<p>It’s his sister.</p>
<p>“The hostile, conflicted relationships that evolve are not, as traditionally thought, a result of poor parents, but of parents whose parenting is shaped by a difficult child. It might take an extraordinarily calm parent to keep a genetically loaded infant from developing the disorder.” from a Psychology Today article
<a href=“The Chaos That Borderline Personality Can Generate | Psychology Today”>http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201308/kings-and-queens-chaos</a></p>
<p>Can’t read that whole article on my phone but it seems to be about an adult borderline personality disorder, not a kid with a budding conduct disorder. Intervention would be different, and even if a parent is advised to respond calmly, that is fine so as to keep the situation from escalating, but the unacceptable and unsafe behavior of a 7 year old should be handled by the parents. Not ignored or minimized. And with kids ideally the consequence should be addressed as close to the incident occurrence as possible. Not a week later. </p>
<p>The parents may not know what TO do. The difficult child shapes the parenting. Finding a professional to help can be next to impossible.</p>
<p>Absolutely. Getting professional help is key. But the first step to fixing a problem is recognizing that there is one.</p>
<p>Since you live nearby, can you ask within your community for referrals to professionals who are recommended for dealing with conduct disorder, ODD, and similar issues? If you find someone who sounds good, you or your husband could say that you met someone who was saying their kid had similar issues and had good results from visits with this person.</p>
<p>And what happens if the sister says" Oh I’d love to talk to the person who has a child with similar issues! Can you give me their name?" Bending the truth is not advisable. A gentle but direct approach along the lines of “my wife and I are concerned about some of the behaviors we experienced at thanksgiving and apparently there have been other incidents that wife witnessed that were also concerning. We thought it was best to be sure you were aware of it so that you can address them, in case you were not aware of them. But we simply can’t accept those behaviors in our home” or words to that effect.</p>
<p>I applaud you and your hubby for following up in such a thoughtful way, @eyemamom. It’s easier to just not interact or to kind of tell them off in a way that you know might be alienating. That takes a lot of insight to try to find a way to frame the discussion so that you will be heard, not only for the sake of future family relations but for the kid in question and his sibling (not to mention society at large). </p>
<p>Something that DH and I both found interacting with many many kids through coaching is that it’s easier to help a kid with situations around their disability if you have communication about what that is. Even stubborn, private parents are often willing to share if you describe how that confidential information will help you to better interact with and support their kid. I hope that your SIL will respond positively to your DH taking that “this is what we see, we are concerned, how can we help?” tack.</p>
<p>Our DS was recently screened for and diagnosed with ADHD. As part of the work up there was embedded screening to eliminate or confirm other possible diagnoses. There were many questions that would have captured some of the behaviors that you describe and as an arm chair psychologist they seemed to be trying to separate out depression, anxiety disorders, autism spectrum and oppositional defiant disorder. I don’t know when your nephews testing was done but it could be that at a young age with less data some of those distinctions weren’t identified. Again, they may be holding more diagnostic information privately and using ADHD as a public diagnosis that people will understand but it is also possible that those things weren’t as differentiated when he had his workup.</p>
<p>Anyway, good job and good luck.</p>
<p>I can tell you, my sis and BIL were in such denial about their son (2nd child) needing speech therapy (and sis actually is certified to teach K - 8 and has Master’s in Library Science). The kindergarten screening that their school system did had it become something they then dealt with - if they sought out the evaluation earlier, intervention earlier could have taken place. Part of sis’s problem was uptight and older H who would almost act like he was on a cliff edge with any small child issue - he didn’t even handle normal things like kid noise and sqabbling…I even heard on a short visit “I can’t take this!” Speech issues with several of our kids on my side of the family (including one of mine - two got intervention early). If my nephew’s speech issue would have been addressed sooner, it would have helped his self esteem in those young years. However my sis was totally stressed with calming H, and being the full parent as well as juggling other duties/responsibilities.</p>
<p>The child with the menancing eyes - that is anger. Kids can have weird ideas and right from wrong does need to be continually monitored esp when there are issues with the child.</p>
<p>I saw where a 12 year old nearly drown - he went under water longer than he should have, and the other kids on the side of the pool pushed him down with their feet twice - which caused him to take in water and sink to the bottom of the pool. He had a near death experience. They pulled him out, pushed his diaphragm and gave him CPR and he expelled the water in his lungs.</p>
<p>When a child acts out and some misbehavior - they want attention, even if it is negative attention. They don’t have boundaries - and w/o more advanced judgment as you indicate, need constant supervision with other living things (animals and other children).</p>
<p>As others have said on this thread, they need additional parent skills and interventions. If you child was diabetic, certainly you would give them the medical attention and handle them differently than a child w/o diabetes. Our society sometimes does not deal well with emotional/behavioral/mental issues.</p>
<p>Good plan eyemamom. I love the hug too. Maybe some web sites, info on school and professional resources. Try to find a psychiatrist that is board certified in child and adolescent. Once the child is properly evaluated…</p>
<p>I think you have a great plan in place. I do hope this talk goes well and is well received.</p>
<p>There is something seriously wrong with parents who believe in the no discipline method of parenting. Not sure if this child will turn out ok from the things you are saying.
My sister and her husband are just horrible at parenting young children. Everyone is always picking on their poor kids and my sister will call the school, bus driver and parents of other kids if they are being picked on(I’m talking normal kid bickering that is NEVER her kids’ fault). I am sure everyone has my sister pegged as a horrible,insecure parent and are laughing behind her back. One of the kids is in high school now and is turning out ok, thankfully. If you are talking to my BIL and the youngest boy comes up and talks to him he will ignore the adult and drop the adult conversation like a hot potato. Little junior is always the most important and is never told to wait for anything. My parents will watch my kids for a couple of weeks when we go on vacation, but my dad will grumble to me if they have to watch theirs for even a day. He says the difference in parenting and grandkids is like night and day between our families.
