A Little Discouraged

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I have not posted here for a while as I have been busy.

Long story short my schizophrenic wife of twenty years left 3 or 4 months ago. We have a 17 year old son diagnosed initially ADHD inattention and latterly high functioning autistic. Our son did very badly in his penultimate school year last year, not passing any subjects although he has gotten a certain number of credits, and has been given a dispensation to do two final year subjectshis year (the rest are repeats or other penultimate year courses).

Our son coped academically until last year, although he always struggled academically and has no real friends. Last year he started doing things like skipping school and coming back home etc.

Since my wife left I have continued in the family home (for now) looking after both our kids which takes some effort given I have a not very successful business at which I have to work long hours, and also given that my wife had been the main carer for our son (as well as doing the administration in my business). The children have been seeing their mother for a couple of hours each weekend. I have made a real effort to keep home life little changed to provide stability for the children.

I thought I was making some progress, getting on with my son somewhat better and also helping him with his homework assignments. He had also started doing some jobs on his own eg started doing lawnmowing without any supervision etc. However the school, which is now more motivated to work with him (accepting that we all failed him last year) has reported back that he has been getting late to school (often only getting there at noon or later) and is already behind in all his courses. He has obviously been leaving home late when I have left earlier and left home and then come back after I had left when I have seen him off in the morning.

I have told him that I am extremely disappointed in all this, and indeed that this runs this risk in tipping me over the edge in which case he would need to go back to live with his mother as if I cannot service the mortgage or otherwise continue to fight for life to continue the same for him I would need to sell our home, and would likely only be able to find a rental far away from his school if I am to keep our dog (to which he is very attached). (This is not a threat by the way but simply a statement of fact). If he can cope adequately with school this year then I can probably get a court order to stay in the home for a year before sale, given that I am caring for the children.
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His mother now has an objective ground for wanting more input into our son's care (she had wanted him to stay with her full time), and although I do not object in principle to the idea of both parents having input, there are difficulties with this in practice given that communication between myself and my wife is very poor given her mental illness, and the fact that she has been abusive to him on occasion (although much less so than to myself and our daughter).

Our son had gone to a school counsellor and at his request the counsellor had asked me to refrain for a period from pushing our son about his homework. Apparently the idea was for him to develop motivation by doing things himself without pressure from me. Although I had grave doubts about this I had agreed to a trial of one week and will get a report as to how this went next week. I am not optimistic especially as I did not see our son doing homework much if at all, and also the school rang me last Friday to tell me he had come in late.

Another good thing (to my wife's credit) is that our son is now receiving a disability benefit, even though still at school! His mother wants to direct half of that in the first year to dental work though, which is less necessary and our son does not want it. This money could perhaps be used for counselling for our son, or tutoring (perhaps by a person trained in dealing with ASD, although that is expensive). My preference would be to direct that to savings for him, although I remain open to other ideas.

All this stated, this is a slight vent as I am just so disappointed that my son let me down by not coming to me and advising about his difficulties at school. While he is getting better he does not really seem to live in the real world - something just seems to be missing - and is prone to mini meltdowns at even careful criticism by me.

At least the school is being very proactive this year and we are accordingly catching matters in the bud.

So sorry to hear that things have become more frustrating.

Many kids on the spectrum really struggle with homework, timeliness, and other executive function skills. Fairly often, the accommodation for homework is to modify (reduce, simplify) it until it's something that they can do, and work towards increasing their skills gradually.

Here are some articles that may be of help: http://parentingteens.about.com/od/high ... sues_3.htm

http://homeworktips.about.com/od/timema ... ontime.htm

thanks momsparky; I trust things are going well with you. I will give my son a copy of the advice about time and have bookmarked the about.com pages on parenting teens to look at when I have time.

Usually when teenagers don't come to their parents about problems, it's because they don't think their parents will understand.

You see that your son is not doing something that you want him to do, and your goal is that he start doing those things. But your son might be struggling with some emotional or life issues that are affecting his performance, and he might need some time to figure things out on his own.

Case in point, I used to chat with a young man who was almost finished with high school and his father was pressuring him to apply for universities and was rather upset that he was not doing this. The father had visions that his son would go to a university, go into graduate school, and take over the family business. His son, however, wasn't sure he wanted to go to a university and following in his father's footsteps. He had not had a chance to figure out what he wanted to do in life, and his father just could not understand that his son needed some time to think things through and experience the world a little.

He eventually decided to move to a foreign country and teach English.

