What do you dream about in terms of a life for yourself?

[Anonymous]

Last month I was on a business trip and I thought about just not coming back. I just don't know when this nightmare with an explosive child will ever end.

[Anonymous]

I have been there. I used to have terrible thoughts. It has gotten so much better. Please, join the B team on Facebook, lean into the Ross Greene model, and remove demands. If the traditional model - incentives and consequences - don’t work for your kid, they are not going to work, and you need something different. My kid was destructive, aggressive, and tending for them was all consuming. A few years later, they are none of those things. We understand what they need and what they can do, and they can do more and more as time goes on. It has gotten so much better, but only once we totally changed approaches.

Sending all the sympathy and support. It is so hard and isolating and sad. I have cried under my desk after getting calls from police. It can get better, really.

[Anonymous]

07:03 how old was your child when you started your new approach?

[Anonymous]

They were 12. 16 now. Moving into a less restrictive school environment. Talking about college. Has friends. Hobbies that are not video games. Takes showers regularly.

Honestly, it was terrifying. They spent probably three or four months doing nothing but screens. I can now recognize they were in autistic burnout. Asperger experts has some helpful advice on this. But once they started to trust that we weren’t going to demand things or take things away or force things or punish, they started to come out of it. This stuff is so so hard. No judgment, just empathy.

[Anonymous]

Returning to my pre-motherhood vocation. Not making special needs my identity. Some parents have. I was on a webinar yesterday with mothers in their 70s who are still doing all these SN with 39 and 40 year olds. I can't. And it has nothing to do with SN. I was never going to be one of those grandparents who moves next door to provide care to the grandchildren. My goal for my kid is independence and a life of his own. Not in my house. ANd that's not just for me. For the adult children still living at home your death will be traumatic enough. If it also means moving and a transition to a group home for the first time w/o parental support I can't imagine how stressful that will be for the kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They were 12. 16 now. Moving into a less restrictive school environment. Talking about college. Has friends. Hobbies that are not video games. Takes showers regularly.

Honestly, it was terrifying. They spent probably three or four months doing nothing but screens. I can now recognize they were in autistic burnout. Asperger experts has some helpful advice on this. But once they started to trust that we weren’t going to demand things or take things away or force things or punish, they started to come out of it. This stuff is so so hard. No judgment, just empathy.

8:05…. We are there right now with our 12 yr old (not the OP) with screens. I’ve finally given up on battling him as much but it pains me that it’s truly all he cares about. How did you get your child out of the screen addiction. We just moved to a private speciality school since public was too much and that is helping some but also that’s all these kids there care about.

[Anonymous]

NP. I really appreciate your sharing your experiences PP with the 16 year old. We are in the midst of everything you describe and anything you can tell us would be really helpful. We're at the point where you were I think with any typical behavioral management techniques and therapy totally failing.

[Anonymous]

I’m the PP with the 16 year old. I never post anywhere, but I recall so clearly feeling so lost and alone with this.

On the screen piece, we used to have very strict limits, and when we changed approaches, we gave them up. Totally. As I mentioned, my disregulated kid did nothing but screens for months. It helped them regulate and trust that we were trying something new. I was terrified that they would never be able to stop. They still use screens way more than I’d like, and read much much less than they used to, but they can r recognize now that YouTube all day makes them crabby, they have productive things that they do with screens (I don’t want to give too many identifying details but they taught themselves some skills from YouTube and now do productive things on the computer too), they recently said that they wanted to read more, and they are able to do nonscreen things. It was terrifying though to go against the common wisdom - the must take away all screen thing, but it worked for us, and helped us rebuild our relationship.

Things that made a difference - listen to the Ross Greene podcasts. Start with the older ones. Join the B team on Facebook. Read The Explosive Child. Learn a little about PDA - it isn’t totally my kid, but he sees himself in some of the traits, and it has been a helpful lens. Find a therapist that understands. We struck gold with a school therapist, and also found a person who wasn’t a clinician but called them self an autism expert of sorts. They are a bit batty but also connected with my kid and helped them see a way out. Lots of people recommend Asberger experts. We found them later and didn’t use them a ton, but it is similar to the Dr. Greene approach and from a neurodiverse perspective. Trust that if traditional methods aren’t working, they won’t. Even our very traditional psychiatrist (who was advocating that we send our kid away) is now on board (and is referring people to our wacky non-clinician).

Hang in there. It is never a straight line of progress but it does change and can get better.

