ok, I know, im needy this week.

ok..i know...im needy this week

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hi all,

want to ask anyone out there, if they are familiar with these new types of medications.

has anyone heard of a medication called amantadine....its given to parkinsons patience in their early stages of the disease.

they are finding that kids with 'explosive behaviors', that is calms them.

a woman i know who adopted a 6 yr old, who is now 16, this drug changed him.

he has had numerous hospitilazations and RTC until the last 6 months.....he loves the drug and reports that its the first time in his whole life he feels 'normal.'

has not had a meltdown since he has been on it....and has actually been calm when he didnt get what he watned....its doesnt sedate him or anything....

apparently it has to do with the dopamine in the brain....but im not to clear on it.

has anyone had any experience with this?

now my other question, this is more for my younger son....

has anyone used omega 3 fish oil...liquid....

a few other parents i have talked to (i talk to anyone who would listen...lol)....said that they put their child on this holistic fish oil and its the first time they see their child happy...but warned me if they gave her too much, then it wouldnt work.

apparently alot of doctors are trying this with kids with explosive behaviors also...again, im not really sure exactly what it does and what it is for.

another friend of mine told me that their whole family takes it....

has anyone heard of these new medications that they are trying?...

school issues

school issues

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well, i just got off the phone with my younger sons school and they are scheduling his IEP meeting for next wednesday.

the counselor gave me a heads up, and they are looking at sending my son to a different school....

i am so freaking pist...........i have been trying so hard to get my kids in some normal routine, but one thing after the other, over the last couple of years just wont happen...

i am so upset..not because of the special school, well, part, because the school he is in now, is around the corner and this school is downtown....and ihate driving downtown due to the traffic (yes i am whinning)

the reason we moved here, so we could have a neighborhood and he can get to know kids from his school and things like that....

this will just isolate him even more...because we wont know the kids in the area...

so here we go, another transition...oh, my son is in kindergartin.

his self estemm is shot as it is...and now i have to tell him that he has to go to another school across town no less....(he likes his new friends that he made at this school)

this is just me venting..i feel like giving ujp sometimes on trying to have my kids have some normal life, when i l know deep down that they could...but the powers to be just keep fighting it...

anyway ...just venting, tomorrow is another day, and the sun will shine, and i will just start all over again on trying to deal with this information...

then soon i will be starting all over again around structure...

heres a question..how many transitions can a child take before they totally give up?
__________________

how would you feel?

how would you feel?

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hi all,

here is a question for children that were placed for adoption due to neglect and abuse, but were young and didnt remember their birthparents.

while you were young, your aparents told you that your birth family couldnt take care of you because of problems they were having in their life. (true)

your aparents never went into detail, but just left it like that, due to you were so young any way.

as you got older, you learned the truth about your history of abuse and neglect and your aparents told you, but waited...

here are my questions:

would you be mad at you aparents waiting so long to tell you the truth?

at what age would you of liked the whole truth?

and if your aparents never told you the truth, because the truth was so awful, but you found out on your own, would you be mad at them?

and, would you really want to know that information anyway?

yea!!!!!!!!

yea!!!!!

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hi all,

We had our meeting with our older sons group home and DSS, a service plan meeting.

Well, they all understand, they all agree with what we suggested,
and guess who is coming home on christmas?.....

we are so thrilled. even DSS (our enemy) agreed but wouuld like him to come for a visit first before the holiday and see if he regresses...which i understand and agree.

they will not increase our visits anymore...we get to see him once a week and our two phone calls a week....so ill live with that.

the group home really feels that his connection to us is really strong and that we will play an important part on his transition to a new family......

basically, like 'regular' kids, they learn to trust and feel safe by their parents to go out in the world which my son never experienced, so they are feeling like this could be an opportunity for him to feel safe with the transition to a new family

as for the new family...the group home was clear to DSS that he will need to have a family that could focus all their attention on him and that by placing him in a family that is 'clueless' will only set him up to fail again.

they all agree that he is not ready to be adopted at this point, and since we are all the family he has, we should remain and active in his case.

at the close of this meeting, the group home said "I wish he came to us the first time, he is such a great child and i think we could of helped him transition back to you...."

their goal is to try to get him off all his meds....not know, but soon.

the sad news is, they have been doing alot of tests with him and he was worse then we thought he was with the language processing issues.

they feel he doesnt understand much when he is spoken too. he just cant understand anything and he gets real frustrated...and tantrums out.

