I need some parents advice about my adhd 11 yr old son,,,,hes acting up in school already and not doing the ?

Question

work...being disruptive and etc....he is on meds

he CAN do the work and he CAN behave he just chooses not to..

right now of course he is grounded and has every privilege possible taken away.....but still acting up in school.....arguing withother students

now that he has every privilege taken away(TV, Video games radio, etc).....the only other thing that i can take away is visiting his dad everyother weekend.........my question is is that too harsh , taking away the visitation......trust me that his dad would be ok with that.....ijust dont know if not seeing his dad would be a proper punishment.....ihave nothing else to take away.....please help

Answer 1

Wow!

You are in a GREAT position to try positive training.  You have taken away all the rewards, and all you have to do is establish clear, reachable behavior targets so he can begin earning priveliges again.

  Clearly punishment has not worked so far, so it's unlikely that removing another privelidge (seeing Dad) would help, and it might backfire pretty badly (if it's even legal).  Too much punishment and kids get to feeling bad, and they shut down and stop trying.  

I'm sure you love your son very much, have a talk with him, about how you can help him begin earning back these privelidges.  I bet he's feeling pretty discouraged right now.  Conspire to help him succeed.  Think of how joyfully you helped him learn to walk and talk.  

Since he's away from you during school, you will not be shaping his behavior moment by moment, so you will have to establish a chart or calendar, where he can see his daily (or hourly) progress.  You want him to succeed FAST so break down your behavior goals into small enough chunks that he can get a taste of success right away.  Get out those gold stars, and stick them on his chart for every teeny little goal he improves upon, even if it's just getting out of bed on-time or closer to on-time, or clearing up his breakfast plate.

There are no instant makeovers, you have to meet him where he is, and NOTICE and communicate his improvements no matter how small.  You're shaping his behavior;  Like modelling in clay, you don't aim for perfection to begin with, but gradually, lovingly and persistently you'll shape his behavior in the direction of success.  ADHD children require extraordinary parenting, but the results are well worth the effort.  These kids are just so ALIVE.    

Since your intent is to change his direction, you need to pay close attention to small changes and let him know you noticed!  You'll also have to persuade his teachers and Dad to LOOK FOR  and ACKNOWLEDGE his improvements too.  Your son will take shy little baby steps in the beginning to see if he can trust you.  If you carefully attend to training him, his progress will astonish and surprise you.  The more responsive his environment (you and the school) are to his progress the better and faster his success will be.

To enhance your chances of continued success, do your best to educate yourself on known causes of behavioral and mood disruption.  You have removed a lot of privelidges so far, how about removing some of the causes of the problem behaviors?  Most of them are likely diet or chemical related (Your doctor will not have heard yet that room scents are neuro-active, and are on the road to being banned, are they in your son's classroom or your bathroom?).  Inhaled chemicals get into the bloodstream without being filtered through the digestive system, so can have rapid and potent effects on mood and behavior.  Ask any cigarette smoker!    

Of course provide a healthy diet, with lots of protein, raw veggies and minimal sugar.  A healthy mind resides in a healthy body, but if you can only make one change, Omega-3 oils are essential nourishment for growing brains, and very effective mood enhancers.  A tablespoon of flax oil a day helps keep the grumpies away, and studies show it to be more effective with mood disorders and ADHD than most prescriptions.    

Check out born to explore, http://borntoexplore.org/

it's a veritable encyclopedia on AD(H)D and has helped my family enormously, as has the Omega Plan (diet) which helps you provide food for your child's brain.  The Feingold diet helps you isolate and the eliminate psycho-active food-additives that that your child is eating daily.  http://www.feingold.org/

The Omega Plan:  http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/canada...

Answer 2

don't take away his visitation of his dad, that could come back to bite you in the butt. (plus you need the break from him too). I would get him back to the dr and possible look at increasing/decreasing his dosage or maybe even trying a different med all together. I know my kids started out on Adderal and after about 6 months, we saw that it wasn't working, even at the highest level. So we switched them to Concerta and they are doing wonderfully on it. My youngest is on the Daytrona patch (he won't swallow pills) and I found I had to decrease his dosage, he was being over stimulated. He may have out grown his current dosage/ med so it's wise to have it checked out with the dr every 3-4 months. They grow a lot faster than we would like.