[Anonymous]

One more thing - our kid HATED therapy at that age. They now talk a little bit about being a therapist for neurodiverse people. Finding the right therapy is really hard but has been huge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been there. I used to have terrible thoughts. It has gotten so much better. Please, join the B team on Facebook, lean into the Ross Greene model, and remove demands. If the traditional model - incentives and consequences - don’t work for your kid, they are not going to work, and you need something different. My kid was destructive, aggressive, and tending for them was all consuming. A few years later, they are none of those things. We understand what they need and what they can do, and they can do more and more as time goes on. It has gotten so much better, but only once we totally changed approaches.

Sending all the sympathy and support. It is so hard and isolating and sad. I have cried under my desk after getting calls from police. It can get better, really.

This model and this group are insane and not the answer

[Anonymous]

It saved my kid. Please don’t judge unless you’ve been there. We tried the traditional model (and spent so so much money) for years. This kind of judgment doesn’t help anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m the PP with the 16 year old. I never post anywhere, but I recall so clearly feeling so lost and alone with this.

On the screen piece, we used to have very strict limits, and when we changed approaches, we gave them up. Totally. As I mentioned, my disregulated kid did nothing but screens for months. It helped them regulate and trust that we were trying something new. I was terrified that they would never be able to stop. They still use screens way more than I’d like, and read much much less than they used to, but they can r recognize now that YouTube all day makes them crabby, they have productive things that they do with screens (I don’t want to give too many identifying details but they taught themselves some skills from YouTube and now do productive things on the computer too), they recently said that they wanted to read more, and they are able to do nonscreen things. It was terrifying though to go against the common wisdom - the must take away all screen thing, but it worked for us, and helped us rebuild our relationship.

Things that made a difference - listen to the Ross Greene podcasts. Start with the older ones. Join the B team on Facebook. Read The Explosive Child. Learn a little about PDA - it isn’t totally my kid, but he sees himself in some of the traits, and it has been a helpful lens. Find a therapist that understands. We struck gold with a school therapist, and also found a person who wasn’t a clinician but called them self an autism expert of sorts. They are a bit batty but also connected with my kid and helped them see a way out. Lots of people recommend Asberger experts. We found them later and didn’t use them a ton, but it is similar to the Dr. Greene approach and from a neurodiverse perspective. Trust that if traditional methods aren’t working, they won’t. Even our very traditional psychiatrist (who was advocating that we send our kid away) is now on board (and is referring people to our wacky non-clinician).

Hang in there. It is never a straight line of progress but it does change and can get better.

Would you be willing o share who your wacky non-clinician is that helped your child?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid was destructive, aggressive, and tending for them was all consuming. A few years later, they are none of those things. We understand what they need and what they can do, and they can do more and more as time goes on. It has gotten so much better, but only once we totally changed approaches.

Full disclosure PP, I've read a lot of Ross Greene and I'm not convinced yet. Can you say more about this? What does your child need, what could they do before, and what can they do now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It saved my kid. Please don’t judge unless you’ve been there. We tried the traditional model (and spent so so much money) for years. This kind of judgment doesn’t help anyone.

+1
We've also tried all the regular methods with years of therapists and experts who are highly regarded.
I can see how this approach of letting go of restrictions might work for some children especially those who are more mature and close to realizing themselves that this is the issue and then can be open to learning how to regulate their own behavior. I am very grateful to PP with 16 year old for taking the time to write this. I think there are at least 2-3 of us in this nightmare right now.

[Anonymous]

To 11:54, I think some of the value of the Greene approach is breaking down and prioritizing issues and understanding what the problem is and how to build collaborative solutions. As an example, a kid who won’t brush their teeth - is it because they don’t like the taste of the paste, or it hurts their gums, or they find it boring, or they hate getting out of bed to do it? Those are all different problems that need different solutions (change the paste! Change the brush! Make things a game! Brush before getting ready for bed!), but saying “no screen time unless you brush!” doesn’t fix the problem that was getting in their way to start with.

Another piece for us was just building our relationship back with our kid, and respecting autistic burnout. An example. We took a trip before Covid, and it was awful. Our kid shut down at museums, would physically refuse to go eat, was scary. We just took a big vacation this time, and the kid was a delight. We all understood that he wasn’t going to do all the activities, but would do a thing in the morning and then go back to the hotel to rest and recharge (yes, with screens, which are a familiar thing that help in the new environment and what felt like a scary set of new things). And then he would happily come out to dinner. But we did a lot of talking about what would work what wouldn’t and how we didn’t expect him to be able to do all the activities. He was great, and I’m so proud of him.

He had periods where it was such a struggle to get him to shower. It was embarrassing and awful. But by reducing demands he was able to have more internal resources to do stuff like hygiene again. It is not a problem anymore.

There is so much here, and too much to write, but the short version is that the traditional model wasn’t working. And we needed something else.

I am a little reluctant to share the nonclinician in this forum - you want to create a burner email I can reach out to? Or is there another way?