Therapy for young children

For me, I had to find a therapist who was a good fit for me. With my parenting philosophy, with my style, with what I needed from a therapist. There is a wide range and because I was a therapist (in a former life, pre-kids), I didn't want to deal with some 20-something just out of grad school - I WAS that therapist and I realize now that I didn't know jack diddly. We found a good therapist and therapy was moderately helpful. For our sessions, probably 40% of the value was having someone who understood my frustrations and validated my concerns and could brainstorm different approaches with me, 30% of the value was having someone else talk to my DH about what my DD needs, and 30% was getting an outsider to look at and use different words to talk to my DD. She was also able to do work with DD on her birthfamily that I wouldn't have thought that DD was ready for and set the ground work for future work along those lines for DD.

Okay, guys. What I wanted you to tell me was that therapy was an amazing thing for your kids and they are doing great now . . . :arrow: Okay. So, no quick fix. At this point, though, I'll take moderately helpful. Even having a knowledgeable person to brainstorm with would be a relief. Minibus - I can totally see that. I've seen 3 different therapists now, and it was only the last one that made me think she was someone I could really work with. She asked what seemed like very knowledgeable questions, specifically asked about things like boundary issues that are related to emotional dysregulation (and are an issue for DJ) that I would not have connected and was able to give me a general picture of how therapy might go for him and how she would get started with our family. The first two seemed to want me to walk them through what we needed when I'm looking for someone who knows enough to give me some guidance. She also seemed able to grasp a good picture of DJ in all of his wonderful complexity - sensory issues, highly gifted and wildly asynchronous. As the NeuroPsych said, "He will be a very interesting and challenging child to raise."

Therapy was semi helpful but what we realized is that it is a NEUROLOGICAL issue not a behavioral issue. For us, Risperadol was life changing and continues to be. It makes life manageable. And yes, things weren't bad when he was little -- but now he is 200 pounds of solid muscle and can do a lot of damage. There is NO behavioral technique that would ever work for him in that moment of a rage -- its his brain misfiring NOT a choice. As I have explained to endless docs etc that 99% of the time he is manageable (15% of that time he is pretty difficult) but that last 1% is downright scary. But that 1% isn't very often -- but what scares me is that something will happen during that moment that can't be undone. We have lots of techniques we use to prevent him from getting to that point - lots and lots of physical activity (a trampoline has been a great tool !!() he plays sports daily. We find his "currency" to remind him to be self motivated when he is still in that place where he can control himself (BEFORE things escalate). And we talk a lot when he is calm . ZERO point talking about behavior when he is escalated. He will still comply with a removal request (he will go to his room) and we have to be SUPER firm with boundaries. (beyond what is normal for a 17 year old). As long as he knows where the boundaries of behavior are -- he does better. MUCH better.

So you wanted us to lie to you? Then you should've titled your post "Lie to me, please" Hee hee! Anyone who tells you that therapy with a random therapist is the immediate answer to their problems either has no clue or is lying. I think that you do need to find the best fit, and it sounds like you've found a great possibility in this last therapist! Good luck!

Tell me lies . . . Tell me sweet little lies. (Tell me, tell me lies!) :p Sorry. I had a little Fleetwood Mac moment. Thanks for the good luck wishes! I don't want to start with medication. But I do think this is neurological more than behavioral. So we'll see how it goes over time, I guess. You description sounds a bit like DJ, Jen. Often wonderful. Pretty regularly challenging. And occasionally, just plain out of control. And when he's a teenager - especially an African American teenaged boy - those kinds of rages would have the potential for some scary consequences.

My son is an AMAZING big brother with the littles. He is incredible gentle, loving and playful. He has an amazing smile and most people never, ever see the challenging side of him. He is athletically gifted and despite learning differences will graduate high school with really good grades. At 5 I would have said he was difficult but would have denied CLEARLY that he had any significant issues. Beyond age 8 or so he was able to control himself the vast majority of the time in public (although that is the age I had to home school him for 4 years). He is very peer oriented, so he holds it together VERY well at school for the most part. In fact, it took them years to see even glimpses of the behaviors we do. he does MUCH better in small classes with lots of teacher interaction -- he would have been destroyed in a public high school. Going backwards, y age 8 or 9 his behavior at home had escalated to a very difficult point for us essentially nothing had matured beyond what his behaviors were at age 5 or 6. So while raging can be "normal" for a 5 year old when they don't get their way, it is not normal for 9 year old. -- we also were very ANTI medication until age 10 or so and we realized that the whole family (including sibs) were being held hostage by his "moods" -- and he was targeting another son consistently which was VERY damaging. We also took him entirely off refined sugar for a period of time which greatly helped (although by puberty he was back to eating normally). It is a journey -- you will be wise to connect IRL to other parents who have been down this road. FASD or NAS or anything else that causes frontal lobe damage (and thus emotional regulation issues) is really tough -- knowing your child and you are NOT going crazy really does help ;)

My son is only 5 and will be 6 in March. He threw fits over the smallest things. One time I told him not to eat the bubbles and he cried for 20 minutes. He obsessed a lot and would not let us snuggle him or do much hugging him. He started taking respirdal at 4 and we started play therapy. We did it for a couple of months and because he was becoming stable with the meds and it was an hour and half drive to the doctor we stopped going. I cannot think of what kind of therapy it was called but it was a specific method. It was about giving him the control during the play therapy time. We just stopped with the respirdal and all he takes is an ADHD med and the teachers at school do not see the emotional or obsessive behaviors that we saw when he was little. We don't see them as much either. He is just really HYPER at school. He is still moody at time and will go through phases were he is hard to be around but other time he is great and easy to get along with.