Best of luck.

Edit: Just to let you know, he may be starting puberty and that can play a big role in messing with his meds. Same with discovering GIRLS. My then 11 yr old son (he's 12 1/2) discovered Girls at that age and it messed with him and his meds big time, the girls were more important than work. Talk with his teacher about how is he really doing with the class. Is he paying attention to her when they are teaching or is he staring at the cute little girl that sits next to him. Believe me, your eyes and ears will learn more about him from the teacher than you will ever get out of him at this age. (I've been there and about to go there again with my 10 1/2 son. What fun!

Answer 3

Grounding and taking this away is a very ineffective way to deal with ADHD.  ADHD kids are unique, they have a very short attention span and tend to live only in the moment.  Consequences need to be immediate, ADHD kids have difficulty associating their actions with consequences and unless they occur immediatly there will be no improvement.  If you do take anything away it needs to be immediate and only for a short period of time.  Your child needs to see the clear begining and the clear end of punishments.  But also need to be able to earn privledges back and experience success.

For example instead of taking away all privledges until his behavior improves in general.  Do it for just a day.  perhaps have his teacher fill out a behavioral report at school everyday which must be signed by his teacher to indicate how his behavior was for the day.  You then view it each night and sign it aswell.  His teacher can rate his behavior each day from excellent to quite poor.  If he has good behavior then have a reward that day, for example a special treat for dessert, being allowed to watch a special TV show, and so on.  If his behavior was poor all entertainment can be taken away for a few hours.  ie no TV, playing outside, computer, music, video games and so on.  If the behavior is very poor he could lose all those privledges for the full evening.  This way he has a chance everyday to work on his behavior.  each day he gets the right to earn back his privledges and feel like he can experience success.  If he just feels like he is permanantly punished and gives up on trying to improve.  No doubt he will try to cheat the system, so have a rule that if he does not bring the sheet home he is given the same consequence as if the teacher says his behavior has been very poor.

Perhaps it is also time to reasses his medication.  Is it effective?  Is it wearing off during school?  Is he on a high enough dose?  Is he on the right medication?  As a child reaches their pre teen years their condition can  change with the introduction of new hormones.  His treatment may need some changes.

What is he eating before and during school?  Different foods can affect ADHD and make it worse.  ADHD kids also lack certain brain chemicals and some foods destroy these even further.  Avoid soda's, candy, junk food, fast foods and other foods filled with chemicals, preservatives, additives, colors and flavors.  

Answer 4

Is he one of those kids that is really bright, and gets his work done ahead of time so he gets bored? If so, maybe start him on a new series of books he would like so he can read when he's done, or get him one of those nifty drawing pads to keep in his desk.

If he interrupts the teacher, maybe she/he will be willing to set up some kind of point system with you.

My brother was like that. He's on meds, and those help. He's on Concerta, which is time-release, it seems to work better than just Ritalin.

Edit:

Well then I think you should take away everything but the bare minimum; what he needs to live. Let him keep clothes, let him eat supper, but make him help around the house when he's not doing anything else. He'll eventually crack. If not, I think he needs to be meeting with the guidance counselor on a regular basis to get this figured out.

Have you and his dad always been separated? If not, how long ago did this happen? Could it possibly be stress from that?

Answer 5

I would be taking away snack foods, clothing pieces, and every other small convenience before even considering removing a parents visitation for bad behavior. Even after removing all of those things I would be looking for counseling, mentoring and other choices. I honestly don't think revoking a parents visitation is going to make your son behave better. And in the end it may hurt their relationship.

Answer 6

grounding him and taking privilegeges away is just going to make him act out more. ask him whats really bothering him.  not seeing his dad would not be a punishment that would be just sad. i would not do that. just help him get thru whatever he is going thru. something is making him mad, and it might be you taking everything away

Answer 7

Its called ADHD meds...