Greetings! New to this site.
Thoughts or Suggestions would be greatly appreciated here.
My one concern is my youngest son, he is 6 and in speech has an active IEP but my recent concern is his anger. His father travels, might explain a lot but he does not travel all the time. He is very difficult to deal with when dad is not home, especially with his two older siblings. The worst thing you can do is tell him the word NO he simply falls apart and screams and yells “I hate you” “I can’t stand you” the most recent is “I know I am angry but I cannot control it”.
School is becoming harder now that we have entered the 3rd quarter, review of Kindergarten has passed and new cirr. is being presented. His teachers have noticed a change in his behavior not nastyness but sadness different display at school than at home. His teachers and I have talked about this change but are not sure if it is temporary or if this is something we should be concerned about becoming permanent.
He is never a behavioral problem at school, it is quite the opposite but seems to release all of this at home-lucky me. He loves to be helpful to others, is sensative, and my head is spinning on ways to help him.
Re: Childhood anger
Just your standard testing done by school from IEP eval but nothing indicating any concerns. Should I inquire that the school psych. look into this befor paying for services outside of school?
Re: Childhood anger
I would do both. Ask for a full evaluation from the school and also get a full psychiatric evaluation with a private psychiatrist. As I stated, there are a number of issues, some school related, some neurologically based, that can cause the problems you are seeing.
[quote]The worst thing you can do is tell him the word NO he simply falls apart and screams and yells “I hate you” “I can’t stand you” the most recent is “I know I am angry but I cannot control it”. [/quote]
This kind of statement sends up red flags for me. Especially the last statement.
My dd was a bit like your son. When she was younger she was very quiet at school, not really a behavior problem but didn’t really participate. She was the kid who would sit quietly and just not do anything, looking sad and confused. At home we got a lot of the “I hate you”, “You don’t know anything”, tantrums over being told “No”, difficulty sleeping, low frustration threshold, etc. School eval only showed ADHD and a reading disability. It wasn’t until we took her for a thorough eval that we found out she has Bipolar. Even that didn’t totally explain things, so a year later we had a Neuropsych eval which revealed multiple LDs.
Kids are complex and it can take some work to unravel what is going on. Your son is lucky that you are asking questions and looking for answers early. Good luck on your journey, wherever it may take you. :)
Psychologist vs psychiatrist
You definitely should get your son evaluated by both the school psychologist and a psychiatrist. He may need therapy and/or medication or a medication change. I have a student who is 13 and who has anger problems that weren’t treated when he was younger, and it is very hard to deal with him now. Some days he can work and learn, other days, he spends in the time-out room (his choice or ours) because he can’t control himself. He is extremely bright, but severly dyslexic and hyperactive. When he’s angry, he can’t stay in class, and he isn’t able to continue with and profit from his reading instruction. He’s on the verge of a break-through with his reading, but we can’t get any consistency in instruction to make it stick. Uncontrolled anger usually gets worse as the kids get older, particularly as puberty kicks in, so don’t let this issue linger.
Fern
Has he had a thorough psychiatric or neuropsych evaluation? There are a lot of things that can cause these types of issues.