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My son is 11 years old and has been diagonsed with ADHD since he was 5. Latly he has been showing serious anger issues, mainly at church. This morning he had an episode in Sunday School and had to leave the room. When I came to talk to him, he told me that he wished everyone would leave him alone. After a little bit of prodding he said he was upset with my DH (step-dad). Which I knew was not the only reason for the problem, since I was there that morning when they had the discussion about the grades. I decided to take him home and we had a talk. I was not angry at him, but I wanted to know what was really bugging him. I found out that he is being picked on extremely bad at school so when he comes home and we get on to him, then goes to church and they get on to him about something, he feels like it is a chain reaction and he basically can not get any peace. I see his point exactly and I plan on having a discussion with the school tomorrow. I also told him to start keeping a journal of everything that happenes to him at school, mainly cause he has a really bad memory. Is there anything else I can do and I am worried about his anger issues, are these normal for ADHD kids? I will discuss all of this with his doctor, but DS appt. is not till the end of next month and I cannot get in any earlier. I called last week trying to get another appt. I am hoping someone has some idea of what I can do until then.
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Sniffles, I know quite a few kids with ADHD who are socially "akward", does your son happen to be? If so, perhaps you could find some kid-friendly books in the areas he needs help in. I know he'll get bored, but you might need to take him to SS with you for a while. The equation of him acting up + being corrected by teacher=him getting embarassed, may be making him angry. If his anger problems are considerably worse at church, there might be more to the story. I would hope, that if/when he acts up in his class, that his teacher(s), aren't making comments to him about what God thinks of his behavior. Could he have an underlying issue of "being mad" at God for some reason, making going to Church, a huge struggle for him?
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You didn't say whether or not your son is on medication for his adhd. If he is not, it may be time to look into it. It is a hard decision to medicate our kids, but an adhd child that can't make it thru a day without constantly being remprimanded because he can't sit still, or shut up or even focus will soon become a very angry child.
If he is already on meds I would recommend getting into the dr as soon as possible and seeing what can be done. It may be that it is time to up his dosage (they usually need increases as they get older, up to a certain age, then they can slowly start decreasing again). Or it may be time to try a different adhd med. There are so many different ones and each one effects each person just a little differently. I have 3 adhd children, one bio, two adopted. All three are on different strenghts of different meds, even though the difference is weight from lightest to heaviest is less than 3 pounds.
Ok, he is doing a little better, well at least today he was. He is on meds and they did try once to change to something else and it was like he was not taking it at all. It maybe time to up his dosage. I know when we started going to this doctor he switched him from Addreall Xl to just Addreall. Before school started back up he switched him back. The dosage has always stayed the same. Bumblebee I spoke with his SS teacher, youth director, and the pastor, they told me that they have not made those kind of comments and I privatly told the pastor that I may be a christian, but I will not put up with comments like that being said to my children (childhood issues w/me due to comments like that). I did have a long talk with DS about how he can not do just the fun stuff, that he needs to attend class also. I am starting to think that this may have been part of the problem. He wants to play and have fun, but not want to participate in the work part. As far as school goes, I have had a long talk with the principal and I was told that they do not tolerate bullying of any kind and when my DS went to speak to him we found out that some of this stuff happened months ago. He did have one instance happen to him this week and he did not go and talk to the principal. I discussed with him that if he wants it to stop then he needs to tell someone. My main concern is the anger. It seems he is using anger as a new way to express his feelings instead of throwing a fit. Is this normal for ADHD? We do go back to the doctor on Dec. 11 and I can not get in any ealier. I am on a waiting list for cancelations, but we live 40 miles away so we can not take the last minute ones. I at least need to know the day before.