Why don't you forget about making your son do the things you want him to do at the moment and go on a scouting mission to try to get his perspectives and understand where it is he is at in life in terms of what he's struggling with, what he wants to do, and where he wants to go?

@chronos - I think you have a point in part. Ridiculous as it seems to me, I did ask him why he didn't come to me with his latest problems and he made some comment along the lines that he didn't think I would understand. Compared with any NT kid, I think I am very patient with him. I think I get on pretty well with my NT daughter, and don't think I get on badly with my son. I tell my son about foolish things I did when his age to try and make him open up a bit more. I have always made it clear he can criticise me any time. I try and find topics he would like to communicate about.

On the other hand I am the one consistently pushing him to complete his work and, although very rarely, have gotten angry with him in the past.

He is seeing a counsellor at school, who, at his instigation wanted a trial where I did not do anything or say anything for a week about his homework. The idea was that he would then take responsibility and do it himself. A lovely idea but ... of course the report comes back from the counsellor today that he did none of his homework last week. So now the counsellor wants me to try another week where I just ask my son what the homework is and then say that I "trust" he will do that.

I said no - she trusted him to do at least a little bit of homework last week and doubtless he assured her he would. I think he is just pulling the wool over her eyes - not in a deceptive machiavellian sense, but simply because he lacks any motivation to do something he does not want - I think because he cannot understand the real world and real consequences.

Does one need to have an utterly different standard for the NT and the autistic child? How is it possible for a child to ask for a trial to prove himself and then do absolutely nothing? Is he a prodromal schizophrenic like his mother? Although that is a thought increasingly in my mind I do not think so yet, as he has been showing some signs of getting it together - eg for the first time getting himself up this morning himself - albeit my suggestion.

My son actually seems to do ok when he has a clear task eg mowing the lawn and an incentive eg payment for that so he can get fish and chips. I think by that token that, regardless that the school thinks he needs to be independent etc etc for life outside school, they are missing the point of how severe his disability is. He does not look much different from other kids and has learned to ostensibly cover up his disability with various (miscoping) techniques, but he does seem quite severely disabled underneath. I think that if I oversee his work it will at least get done and he will hopefully be learning some better work habits. He won't like that but there are lots of things in life we need to learn to do whether we like them or not.

His counsellor can explore his emotional or life issues if he does not want to discuss them with me. That said I could explore your suggestion of asking him where he is at - just don't think he has ever given me any sort of proper answer when I have asked in the past; don't think he really knows himself.

I stopped doing high school properly around that age as well. I got tired of it. Bored with it. I mean I didn't have the patient parents. My biological mother was emotionally and physically abusive. She would always yell at me. She would always force me to do something for what she wanted. Not for what I wanted. I stopped doing homework because I got bored and lacked the motivation of doing the same repetive task everyday. I was tired of having no friends, I was tired of doing the same things, and I was tired for every work I did do I got a poor grade because it "did not fit the assignment". An example of this was we had an essay about heroes, the essay's prompt asked what we think a hero is, what makes a hero, etc. In my essay I covered that I did not think there were heroes. And I got a bad grade for not following the assignment. However, the assignment did not specifically state that I only had to have one perspective.

I even stopped doing homework because of my own mother. The more she pushed me, the less I wanted to do it because I wanted to spite her. As I stated my biological mother was emotionally absuive and physically. So I rebeled against her. In this case neither of my parents understood at all. And I was lost. I had to constantly think about after I graduated from high school. What did I want to do for my future. It became extremely overwhelming realizing that this high school wasn't going to last long, how unprepared I felt, how I didn't know myself. My mind was lost and cluttered, emotionally confused and clouded.

I wish I had done high school properly. But I also wished the high school would have done their job properly to continue engaging me.

My point in this long ass paragraph, is that it's hard growing up and realizing you're growing up. You have to be that path to help clear that confusion away. You have to be the guide that helps the emotional struggles. I am only giving a sort of example I went through hoping it applies to your son.

I also think, considering your life circumstances now, it would be in your best interest to seek whatever outside help you can get. The school should be able to provide extra support (ask if they can offer a resource teacher to help with homework, for instance) and there is usually some kind of government support for kids on the spectrum beyond just disability money: respite care, etc.

I know you're not in a place to sit and research, but I'd block out some time to make sure as much of this is taken from you as is humanly possible.

@pandora box - Sorry to read of your high school difficulties; from the parents point of view though it is frustrating when your child does not seem to be getting it despite hundreds or thousands of requests.