anyway, im feeling great....

he has not had to be restrained once...he has had mini tantrums, but not to the extent that we reported or the other grouphome or the hospital.....they feel the risperdol might be working

just wanted to let you know what was going on...i guess i didnt have to use my scare tactics (as i had rehearsed in my head over and over again of what i was going to say)

more issues

more issues

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as most know, my older son is now in a group home, he is not ready to be put up for adoption due to his issues.

he does have attachment issues, but has attached to us.

since he has been in the group home, they had limited our visits due to confusion that he might have.

well, they finally admitted yesterday that maybe this was not the best idea they had.

he is starting to act out, starting to smear his feces all over the walls, starting to urinate in the cornor of his room. (all RAD behaviors if you ask me)

he has never done anything like that before.

they said to be honest, they never had a family still want to be involved in a childs life after a disruption due to the guilt they feel.

i feel guilty, but i still want to be in the childs life. this is the first time they came across this.

he told his therapist that the only place in his whole life that he felt safe was with us and he doesnt want a new family and doesnt feel safe at the group home and he just wants to come home. he says he misses us.


i am so pist....we had this all planned out in the hospital...he was assured that we will still be there for him and we werent going anywhere no matter what....

but this new social worker comes along from the new DSS office, and decides in two hours at a meeting, whats best for him

well....it back fired....and my son has now payed a huge price for this. all the work we did, has just been wasted. how can he ever trust or attach again to anyone. why should he? everyone leaves...

i said, i understand why they feel he might be confused, but he is confused now...he goes to group home and we disappear...thats confusing to him also...no explanation, no nothing, just, were here, were gone.

yes, i can see if he came home for 'visits' that might be confusing too. but isnt it a better confusing.....at least he knows that soemone else hasnt abandoned him.

i rather him be confused on something positive then something negative.

i am so sick of people who do not know my son decide what is best...i have psych, his old dss office, and other professionals that have written letters, but they wont budge.

they are damaging my child and his actions are proving it.

now wonder why these kids get so messed up, they keep yanking them away without any reasons and blame us for it.

in order for people to have healthy attachments, they have to be giving a chance to have a heatlhy attachment. this is not a diffulcult concept.....

my son did this with us, he let us in, he trusted us (as much as he could) and we did alot of attachement stuff with him.....

to be only erased in a two hour discussion by this social worker.

i am so angry!!!!!!

we have a meeting on 12/14 and if they dont play by my rules (since they admit they never done this before) then i will pull out the guns. im tired of playing nice nice with these people, i have been dong it for a while. and if they give me crap, i will get a lawyer, my son has a write to see his brother.

now they are saying they are not putting him up for adoption just yet do to his new issues....well how the heck did he get these new issues?......i wonder...

so here we have a child, that has no family, is not up for getting a new family, but he has people that truly love him and want to help him and be there for him, but arent allowed to see or talk too that often because this will hurt him.

i must be missing something.

im pist, can you tell.......and i will fight like crazy to get him to have a visit with us on christmas.

sorry for venting....but this is what ive been dealing with the last few days.

when do the people who know him the best have a right to say what they feel will be good for him.

im losing it

im losing it

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hi all,

i think im losing it over here....i seem to be having a harder time with my disruption of my son.....i thought it was suppose to get easier?....

my younger son is now looking at his brother pictures and says he really misses him and he wants him to come home.....he never even mentioned that much, but lately it seems to be really bothering him

my older son, is now having a real diffulcult time with getting a new family, he is always sad and says that he just wants to come home.

we both are just getting more depressed....

i know the holidays are coming and this is probably not helping maters much....but were sinking fast here.

i want him to come home!!!!!!!!!!!!

my younger son said to me last night "since 'N' cant come home, can I get another brother"...

i said "where will we get another brother from?"

and he said

"from a family that doesnt want them anymore"

i nearly died....does he think that his birth family just didnt want him anymore?

i said "well your birth family wanted you, they just couldnt take care of you, and we love you so much and we were able to take care of you and thats why you are with us now."

i know he truly loves us, and thats not the problem, but my problem is that he thinks that his birth family just didnt want him.

plus his foster mom, gave her 10day notice when she had him, before we got him, because she couldnt take care of him anymore, (hes not an easy child) and as wonderful as she was, im sure her 'burnt out' issues had to show...and wonder what he thought about that?

i dont know...maybe im thinking too hard........

just seems to be harder to deal with this...

are you ready to adopt a special needs child?

are you ready to adopt a special needs child?

