We have an employee that is asking for help. I told him I would ask around. I am asking others, but the broadness of knowledge here never ceases to amaze. In a nutshell, he and his wife couldn't have children, so they adopted. The boy is now 6 years old. The boy has had significant behavior issues since a toddler. Now that he is school age, this seems to have only gotten worse. He has been kicked out of 2 daycares for hitting and throwing stuff at the teachers. They were able to get him into a public school where the same behavior is continuing. As the father, our employee is the only one that can handle the boy.

Along with the stress and emotions of see ing this behavior in his son, he is having to miss significant time from work to see to the boy, meaning to go get him from school, carry him to doctors, and to personally stay with him when he is having these episodes. He came to my office this morning saying simply that he needs help. I have folks at UAB I'm going to talk to, but also wondered if there were those here that had advice on how to help. Thanks.

I can't help in any way other than to say a prayer for the boy, father and mother.

I’m not a behavioral expert but I have to wonder if under the circumstances if they babied the child too much and never whipped its ass and established boundaries and a pecking order, etc ……It seems like in a lot of cases where something happens early on where the child has folks feel sorry for it instead of discipline it then it results in issues later…..One of my boys had a girlfriend that lost her parents young and the grandparents raised her…..My son ended up breaking up with her saying she was just constantly over the top dramatic…..If there wasn’t something to be dramatic about she’d create it….I joked and said welcome to dealing with wimmens son lol……but I would imagine some of her issues stemmed from being pampered early on instead of being made to mind.....It may or may not be the case here but it seems like a common thread with these type things

As a teacher of 30 years this child needs more help than parents can give. If they dont get help this child is going to get to big for dad to handle. When puberty starts its going to be another type of problem. What if your daughter was on receiving end of that? I do take my hat off to him for asking for help. Its already effecting his job and i am sure his marriage too. Tough spot. Your good man for helping

I have friends who adopted a pair of girls with fetal alcohol syndrome. After 3 years, the children were unparentable/unmanageable and were turned over to be institutionalized as wards of the state.

As awful as that sounds, it was unfortunately the best/only solution.

I would suggest cleaning up the kid's diet. Seriously.

Eliminate most sugar, all artificial dyes (in tons of stuff). Provide the "cleanest" diet possible - this will require lots of label reading and meals made at home.

My mom took me off diary in elementary school because I would have awful mood swings and be angry but couldn't explain why I was mad. Removing all the dairy at the time made all the difference. I suspect now, looking back, that it just made me feel bad but I didn't realize it to be able to explain it at the time.

There is just so much extra crap in the stuff commercially sold in grocery stores now that it is not really any surprise to me that so many kids have the issues that they do now.

Adoptive parents are special people in my mind. Most of them anyway. They take on a child that they usually know nothing about his/her history, or take on a child knowing about a bad history.

They need to get him tested quick. If he is diagnosed with a problem and the school gets an IEP there will be help for him. I have a grandson with very similar issues. His dad does not want him tested and “labeled” which is pure BS, considering that was the advice given to him by my wife who spent 18 years as a teacher for pre-k autism students.

I don't know much about what you are talking about, but he was tested, and diagnosed, before the current school would accept him. The dad had to leave yesterday to get him from school. He carried him to the MIL's, but had to go back and get him when he was abusive to her. He had to go get him from school this morning because he was throwing things at his teacher. It is a mess. The dad is hurting and doesn't know what else to do.

If he has no other options, tell him to call DHR and ask for help. There are many resources available to help adopted children. I would do that as a last resort though. First, I would do what he is doing here and ask for people that may have been in similar situations to seek help from therapists. They are out there he just needs to find a name. I spent some time in LE as a Youth Aid investigator so I will say he is wise in seeking help now. I dealt with so many delinquents that the parents simply waited too late to do something. By the time the child will be getting to be a teen, it is too late. Not always, but almost all of the time.
One day I was sitting in court waiting on a hearing or something and a guy I knew to be a vice principle at a local elementary school and his wife came before the judge and asked that an adoption that they had asked for and were granted be annulled. The reason was that the child had behavior issues and they knew he was going to be a handful later. Long story short, the judge granted the request but did so very begrudgingly. I lost all respect for the guy that day. When you adopt, that is permanent in my opinion so the child and family have my prayers and kudos to you Turkey for helping him and being patient with him job wise.

I would get him tested. One thing to consider. This young boy doesn't have a "tool box" full of tools to help him work thru problems, it sounds like he only has 1, which is act out. He could also be on the spectrum, and I also agree with Texas Huntress, making sure his gut is right will benefit him greatly.

We had our school counselor adopt 2 from Russia years ago. Kids are in 20s now. They gave them nothing but heartache and problems. I felt so sorry for them. All they wanted to be were parents. Could not have their own

One of my sons was the same way the short time he lived with his mother after our divorce, tested and diagnosed with everything you can imagine and terrorized everyone he was around, except me. I would tear his butt up and he knew it so we didn’t have issues. As soon as I got custody he was magically cured from issues at school and became an honor student at the JCIB school.

We now have a grandson that has to be picked up at school everyday and put in timeout at home, talks back to everyone around him and stays in everything trouble wise you can imagine. Except at my house, with me and my wife he’s a great, well behaved kid. Wanna guess why?

People wanna be their kids friend these days not parents

Hoggin gets it!!

Hoggin for the Win. Tuff Love is just that. Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child.

I’m no expert but would NOT call DHR. I have two cousins that both work for DHR and couldn’t grab their own ass with both hands. One is divorced and hasn’t seen her own two kids in many years. Yet, she talks about pulling kids from homes.

Change the diet. My daughter is adopted and was exposed to drugs in the womb and as an infant. There is my sweet girl who loves everyone and dishes out hugs like breathing. Then when she eats artificial foods with GOD knows what chemicals and dyes are in them, she switches to psycho hyper mode. Withhold the chemicals and sugar. 100% natural diet with no sugars of any sort. Take all electronics out of reach. That means TV, Youtube, Computers, phones, tablets. All of it. And make damned sure the school knows the limitations and don't violate the diet when you aren't there.

We were having those exact same issues you described and a pretty severe learning disability. We did the steps above and there is a complete difference in every aspect of her life.

Beating the hell out of a child who's impacted by the diet isn't gonna help a damned thing. There is a time to spare the rod. There is a time to pick it up. But understanding what the parents are doing to cause the issue is going to fix the problem before you need to pick up the rod.

There is a lot of different things to try.

We first noticed the red food dye as the issue. Once we removed that things got much better. Then we went cold turkey on the rest. And she's been pretty good and learning better ever since.

Nobody’s gotta “beat the hell out of a kid”
If you have a history of being firm and consistent, something I’ve noticed most parents don’t have these days, they know that you will beat the hell out of them and won’t push.
Discipline is a conditioning that makes punishment unnecessary