I choose to do as little as possible with them because it’s too painful to watch how they parent their kids. It has gotten a little better as the kids are getting older, but the youngest is still hard to be around.</p>
<p>Well at least your parents admit it. My in laws usually turn it around back on us. Once my mil told me my kids would be targets for kidnapping because they were so well behaved in the store. Then they told me we were just lucky our kids were so good. It wasn’t luck. I read tons of books, attended a child development play group and worked hard at being consistent and attentive. </p>
<p>Oh and this sil allows this kid to interrupt every conversation as well. </p>
<p>Did I ever mention how hubby was chastised for speaking firmly to this boy when he literally had his hands around his grandma’s neck and was choking her? Grandma was trying to say it was okay. </p>
<p>By they way, what you and your H are doing is providing support for the parents of this challenging child. You are not “calling anyone out.” What you and your H is doing is helping be the living village this child and family need to help this boy. </p>
<p>These incidents are off the charts worrisome, clearly beyond the bell curve, especially for age 7. Did I read correctly he has a younger sib? Grabbing necks and squeezing- my daughter had a kindergarten classmate who did this repeatedly, unprovoked, to her peers. She required inpatient treatment by age 7. </p>
<p>I now have a hunch that this family has been encouraged to seek serious treatment or has fears of legal repercussions, and is therefore is more likely to deny and minimize. Their youngest child may be experiencing very frightening things. </p>
<p>SIL is going to be defensive. I would keep the conversation about what was said to you at Christmas and leave it at that for now. That will be enough for her to absorb and deal with. Talking about anything more will turn her defensive and I can see it going downhill from there. She then might dismiss the Thanksgiving Day incident. It sounds like he had More going on than ADD.</p>
<p>This sounds way beyond bad behavior. If the sibling and parents were ill-mannered, angry types one could say apples don’t fall from trees, but this doesn’t seem to be the case here. I take it he hasn’t had a psychiatric evaluation and the ADHD diagnosis came from the family pediatrician? The parents need support and the discussion needs to be from a point of concern for the child and family, not about how difficult it is for other people to have this boy in their homes. Hopefully your SIL will be receptive to this discussion coming from her brother and she won’t become defensive. </p>
<p>Could SKS please explain the term “oppositional conduct disorder”? I’m not familiar with it. </p>
<p>If it is the case that the only current diagnosis is ADHD and that he gets in trouble at school regularly, perhaps your family can provide information about what they need to say to the school to trigger a more thorough psychiatric evaluation? People with special needs kids would have more expertise than I do on this, but I believe that if they make the correct request, the school (if it is public) would be required to perform a more complete evaluation and then provide appropriate services at no cost to the family. I know this type of advocacy may be difficult for your SIL, but there are support groups.</p>
<p>The school district may resist doing such an evaluation, because the proper educational environment for a kid with some sort of behavioral disorder can be expensive. But, there are federal laws that cover special needs kids. And, there are liability issues they need to consider with not identifying such kids. I know that our district has two separate elementary classrooms for kids with behavioral disorders (think chairs thrown at teachers…). The cost to the district is about $30K per kid.</p>
<p>If his sibling is well-behaved and this child is beyond the usual “challenging” child, as it sounds, then it is possible that this is not just parenting and that the parents are also “unlucky”. Proper treatment for whatever issues the boy has would include teaching the parents appropriate parenting strategies for this special case.</p>
<p>I have a nephew who had severe language delays (and behavior issues that looked like ODD since he was a 4-year-old who couldn’t understand what people were saying or communicate in return) and a family who was just figuring he would grow out of it. My husband and his other sibling researched the legal issues and passed info about what their school district would do for them even before he reached kindergarten age. My father-in-law also offered to pay for outside services. It turned out that much of the resistance to getting identification was the worry that they would need to pay for services themselves.</p>
<p>Another way to grease the skids a bit might be to point out what a lovely child kid #2 is and deflect some of the perceived parent blame. Maybe they would be less defensive if you lead with the idea that they obviously have some parenting skills (even if you don’t feel that way) and this kid is just having extra challenges.</p>
<p>Okay we had a good conversation. I decided to be the one to talk about it since it was my concern. I can be kind and diplomatic. I told her I was concerned about her son and me. I told her I needed to hear from her how she wanted me to handle it when I saw him being disrespectful. Up until now I’ve just let things go but I don’t think that’s the right thing to do either. She did jump in and say she noticed that he isn’t gracious to me and she noticed that she thought he had an issue with me. We assured each other that I was always kind to him, and she said she believed I was one of the people who went out of my way to be kind to him. I told her it was going beyond that and I told her what happened Thanksgiving Day. She was shocked as she thought he was doing so well on Thanksgiving. I also mentioned that it was beyond what I would consider a normal reaction and that I’ve seen it for years and I’m concerned it’s escalating. I told her I was concerned how he could turn on a dime and get enraged, and I wasn’t sure how she expected me to handle the situation. She did tell me she was okay with me talking to him myself, but she wanted to talk to him as well and find out why it is he gets so mad at me. I threw in the words oppositional and defiant into the mix of the conversation. And I did tell her I could see he was less impulsive and hyper, but I was getting uncomfortable with the pattern of behavior. I told her She did mention they were working on his outbursts at home when things didn’t go his way. And I did reiterate this may be beyond the margins of 7yo behavior and suggested she ask her teacher if she notices anything with his behavior. I feel like the door was opened for a respectful dialogue where I didn’t want to jump in and list everything under the sun, but to start bringing attention to issues so our relationship wasn’t damaged long term. I have to hand it to her, she was very accepting and not defensive. </p>