Meds for Explosive Child
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Anonymous
| My 5yo has explosive behaviors -- sweet one second, raging the next. Blink and Child is sweet again. It's exhausting, infuriating, and causing big problems at school just 3 days in. Child has been in play therapy for six months without significant improvement. I'm questioning our pediatrician on medicines, although it's a route I'd hoped to avoid. We are meeting with the pediatrician tomorrow. Any success stories? Recommendations for/warnings against meds? I'm scared for Child, but more scared of the impact of these behaviors, particularly at school. |
Anonymous
| I think you need to get child assessed to see what driving the behavior before you know what meds would be right- is it ADHD impulsivity? Is it anxiety triggered? Etc |
Anonymous
| Don't be afraid to change therapists if you are not seeing improvement. |
Anonymous
| I would go to a developmental ped. Most regular ped's are not equip to handle SN like that. |
Anonymous
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OP here -- anxiety driven following a traumatic family event last winter. Child cannot handle things not going their way and shows disrespect/rage when reprimanded.
We have a dev ped appointment... in May 2018. Unreal. |
Anonymous
+1000 we went to a top pediatrician in the area and got nowhere on this - just wasted a lot of time and endured a lot of agony for all of us (the kid, the parents, the sitters) |
Anonymous
| These kinds of behavioral issues are outside the expertise of a general pediatrician. Have you had a full neuropsych evaluation done? |
Anonymous
| No on the neuropsych, just a standard psych evaluation to this point. |
Anonymous
| Contact KKI tomorrow. Get on the wait list and plead with the staff you speak with to let them know what is going on. It may sound crazy but it has worked for me. If you can be flexible, you might get in soon. Do this with Childrens too. If you have a girl, call Dan Shapiro as I have heard girls can get in faster. |
Anonymous
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I don't see the harm in giving your DC a small daily dose of Prozac, say 5mg. But only if your pediatrician says its ok.
Stinks that you have wait until May 2018 for your dev ped appointment. It sounds like this can be a long road of diagnosis and treatment. Prozac might make it easier on everyone, including your son. |
Anonymous
| I know this is going to sound strange but it can't hurt to try. Look up the Feingold Diet. When my son was 3 he would have huge tantrums. He would throw, hit and scream. He could not be calmed. It went on daily for hours. He verbalized to me that he was scared when it happened. He couldn't call himself down. These weren't typical tantrums. We were at wits end and certain that he would end up needing psychiatric intervention. Around the same time I read somewhere about how some kids have behavioral reactions to food dyes. I thought it was a long shot but what harm could come from experimenting with going dye free? Well after a few weeks he was much improved. So improved that his ST, OT and teachers also noted the difference. A few times over the first years his behavior would regress and I was able to trace it back to accidental ingestion of dyes each time. What was tough is that dyes hide in places you might not suspect including toothpaste and medicine. |
Anonymous
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I'd do cbt for a bit and if there is no improvement do mess.
What do u do during the explosion? We were told to sit with him and just say "is there anything I cando" while looking at a magazine. Then say "good job calming yourself down" at the end. |
Anonymous
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OP here -- that is interesting about dyes/diet. Thank you -- doesn't hurt to look into it.
Re: what we do -- at home, we ignore the behavior and don't reward tantrums/give into demands. Child usually cools quickly. Ignoring is not as easy in the classroom, when Child is flipping chairs or physically swiping at students. This is what I fear most. Can they kick you out of kindergarten?! Kidding. Kind of. 
There's no rhyme or reason or pattern to outbursts (hunger, tired, etc.). It's generally when Child has an idea of how things will go, and reality doesn't match up. |
Anonymous
| Mess not mess |
Anonymous
Omg meds |