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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I remember these days with my son.  Tantruming.  Hoarding.  The only restaurants we could go to were sports bars and then only if there was a game so that our son was barely noticable because everyone has bad behavior in a sports bar.  Violence toward his little brother.  Intentional wetting himself.

A couple of things.  I found that consequences didn't work and only made things worse so I didn't and still don't use them, except natural consequences.  I don't necessarily save him from his own behavior.  I believe things like lying come from fear - my son has been with us for almost 11 years and still lies if he thinks he's going to get in trouble.  So, I never punish lies (but I don't punish anyway) and I make it safe for him as I force the truth out of him.

Things that worked for us are these.  Every single day, we wrote our schedule on a dry erase board so that my son knew exactly what to expect.  If we were changing the schedule, we changed the dry erase board first.  It was really detailed for months (maybe a year) and then we gradually weaned by using abbreviations or larger categories of activity.  It's a pain but was really successful.  Another thing is that we probably over explained what to expect for each situation so that he was never surprised and we could give him ideas about how to behave.  We put a chair in the kitchen, which tends to be the center of activity in our house, that he could use when he needed a break.  He could go there or we could suggest it and he could leave it anytime he felt ready.

We also changed our home environment based on his needs.  For example, we got rid of our kitchen table and put shelves in the space because he needed to learn to organize and not lose things.

I got really good at identifying antecedent behaviors and cues because, in my experience, avoiding bad behavior and unsuccessful reactions was far better than dealing with the consequences and it provides teaching opportunities as well.

We eventually turned the corner, but it was about a year and a half after he moved in.  In fact, things got good enough that we got another kid.  Good luck, OP and I hope things get better soon.  [/quote]

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