What is going on with so many destructive children??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is 20 and I’ve been posting here about aggression for at least 15 years. There is a lot of shame that comes with a kid who has aggressive behaviors, especially when they are primarily at home. I imagine there are people who didn’t post, even in an anonymous forum, because of the backlash from other parents. Hopefully you are seeing more posts because when people open up, it allows others to do the same. I don’t wish this type of situation on anyone, but every time I see someone post here, I am so glad they reached out for help. It makes it easier for all of us.

Yep. So much shame and just deep-seated black lonely depression when you have a kid like this. My daughter broke my arm once and shoved me down a flight of stairs a week later when I had the cast on. (and no, pp, it wasn't because she was addicted to electronics or becasue we were too permissive.) You can't talk to people about that in real life. No one gets it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Food additives, chemicals, etc
Sugar, so much sugar
Electronics
Electronics
Electronics
Parents that use a diagnosis as an excuse for poor behavior
Inadequate early intervention, waiting until the child is in school to do anything about this.

Trolls love to say this but when pressed offer zero evidence

[Anonymous]

But also a generation ago, violence wasn’t remarkable. A dad who was a judge punched his son outside our exclusive private school. It was rare enough that I remember it, but it wasn’t shocking enough for anyone to report it. Physical discipline still existed. It was acceptable for grown men to fight over women. Boys got into fights over football and girls. Now everyone wants perfectly behaved humans right up to grown-ups gentle parenting. Back then, everyone was messed up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Food additives, chemicals, etc
Sugar, so much sugar
Electronics
Electronics
Electronics
Parents that use a diagnosis as an excuse for poor behavior
Inadequate early intervention, waiting until the child is in school to do anything about this.

Trolls love to say this but when pressed offer zero evidence

And trolls also love to negate everything a professional says and call them a troll because parents hate having the truth staring them in the face.

[Anonymous]

Special needs kids went to different schools previously. My school had a very large special needs program that took up a whole wing. I think it served half of our county. They were grouped by ability. Some were really only getting life skills classes and others were still being taught math/science/english but at a much slower rate.

Fast forward 30 years. My youngest has a non verbal kid in his classroom. He didn’t seem helped by mainstreaming. The other kids were very kind and played with him (so he does get social aspect of school), but he isn’t even remotely near the academic level of the other kids. He also has a 1-1 aide who seemed bored most of the day and likely could have cared for several other kids too if they were in the same classroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remember, there was a global event 5 years ago when overwhelmed parents were told “tough luck” and many of them had to give their kids unlimited and unfiltered screen time in order to be able to put food on the table?

Had to?

[Anonymous]

This has ZERO to do with electronics, sugar and permissive parents. Or whatever other dumb things you try and shift blame to.

This always happened, but we were completely forced into shame and hading about it. No one talked about it. You didn’t know.

On the flip side, US society has embraced a “zero tolerance” for any physical behaviors, so we are flagging every kid who touches anyone as “violent”. My ds had aggressions in K. He wasn’t big enough to hurt anyone, but on a couple occasions when in fight or flight, he swatted/pushed at a teacher to get away. On both occasions, there were other adults present and everyone on the spot made a big deal about it - immediately checking with the teacher in an excessively dramatic way if she was okay and bringing it up in follow up meetings. I was good friends with the teacher and she was like yeah I’m 100 percent fine, that was absolutely nothing. But now ds was labeled violent and aggressive. And I was ashamed and guess where I came? Dcum to vent and seek help, asking about my “violent and aggressive” kid. So I actually think a lot of the heightened reports of violent kids comes from the expanding scope of what we call “violent” in our zero tolerance society.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has ZERO to do with electronics, sugar and permissive parents. Or whatever other dumb things you try and shift blame to.

This always happened, but we were completely forced into shame and hading about it. No one talked about it. You didn’t know.

