Update at home after residential treatment

[Niko2012]

I wanted to give a continued update on our experience with updates on our continued journey... my son spent 1 1/2 years in residential treatment (he’s 9 now) and has been home almost 6 months now. After his return he was successful at maintaining his outbursts and negative behaviors with the consistency, support and reward incentive that the residential implemented.

The most important impact is the consistency and support through his continued progress. Now I can assure you it will always be challenging as I believe children with ADHD/ODD will need to continue to cope with their underlying inabilities, which can change, just as our life obstacles change.

You must be in tune with their difficult challenges and have patience, continued understanding and consistency so they know what to expect.

We no longer accommodate his challenges but work through each days obstacles and reward the good behavior not minimizing the bad behaviors.

He still has outburst, though they are very short lived unlike before where they could be up to hours of disturbance. Giving our son the continued tools to cope, reflecting and working towards daily incentives keeps him on track. I hope this helps a parent who suffers from what comes along with a child with ADHD/ODD.

[Onthemove1971]

Thank you for sharing.. progress!

[Harnessinghope]

Thank you for sharing.

As an individual who works with children, I most often see the following outcomes:

- residential does not teach parents interventions or system that helped their child

- child does not respond to interventions at home, because they innately know their parents will not follow through

- parents do not participate in child’s treatment enough to learn to implement the interventions

- parents expect the child to be “fixed” in residential and return home somehow no longer like themselves

- parents are unwilling to implement interventions, due to challenges disciplining their child

It is wonderful that you are implementing interventions that worked for him, that he is responding to them and that this was a successful out-of-home placement.

Many blessings and prayers to you and yours!

[Niko2012 in reply to Harnessinghope]

I completely agree! We have always been our sons biggest advocate yet had to learn through this process how to be disciplined ourselves and what would effectively work.

The residential facility my son was at absolutely taught us intervention tactics and we worked weekly with the therapist, staff and teachers involved in his treatment plan, along side our son, it was a group effort. However it’s up to the parent(s) once the child returns to continue all the residential implementation and continued services and resources available.

I’ve had to challenge the districts methodology and approach in a school setting which was a big part of the contributing behavior, I often hear “it all starts at home, it’s the parents responsibility” however when children spend 6+ hours at school per day there is an overflow of influence and structure being built within our children that we are not a part of.

We also have ongoing WRAP around services for his transition home which is also continued support for us as parents and our son.

There is no perfect or fixed just progress!!

[Onthemove1971 in reply to Niko2012]

Your son is so fortunate to have parents that are involved.. It is nice to hear how you guys are working together.

[Niko2012 in reply to Onthemove1971]

So grateful! Thank you!