@momsparky - I may have to do that; of course teenagerhood is a harder time for both teenagers and parents and things are likely to get better over time, but it does seem to me that my son's issues are quite severe. He is currently reacting fairly badly to my claimed "standing over" him. Actually from my perspective I let a great deal of things go. But I do check on the homework he has done (usually none) and require him to tidy up and put things away. He wants the freedom not to have me raise these things with him, but lacks the responsibility to avoid that simply by doing them.

Yes I am generally away at work for 12 or 13 hours a day weekdays, and then cooking meals and doing washing/ironing, walking the dog etc etc can take quite a lot of time, although my son is getting a little better with doing some of the chores for weekly pocket money. I am considering options for extra help - tutoring by a tutor specialising in ASD pupils, possible therapy for him as I feel the school counsellor is a little superficial, working in with his mother (difficult as that can sometimes be) for her to see our son some evenings for homework, even moving him to a special school for autistics (although I think that tends to be for the serious cases and might further encourage his rather defeatist attitude; he could stay there until age twenty though). We will try with his current school to get him on-track with the basics for now though. He is doing easier courses in the main and said he was quite enjoying his "cafe cuisine" class, although even there he doesn't seem to be doing too well.

Hoegandit, I've been thinking about you and your son a lot and am sorry things aren't working out very well.
I just tried to send a long message and it disappeared, so I'll try to be briefer. Apologies in advance if the other message shows up.
I think that your son (as well as you!) might be suffering a lot from your wife's absence and the extra workload and stress this has put on you and the whole family. He seems to have shut down and is resisting any effort to move forward.

I wonder if the counsellor's idea might not have actually been a good start towards changing things. As long as you are reminding him about his homework, he seems to be blaming you for interfering with him and not taking responsibility himself. When he fails to do his work, his "problem" becomes your reminders rather than the fact he is not succeeding. If you take away the reminders, he has only himself to hold responsible. I realize that the counsellor's idea did not work for the first week it was tried, but in my experience, and according to a lot of parenting literature, a week isn't very long. I was told that when you introduce a new parenting or relationship approach, it gets worse before it gets better and it takes a month before you see positive results.

I hope that something works for you soon.
J.

@postcards57

Thanks for your comments. I think you are partly right and partly not. It has been a great deal more work for me with my wife gone, so stressful to me in that regard, but as against that I think the kids (and I) have appreciated the greater stability of home life, without my wife's erratic behaviour. Certainly while my wife has offered and wanted both kids but in particular our son to go and live with her, they have not wanted to do so, and my feeling is our son would be happiest just seeing her for a couple of hours on a weekend as was the case for quite a while. I suppose I need to put this all in some context; I generally work from about 9am to 9pm weekdays then come back and have to cook, wash, take the dog for a walk etc, so do not have sufficient time to put into my son really, given his issues.

When we got the first report back from the school this year it was apparent that our son had gone back to his old miscoping ways of skipping classes and not doing homework etc. My approach to that was to try and micromanage, but our son who is seventeen and therefore wanting to be more independent, and now seeing a school counsellor (following a recommendation from psychiatric services) got the school counsellor to suggest a two week trial where I was not standing over him and quite hands off.

My biggest disappointment was that our son had been going off the rails again but not informing me. This does point to a failure on my part. I think I get on with my NT daughter well and do not get on badly with my son, but I do find him rather difficult to understand. (He is 20X the work of my daughter eg he removed all the cables from the family computer yesterday and I had to spend time setting it all up again; he left the sticky tape outside and has somehow lost the breadknife; he rarely wraps up and puts away his tuna cans and generally creates quite a mess around him, despite my continual reminders of the core rule to put things back in their right place once used). It is rather difficult for me to communicate with my son except where I can find one of his topics of interest. He does not seem to pick up on the normal nuances of conversation eg me: "Dinner is on the table" Son: "Yes dad" (5 minutes later) Me: "Dinner is on the table" (Son) - little grumpily "I heard you dad" (10 minutes later) "Dinner is on the table son" (Son) - little angrily - "I heard you Dad!!) If left the dinner would still be there, stone cold, an hour later. Still, he is improving slowly. Today he was quite pleasant and with it, although yesterday he was very grumpy, and I found he had gotten up again and was playing with his laptop at 2.30am in the morning.