On the flip side, US society has embraced a “zero tolerance” for any physical behaviors, so we are flagging every kid who touches anyone as “violent”. My ds had aggressions in K. He wasn’t big enough to hurt anyone, but on a couple occasions when in fight or flight, he swatted/pushed at a teacher to get away. On both occasions, there were other adults present and everyone on the spot made a big deal about it - immediately checking with the teacher in an excessively dramatic way if she was okay and bringing it up in follow up meetings. I was good friends with the teacher and she was like yeah I’m 100 percent fine, that was absolutely nothing. But now ds was labeled violent and aggressive. And I was ashamed and guess where I came? Dcum to vent and seek help, asking about my “violent and aggressive” kid. So I actually think a lot of the heightened reports of violent kids comes from the expanding scope of what we call “violent” in our zero tolerance society.

This has always happened. In high school, I was sexually assaulted in the hall on the way to class. In elementary school a boy exposed himself to me and others. Guess what happened? Nothing. I never even reported. That was what girls in the 80s felt was normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remember, there was a global event 5 years ago when overwhelmed parents were told “tough luck” and many of them had to give their kids unlimited and unfiltered screen time in order to be able to put food on the table?

Had to?

MCPS closed our child care center for 5 months. Thankfully we both worked from home at the time and could flex our schedules so screen time was not that much in our situation but I absolutely know people who had to do this for a month or more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Food additives, chemicals, etc
Sugar, so much sugar
Electronics
Electronics
Electronics
Parents that use a diagnosis as an excuse for poor behavior
Inadequate early intervention, waiting until the child is in school to do anything about this.

Trolls love to say this but when pressed offer zero evidence

And trolls also love to negate everything a professional says and call them a troll because parents hate having the truth staring them in the face.

But you are the one who is negating diagnoses given by licensed professionals.

My kid doesn't have aggressive behaviors but I have absolutely encountered this attitude of "you bought a diagnosis" from school staff and I find it so ridiculous and unprofessional. Especially given that my kid has several obvious signs and symptoms consistent with the diagnosis.

[Anonymous]

As others have said you just weren’t hearing about it pp. people are able to be more open now. I was working as a therapist in schools and with families in their home 15 years ago and there were plenty of kids struggling with the behaviors you describe in both places. As you can imagine the parents feel a lot of shame (you can see the judgement here). These families lives are so so hard and they are often doing everything they can

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve been on dcum for 15+ years now. And I’ve been on this board for many of those years for adhd/anxiety and not for PDA or ODD or Autism. So forgive me if I’m ignorant.

But I feel like in the past couple of years there has been an exponential increase in parents reporting that their kids are destructive and/or violent at home and sometimes at school. I went through years of school and never saw this. My kids are late teens and went to two different elementary schools (due to a move) and middle/high schools and have never been in a class whose room had to be cleared.

Every day there’s a new post about a child being destructive. What is happening nowadays? Something has changed. Are these kids unable to cope because of WiFi signals constantly messing them up? Some sort of additive in our food supply? Autism and ODD certain existed before, and I know it was under diagnosed, I get that, but what is going on with the physical behaviors that are putting classes and homes at risk of being destroyed?

People on this board may trust each other more. THe judgy ones like OP are fewer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remember, there was a global event 5 years ago when overwhelmed parents were told “tough luck” and many of them had to give their kids unlimited and unfiltered screen time in order to be able to put food on the table?

Had to?

MCPS closed our child care center for 5 months. Thankfully we both worked from home at the time and could flex our schedules so screen time was not that much in our situation but I absolutely know people who had to do this for a month or more.

if screen time was the worst thing that happened to you 5 years ago, you are lucky

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remember, there was a global event 5 years ago when overwhelmed parents were told “tough luck” and many of them had to give their kids unlimited and unfiltered screen time in order to be able to put food on the table?

Had to?

DP. Well, I suppose the very rich ones had more options.

[Anonymous]

You hear more because these aggressive kids are now mainstreamed, causing the normal kids’ education to suffer. My elementary school children come home with stories every week about how a kid in their class “crashed out” and attacked someone or destroyed something.