It's no secret now that our son, Zack, has been in a Residential Care facility for quite some time for behavioral issues. Some pretty common for kids with his disorders, some way out of the norm. At any rate, they became so out of control that they were no longer able to be managed here at home and Zack had to be moved into Residential Care. How did this all start? Hard to say. One minute you think you have things under control and things seem to be going well. The next, all control is lost and you don't really know who to turn to for help. The people you think can help you wont. They run you in a big circle that never seems to end. The bottom line is that for kids like Zack, no one wants to do anything until he hurts himself, someone in the family or someone on the outside. And usually by the time that happens, their only solution is to put him behind bars instead of a place where he can get the help that he really needs to get his head straight. I wasn't about to let that happen.....
This story begins during the 2010 - 2011 school year. Technically, it started a few years before that, but the main part of this occurs at the stated date. During the 2010 - 2011 school year, Zack's behavior at school and at home really began to escalate out of control. He started becoming more defiant at both places. He was yelling and screaming at most of his teachers at school. Threatening his peers with violence and even raised his fists to both Amy and I at home. We seriously didn't know what else to do with him. I threatened him a few times and he threatened me back with DCS. Yes, this kid is no dummy. There were many times I took things away from him for his behavior and he retaliated by telling people at school that I was either beating him, Amy was beating him, or that I threatened to kill him. In all, I think DCS had been out to our house a total of 5 times within a two to three year span because of him. He didn't really care about the consequences. He didn't seem to care that I or Amy could go to jail or that him and his sisters could all end up in foster care separate from each other. All he ever really seemed to care about was that he was not getting his way or what he wanted. So, to retaliate, he would tell stories to get DCS to come out, in hopes that they would somehow buy his stories and he would get himself removed from the house. He wanted this most of all because he didn't like our rules. Now, I didn't think that our rules were any different from any other parents. You do your homework before doing anything else, you have specific chores to do according to your age and level of responsibility and you never, ever back talk your parents... ever! Not so bad right!? Well according to Zack, kids should never have to worry about any of that and they should just have the run of the house and get to do whatever they want at any given moment. And when he didn't get his way, he would find ways to retaliate to the extreme.
Very rarely would Zack ever attempt violence here at home. The most he would do was raise a fist to either Amy or I. Of coarse, the older he got, the more that happened. And the more I would get in his face about it. Typical right!? Then things would get worse at school. He threatened teachers and his peers with violence and he didn't care if they were male or female. The more people told him he had to do something or could not do what he wanted to do, the worse it got. For years I threatened to put him somewhere that would deal with him. This time, I had to do something. We were becoming afraid that one day, Zack would eventually stop talking about hurting someone and actually do it! Him hurting someone outside the house was one thing, but what would happen if one of his sisters did something to make him mad while I was at work and Amy was the only one home with him? I started looking at this place called Hoosier Youth Challenge Academy. The more I checked into it, the better is sounded. I hoped that this place would help him. I took all the necessary steps. I called his Therapist and Doctor for approval to make sure Zack could handle something as intense as this program is. The program is run by the National Guard, so you know it has to be intense. Zack would spend 5 1/2 months there in this very physically and mentally intense program. Amy and I were hoping that this would work for him. Zack, realizing that there was a problem too, was even willing to try this program. It seemed as though we were all on the same page for once and we took the steps to get him enrolled in the program......
To Be Continued.....!
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