I may say that part of the problem is that the divisions of functions in the marriage were for my wife to look after our son and for me to have minimal input into that (a result of my wife and I having great difficulty on agreeing on things - this separation of functions allowed relative marital harmony), However the effect is I have only been having a closer role with my son for the last five months or so, and it takes time to establish order. One thought I have is that with my wife it was her way or the highway, so our son could develop a kind of learned helplessness with that. While I am an imperfect parent I am open to try out ideas and put my son's interests first. It takes time for him to adjust to this though and see that my wife and I have somewhat different parenting styles.

Anyway although I demurred at the counsellor's hands off 2 week trial because it would set my son further behind, I did agree to a week's trial. Of course that is too little, and, although it did not work (he did no homework that week), after a discussion with him where I pointed out the risk to him of him tipping me over the edge and having to sell our home and he having to go and live with his mom (as I could only get a rental which would take dogs far from his school) he has actually seemed to be making some improvements. For instance about half the time he actually got himself up last week. And he seems to have been making more of an effort with his homework, And he has been remembering to ring me at work at 5pm daily. But, he still missed the first spell last Friday, has paid no attention to my list of time tips, will not communicate to me about problems he is having with his laptop, forgot to do two of his three administrative school tasks today despite my spending time ensuring they were written up on the whiteboard and his diary etc; so it is all still rather slow going.

An unfortunate real real negative with all this is that this has given my wife an entree to have more input into our son. She is now seeing him three times a week. In itself that is not too bad but her behaviour is sometimes just crazy. Yesterday she got cross when she came to pick him up and she felt he didn't respond to her politely enough, so she then called me and started accusing me of turning the kids against her. (Actually the opposite is true in several regards; I have had reports from the kids where she has been very scathing about me to them, whereas while I have discussed her illness with the kids I have expressly always stated that they should have contact with both parents). From that she started getting angrier and angrier, stating that she had had to leave because of fears for her safety, that she had present fears for her safety from our pet dog, She then came through the house and said she was going to call Welfare in on me as the house was in a disgusting state. She said I had driven her and both kids to suicide attempts etc. She started making various threats to me. All this is rubbish in the extreme (except she did make a suicide attempt about fifteen years ago). Unless you have lived with a paranoid schizophrenic you can have no idea what goes on!

To be fair she calmed down and came back about an hour later and we had a further discussion, but this gives a flavour of the additional difficulties in dealings with her, which I would prefer are kept to a minimum. She did have some worthwhile ideas about our son, but the problem is in communicating with her when she is so quick to misunderstand and make unreasonable accusations. Our daughter feels like she is a big child, without the adult ability to discuss things rationally, and our son has suggested she has a histrionic side, as she can cause chaos and be a major drama queen. It is quite impossible to suggest even the mildest criticism of her.

All this stated, unless there is a major improvement with our son, it may be that we need to be looking at options. My wife is suggesting a part time school course and a part time job. The school is wanting a meeting with both of us and while that will be doubtless fraught because of my wife (eg she has eg accused me of abusing our son in emails to the school) it will be a necessary step.

While I am really busy at work if I can I will (for the first time) attend a support group with other parents of the school this Wednesday evening.

My mother in law who has been quite helpful in all this has offered to take our son for Easter and he seemed reasonably positive on that (she lives about five hours drive away), Also our son will this Sunday be for the first time going to "parkour" (free running over obstacles) which is my daughter's current sport.

So we are keeping at it.

Halo Hoegaandit!
I was wondering about you and your family! I am really sorry to hear about all your difficulties!
I do agree with you....I can understand that you worry about scizophrenia with your son.....his poor planning and very poor motivation can make you wonder about scizophrenia.....did he ever had any psychotic behaviour?
I cant remember.....does your son take any medication? I was just wondering if he isn't suffering from depression? When last did he have a propper pdoc assessment? I do wonder if there isnt something that we are missing?
Regarding the homework...I so fully understand when you say your son thinks he can be independant but then just dont do stuff....My so is only 8, but its already difficult with this. I will get him started in the mornings with putting on his school clothes, then I will go and do other things....when I return 30 minutes later...he will still be where I left him....just sitting, daydreaming, listening to music, whatever in his undies! He says he is a big boy and can bath at night by himself....if I leave him, he will still not be bathed by the time we want to go to bed!
Oh....yes, regarding the homework! Does your son school have something like aftercare, where some one can supervise him with homework? And regarding going to school, isnt there a class mate that can come and fetch him to walk with him to school? Cant he go with your daughter....walk together?
I am so glad that you are going to attend a support group? Have youever thought of attending a support group for family of scizophrenics?
I truely take. My hat of for you, for trying to help your children! Well done!