So I guess I'll be the one to lie to you....or give a different train of thought. My little boy is 6-8ish months younger than DJ but reading your posts always reminds me of my guy. We also work with emotional dysregulation. We started OT for his sensory issues about 5 months ago and honestly he is a different child. I will admit we have an amazing OT and she has worked with him, and taught us how to work with him when we sense a meltdown and after meltdowns. We also work on strategies for when he feels upset when he is perfectly calm. We see meltdowns less than once a month and we were dealing with them at least daily. He use to get agressive (like pulling hair or hitting me or his sister) more often than the meltdowns and we haven't had any agression for several weeks. We do a lot of work with him outside of OT but we have seen results we never anticipated when we started treating the SPD. Is it perfect? No. Does he still have emotional dysregulation? I would say definitely yes but now he recognizes it and is learning to manage it himself. Is therapy a cure all? No. Is it a quick fix? No. But DJ is smart and I think with the right therapist you will be amazed at how much improvement you will see. Everyone responds to things differently but for us the OT has been invaluable.

Thanks. This gives me some good food for thought. I'm still wrapping my head around what "emotional dysregulation" means and how it fits in with the SPD and just plain temperament. I suspect that DJ would have been an intense kid anyway. It's just so much a part of who he is. So we'll see how this goes. I'm not someone who is going to absolutely rule out medication. If that turns out to be what he needs, we'll do it. But we'll see how therapy goes, first. Hopefully it will work for him as well as it does for your son lovin - that's nice to hear.Ladyinred - We really see the moodiness. DJ "grumps" around the house often after school. My theory is that he works so hard at trying to hold it together at school, that he's just cranky when he gets home. He goes on and on about how this person teased him and that person isn't his friend anymore and his teacher is mean . . . I think he's just venting to blow off steam because a lot of what he says isn't really true. It's when he's raging after school that I know things are really getting bad - even when his teachers aren't seeing a change. It's hard because he is SO verbal and SO independent that people expect him to really have his act together. He just can't live up to that. I have a hard time getting them to see that their discipline standards are really not realistic for him. He's not seeking attention (which is what his teacher tells me). He really can't do it without help. I'm so apprehensive about kindergarten next year. He's not going to be an easy kid to teach. At this point, we're figuring that we'll need to spend some of his college fund on therapy and private schools now in the hopes that as he matures, he'll be able to handle things better. This stuff is way above what a teacher's salary will pay for, which is incredibly stressful in and of itself. But what can we do? Jen - The wonderful thing is that I have 2 friends who have sons that are A LOT like DJ. It's just worked out that way. We've known each other since our boys were babies. But they all have similar histories and we are all at similar stages of just getting evaluations and recommendations, therapy and medications. It's an automatic support group! Not exactly BTDT, but at least I know it's not just us!

I am right there with you Oak in regards to Kindy. Currently the Queen is at an in-home Montessori Preschool. She is begging me to let her stay there next year. The teacher is saying she can teach her Kindergarten if we want to stay. I am leaning in the direction of letting her stay to give her one more year to mature & work thru some sensory issues.

Makes sense to me. With kids like ours, why mess with something that's working? If DJ's Montessori school was a great fit for him, I'd jump at it. They do go up through kindergarten. As it is, DJ has always had ups and downs at his school. In some ways it fits him well, but in other ways . . . Oy. The schools we are looking at have class sizes of 15 - 16 with 2 teachers. I think he's really going to need something like that. He's going to need a completely adapted curriculum and a teacher who is very patient. Push comes to shove and I may end up homeschooling him.

I will say that you should make those choices carefully. I knew - deep down - that my son would not survive in a large class, and I was absolutely right. Every pre-conceived notion I have had about education, I have tossed :)I ended up home schooling him grades 3,4,5 and 6 and then transitioned him into a small private school into a 6/7 split class that hired me as the Teacher's Aide. :) He has continued all the way through high school at that same private school (for comparison sake, my son a year older and son a year younger are both attending public high schools). We have found an excellent tutor, a wonderful school and understands his quirks (over time) and a supportive staff that listen to us. If you can nurture that type of educational environment for your "tougher" kids - I strongly encourage it. And you need to be prepared that typical school environments may not be supportive for atypical kids.

Jen and I have been on similar journeys for many years. Don't discount medication right away when you are looking at emotional disreg. Medication can help put a child in a position where he can learn techniques to manage the moods/emotions. Without meds, the emotions/meds may be too explosive to be receptive to learning. I have three boys between 12 and 17, two of which have/had similar issues. The learning and coping phases didn't begin until the moods could be stabilized.

At 5, doing therapy without you participating is pointless, in my opinion. You might look into theraplay. Doing sessions with you might be helpful and if it's a good therapist with lots of adoption experience, he/she might be able to give you good incite on things you might do at home to help your son.

Lucy, I think that's the idea with this therapist. Initially, the suggestion from the neuropsychologist was to have US work with a therapist on ways to help DJ. I think the therapist we are going to see wants to work with the whole family - DJ included. The 3 sessions with him alone are part of an evaluation process.