The Forums › Forums › Ask The Community › Risk too high – No longer allowed meds › Re: Risk too high – No longer allowed meds
If your child’s Psychiatrist has said there is nothing more she can do, then you need to find another one. Just because she is head of the ADHD clinic in a major children’s hospital doesn’t mean she has all the answers.
The trouble with Psychiatrists is that, generally, their treatments only involve prescribing medications. The trouble with Psychologists is that their treatments only involve non-medication-based therapies. The trouble with this system is that the most effective way of treating any mental condition is with a combination of medications and behavioural therapy. Often, in order for the patient’s brain to be receptive to the behavioural therapy, it is necessary to administer medications to adjust the brain’s faulty chemistry. Like needing training wheels to help you learn to ride a bike.
I am concerned about the use of some of the punishments you listed, because my parents were (and are) very strict. As the child who was always being punished, I know how it made me feel. And I know that I still think of my parents as controlling disciplinarians, doling out the punishment, no matter how hard I tried (and try) to please them. These memories far outnumber the sweet ones.
Punishments can be effective in disciplining a child without ADHD, but you must remember that your child is not being deliberately oppositional. He cannot help it, because his brain works differently. And, being developmentally delayed, his brain is also functioning at a level that is younger than his physical age. He wants to behave, but when he encounters a situation which could be risky or “bad”, or require delaying gratification, his brain lacks the ability to stop and consider the outcome. So he just plunges in and does it, and gets into trouble. By punishing your child for his misbehaviour, you may actually be making him feel like he is a bad person with no hope of redemption. This makes him fight back and he may even grow to hate you for always punishing him—instead of seeing you as the loving mother who is so desperate to help him by teaching him right from wrong.
Of course, he needs to be steered in the right direction, and he does need to learn that there are consequences for his misbehaviour, but shaming him or taking away his possessions or physically punishing him will only reinforce his own feelings of inadequacy and failure—feelings which he can’t describe or understand, so can only express by lashing out. Again, I speak from my own experience as the frequent, repeated recipient of such punishments.
Exercise can be very effective at reducing symptoms. But, if your child has come to associate it with punishment, he will be very resistant to it. Is there any way you can help him to find regular exercise that doesn’t feel like exercise? If he just thinks it’s fun, he’ll look forward to doing it. When I was little, Mom had me doing so many dance lessons and skating lessons and even going to the roller rink on Saturdays, that I was getting over 8 hours of structured exercise a week. No wonder I could concentrate so well in school…even if I did resent the fact that I was so busy that I never had much time to myself.
So, please, find another Psychiatrist and Psychologist for your troubled son. Do not give up on him, as your Psychiatrist seems to have done. He is worthy of being helped and loved. In fact, the more he fights back, the more desperately he’s asking for that love and help.
REPORT ABUSE