really doesn’t know what it’s like.

That’s what really pisses me off – sorry for the language, but it really does.  If people haven’t had to deal with kids with behavior issues, they really have no idea what it’s like.  It’s easy for them to give advice and tell me that I should stay calm – they have no idea what it’s like.

All he did was make me feel like I’m a bad parent – I’m sorry but that doesn’t help.  I know I should stay calm, he’s not telling me anything I don’t know, but it isn’t always easy to try and stay calm.  Believe me I try but you get to a point where you can’t take it anymore.

Anyway, that’s my rave for today.  I was just really angry had to get it out.
Thanks for listening
Sheryl

When Corey gets into one of his rages I really can’t stand to watch him like that.  Sometimes he just gets so upset that I think he’s going to explode if he doesn’t stop yelling and screaming like that.

For example, last night him and Ben just wouldn’t stop fighting.  My husband just got to the stage that he’d had enough and told them both to go and have a shower and go to bed – it was only around 7pm at the time.  Corey just went crazy and lost it completely, no way was he going to have a shower and go to bed that early.

Of course Corey isn’t going to give in but neither is my husband and my husband completely refused to leave Coreys room until Corey agreed to go and have a shower.  Which of course he wouldn’t and the longer my husband stood there the more Corey would scream.

I just couldn’t stand listening to him screaming like that and I know it isn’t good for him.  He always ends up with headaches after he screams and screams like that.  But, my husband was dealing with it and we know that even though we don’t always agree with one another on discipline, you can’t show that disagreement to your children, we need to be strong and back each other up, so I decided to just stay out of it.

However, after another 5 or so minutes of this constant screaming I couldn’t take it any longer.  As much as Corey makes me angry and when I’m so angry with him I really don’t feel like hugging him, but I knew that it was the only way to calm him down.  So I walked into his room, told my husband to leave and just sat next to him and hugged him.

I talked to him and told him to take some deep breathes and we just sat there like that for a while until he calmed down.  Once he was calm I told him that I wanted to talk to him but I didn’t want him to lose control and get angry, I just wanted him to listen.  Then I calmly asked him to go and have a shower and tried to explain to him that all this screaming doesn’t help the situation and certainly wont make Dad give in to him.

Corey got up and had a shower – he did make sure to point out that he still refused to go to bed after the shower, but I just ignored that and only worried at this stage about him having that shower.  Because he did then go calmly and have a shower and had completely calmed down by the time he got out the shower, we did let them stay up a little bit longer before going to bed.

I know that I have occasions where I just have had enough and I lose it with them, so I know how my husband felt.  I am trying hard lately though to try and not get to that stage and to try and stay as calm as I can.  It isn’t always possible, sometimes you just lose it and I think anyone that tells you they’ve never lost it with their child (especially if it is a child with behavior issues) is probably lying.  We’re only human and it is a difficult job to raise and deal with a child that has behavior issues and it’s normal to show cracks and lose it from time to time.

It was a nurse at the hospital a couple of weeks ago that told me that if anyone denies ever ‘losing it’ then they are lying.  That was when I did reach the point of not being able to take any more and I went to slap Corey on the arm.  We were doing dishes at the time and Corey was holding a metal spatula thing and when I went to slap him, he went to put his arm up in defense and my wrist came down onto the spatula and cut open my wrist.  I ended up with 7 stitches in my wrist.  When it is a cut across the wrist, it isn’t easy trying to explain to people what happened – a lot of people just assume that I tried to cut my own wrist being in that position.  I just tell everyone that I had an accident while doing the dishes – which it was, I know it was an accident and if anything it was my own fault for losing it.

But I guess it did teach me to try and be more calm and not to lose the plot so quickly.  I think since this happened I have really put an effort into being calmer with the kids which is a good thing.  I have brought in some new rules and they miss out on things for being naughty and I’m being tough in that sense and sticking to my guns when I tell them that they are banned or missing out on something.  For example, we have a rule that they only have friends over after school or go to a friends house on Mondays and Fridays.  Now, we’ve added to that rule that if they are constantly fighting and their behavior is really bad at home, then they don’t have anyone over at all.  Last week they had no-one over on Monday for bad behavior and so for the next few days they were quite good and so they had friends over on Friday.  They have been fighting constantly over the weekend so today I’ll be sticking to my guns and not letting them have anyone over.  I know they won’t be happy about it, but they learn quite quickly when you enforce rules like that.  Especially when their little brother does get to have someone over because he does behave.

Anyway, I’m raving again, I know that once I get started I usually rave on a bit.  So back to the hug therapy….. that was my point of this post, in my new quest to stay calmer with the kids I have used the hugging to calm Corey a couple of times and it has worked very well.  Sometimes I think that’s all he needs is a big hug.  I think he often feels so lost and like he doesn’t fit in.  Sometimes I think he gets quite jealous of his little brother who is a real affection kid and is always coming and giving me hugs.  Then with Corey who is always naughty I usually don’t feel like hugging him, so I know Lachlan does get more affection and I think that really does bother Corey.

So, as well as trying to stay calm, I think I really do need to put more effort into showing Corey more affection too.

Lots of hugs – you can never give your kids too many hugs!

Thanks for reading and I hope you and your kids have a lovely day
Sheryl
My-Beautiful-Boy.com