Hello lovelyboy - trust all is going well with your family.

I don't think my son will become schizophrenic but there is about a 1 in ten chance (one parent schizophrenic). I don't believe he suffers from delusions. He is getting a bit more motivated this past week. He is entering the danger zone though (late teenagerhood, early adulthood usual time for onset of schizophrenia in males anyway).

He was a very happy boy as a younger child and still does not strike me as unhappy. He does not seem depressed but it is not impossible this is veiled. He has made some mention of things being really difficult on occasion. We did see a psychiatrist (community mental health) and they considered he should presently be helped by the school not them, although if he is or becomes depressed they can step in.

We have just re-started Ritalin to see if this will help.

My son has just said there is no after school care at his (high) school. I think that was just in junior or intermediate school.

My son is getting better (just recently) with getting to school and the school seems to be taking the matter more seriously - emailing me when he misses a class. He is actually out of zone so there are few classmates in our neighbourhood. My daughter is at university and lives her own life, although she had suggested he come to "parkour" with her this Sunday.

I have never attended any support group so will see what that is like. It is not a touchy feely support group but more they have talks on what facilities are available etc I think, how to transition autistic children to adulthood etc.

I think it is way past time to go to a schizophrenic support group. Frankly life at times with my wife has been hell but I did not find Schizophrenia Support much help on the few occasions I had rung them in the past.

Perhaps the biggest issue currently is my wife who is fairly unwell at the moment. She thinks I have some nefarious plan to keep our son away from her. She cannot understand that she is the author of her own misfortunes, or consider that she is wrong in even the tiniest respect, and that our son is not keen to stay with her because of her behaviour. (I tell the kids they need to have contact with both parents and frequently ask my son to text her but he is not too good with that. If our son wanted to stay with his mom of course that would be fine with me). Unfortunately I have to go along with some of my wife's unreasonable behaviour otherwise she can get vituperative and make life more difficult for me and our son.

Please everyone never marry a paranoid schizophrenic! (My wife incidentally developed the illness when pregnant with our first child so that was a tragedy for us all).

Hoegaandit....Is your wife taking her meds? Will she consider the injection or is her insight into her illness so poor that she doesnt realize she needs meds?

Something else I was thinking of.....you could maybe consider occupational therapy for your son? They can help with timetables.....teaching him planning strategies....work on self esteem, motivation, all that stuff to...?

Please take care!
Ps....my family is doing ok ...AT THE MOMENT..............give and take!

Hello Lovelyboy - see your little one is having some adjustment issues with starting school - hope things settle there.

As regards my wife, she has had schizophrenia/bipolar (possibly schizoaffective rather than severe schizophrenia) for around twenty years and sadly I don't think she will really come right with any medication. FWIW she told me she is on a new medication and her mother said she had reduced her medication to a low dosage. I think she is quite good with taking her medication, but it only makes things a bit better, does not make her better. She is bipolar so periodically she moves up in her mood cycle and for a few days she will seem energetic and normal, but that is not most of the time.

She is looking after our son this evening for a few hours and is currently doing that three times a week, rather than just seeing him on Sunday as previously; he is agreeing to that for now.

I am trying to get our son to learn basic organisational skills and there is some slow progress there. Occupation therapy - isn't that for pretty serious cases?

School has scheduled a meeting for Friday morning. I am a little nervous about this one as although he has been doing better in the past week or so, I'm suspecting the school is going to say he is just not up to it, which is also my wife's view. Maybe that is the way it will pan out, but especially as he has been making an effort, I think that should be encouraged and he should be given a chance to try and do his courses.

OT is not just for serious cases AT ALL!
When I was in private practice I use to seen youngsters with motivational and planning issues....they are very good with helping pt with goalsetting, stressmanagement and social skills....all lifeskills actually!
You must look for an psychiatric OT......
If she is good, she will also be able to put you and your son in contact with the necessary support....You even get OT's that specializes in gereer planning....and vocational therapy....Some will be able to do a job assessment and see what is your sons strenghts and weeknesses, help him choose applicable job and help with teaching him the skills needed...even do job placements and she will be able to give structure and info to his suppervisors on how to handle him and help him......
She will aslo be able to support your family in what type of jib will be suited, like sheltered or semi sheltered, exct.
Regards!

Lovelyboy - thanks for this advice.