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i wrote this for another thread, and i thought id give it special attention...more for the fun than anything else.

this is not to be taken too seriously, but not something to just ignore either.

we will call it 'questionaire for new parents looking into adopting special needs'

the reason for this thread, is that maybe we can all put down our own 'are you ready' questions.

weve all been there, and we have all ran into situations with our kids where we sat back and scratched our heads and said
"huh?"

it might be fun, we all have our own experience. It could be funny, or could be serious.....just those questions that you wish you might of been asked before your child came too you.

ok, my questionare are about serious issues, they are geared to children with RAD or ODD.....

we can keep it as lite and funny too (crick88, you better write something)

we all know birth and adoptive kids bring different things to the family...adoptive kids can bring some 'odd' things that we werent either prepared for, or understood, or even heard about.

so lets get those 'are you ready' questions out there....it could turn out to be real funny.

use your own real life situations...lets see what people come up

here we go:

questionaire for new parents interested in adopting special needs kids...


1. are you ready to be cursed out and or physically hit constantly by your child?

2. are you ready to clean up all the broken glass and then replacing all your windows with pexiglass, because your child loves the sound of broken glass?

3. are you ready to take anything that is important to you or valuable and seal them in a box and stick them in the attic till your child moves out, because they just wont be safe while your child is living there ?

4. are you ready to do away with the cozy warm feeling you get on christmas eve, when you look at your fire place...cant take the chance of having a fire in the house you know, oh, that goes for candles to?

5. are you ready to give up holidays with some family members because your child just cant handle the holidays plus you dont want to ruin your familys holiday, because you know already what your child can do with a nice piece of china?

6. are you ready to 'not bother going' on parent teacher conference meetings at school, because you already have been at the school three times that week, so whats the point in going?

7. are you ready to be assaulted and learn the proper way to restrain your child while they are kicking, biting and hitting you?

8. are you ready to get the phone calls daily to pick up your child from school due to behavior problems only to have to deal with them at home and this was suppose to be your time to just sit and breath, oh well, theres always tomorrow, how many times do you say that to yourself "always tomorrow", does tomorrow actually come?

9. are you ready to call an ambulance or police on your child because he/she needs to go to the hospital, yet again?

10. are you ready to not go on family vacations because your child isnt ready and may never be?

11. are you ready to be emabarressed everytime you bring your child out in public, because we all know our kids are masters of embarrising us?

12. are you ready to admit that you cant parent this child and you need professional help and find out that really no one knows how to treat your child?

13. are you ready to pay your childrens therapist losts of money, only to find out your educating them more on what your child needs?

14. are you ready to lose sleep, because you have to stay up everynight on the internet trying to figure out what medications do what and you cant do that while the child is awake because your either restraining them or waiting for them to explode, because after all, thats what they do?

15. are you ready to get to know the police on a first name basis?

16. are you ready to get the looks from others because they cant understand why your child acts that way, and it must be your fault?

17. are you ready for when your family pet gets killed and you find out your child has no remorse over it?

18. are you ready to put locks on all your doors, alarm system on your childs door so you know when she gets up at night so you can make sure she is safe and all those around her safe?

19. are you ready to drag her screaming to every possible test in the world that you can see that maybe the problem is organic, because there has to be another reason she acts this way?

20. are you ready to do all your housework at night when your child is asleep....laundry, dishes, etc but your so tired from the day, but it has to get done?

21. are you ready to watch your babysitter leave in tears, yet again, and say "oh well, we lost another one" and know it will take you months to find another one.

22. are you ready for your child to yell "I hate you" over and over again, but you know you didnt adopt this child so you can get love back, it was too help this child, because we all know, that they may never love you, but you knew that going into this, but sometimes the words hurt?

23. are you ready to give up alot of your friends, because they cant understand why this child takes so much of your time?

24. are you ready to sit with other parents and feel so isolated because this is not your life and you sometimes you wish it was?

25. are you ready to have your house turn into a war zone and you are detemined to win, even when you know you might not, but you wont give in, even if it takes many years?


and now the bonus question: this is the hardest part of all of this...hope you get it write.


26. are you ready to look in your childs eyes and say good bye to them, as you live them in a residential program because you know they needed more help then you could give them and then look at their empty room at night?


congratualaitons!!!!!!! if you answered yes to these questions , then you are ready to be a parent with special needs.....