Ideas on how to get a 13 yr. old to have blood work done?

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My son has to have blood work done and I have tried everything including bribery to get him there. He is usually very good at listening to the dr. but this time he has his heels dug in and will not budge. I have been working at this for a month! He doesn't think there is anything wrong with him and if there's nothing wrong he isn't having a blood test. Unfortunately, there is something wrong. He is very pale and has been having nose bleeds for no reason. There is also a chance that he has inflammatory bowel disease (ulcerative colitis) as I have it and so does my brother. I don't really want to have to get into telling him what might be wrong. It will scare the heck out of him! Does anyone have any ideas?

I'm not trying to be rude, but if his symptoms are this severe you need to step up and be his parent. Forget bribery, tell him he WILL go to the doctors, and take away every single one of his privileges until he agrees to come, if there is no other way you can physically take him. I would also look into ways of forcibly taking him to the hospital (having an ambulance come, sedate him, and take him there.) With spontaneous nosebleeds and him being so pale, I would not take any risks that it's not something more serious than bowel disease.

Taking away priveleges does not work with this particular child. He does not care about material things. He doesn't spend money, he just puts it in his drawer and it stays there. He has social anxiety so not being able to go out means nothing. He can sit on his bed with nothing to do for hours and just think about whatever. He plays WoW but can go without it if I take it away. When he was little I would pick him up and make him do these things but he is now 7 inches taller than me and a whole lot stronger. His biological father lives 200 km away and doesn't feel there is anything wrong with him.
If you could ask my 3 sons (who I raised by myself) who the boss in the house is they will say me. They tell people that they will not do anything to break any laws because when they get home they will have to deal with me. I am not a wishy washy parent and if there is a way to get my child to go to do this that doesn't involve physical abuse, I have tried it. I am looking for a creative answer because it is illegal in this province to bind and gag a child to take him to an appointment!

I don't understand why you wouldn't tell him what may be wrong. He's 13 and if you expect him to endure a painful, possibly scary procedure, then you should tell him why. And yeah, it's not about getting him to agree, it's his job to do as he's told. Tell him that if he is sick and he doesn't get checked out, he'll definitely have to go the hospital and have more needles later.

I have asked about the ambulance taking him but unless it is an emergency or he is physically harming himself or someone else they will not help. It is also $300.00 for an ambulance and I do not currently have the money for that.

I've done that, as well. And he knows what all that is about because he has seen me in the hospital hooked to an IV many, many times. He has seen what surgery looks like and how a person feels afterwards. He knows what colitis does to a person because I have very nearly passed away twice in his short life time, so how do you tell a 13 year old that he may have to endure the same thing? He also knows there is no cure for inflammatory bowel disease.
I think I will just call his therapist. He hasn't had to see her for awhile but maybe she has some ideas. I think this may be beyond what this forum is for. Sorry!

I don't have any suggestions for you, but I am appaulled by the tone of some of the responses! I have a 12 year old son and really know where you are coming from.

My son broke his arm and needed surgery, he decided that he did not want surgery, he thought he was going to never wake up or that a 100 other things would go wrong. He was doped up on Morphine, unable to move his arm because of the pain, screaming his head off for 1/2 an hour that he wanted to go home and was refusing to have surgery. It did not help that they read the consent form out to him, that just confirmed his fears.

I have delt with total irrational fears before, and I know what can happen if you "put your foot down and try to force a child to do something". It can turn life threatening for the people involved. I will never ever go that route again. You cannot force a teenage child into doing something they don't want to do when they are physically almost as strong or stronger then you are!

You are right to look for some alternative ideas beyond brute force or will, because you won't win that, and may actually make his refusal to go even worse.

Would it be possible to work him into going, like bribing him just to go to the lab, and tell him that if indeed, he can't stand the needle, you won't make him get all the blood work done, you will leave? Maybe tell him you will put ice on the arm beforehand so that it numbs the skin and he won't feel it as much? Perhaps if you can work out some sort of agreement with him, call ahead to find out when the person who is best with nervous children or young patients is going to be on staff? Tell them that you have an irrational 13 year old who is deathly afraid of needles with autism (most Ontario professionals don't understand aspergers). It would probably also help to find a time when their is not a long wait, giving him time to think about it too much.

I also just wanted to say that I agree telling him your fears that he may have a very serious medical condition is probably not a good idea right now before anything further is known. I can't imagine the anxiety and fear that would cause, probably unnessisarly! I know if I told my son "I think you have a life threatening medical condition and need you to go get blood work" he would just loose it, and it would be weeks and weeks before I was able to turn it around. We would probably loose the last month of school, he would be a nervous wreak, he would be in a lot of emotional distress and very difficult to get along with for anyone, friend, family member or otherwise.

Of course, if he does have this condition, he will need to know, at some point, and probably sooner then later. Coming to terms with it wil be difficult but nessissary. But why worry him prematurely?

I hope the therapist can give you some suggestions or talk to him about it...

Thanks, earthcalling. It's a good thing I am very secure with my parenting! I have another son with AS and it would be no problem to get him to go but he is very logical and easy to reason with. T2 is an anxiety boy in every sense of the word. I talked to the therapist and we decided that I will just take him tomorrow. I will buy him an ice cream and we will go to the lab. He is usually fine once he knows he is not going to be able to back out, but I hate it that way. I feel devious and mean! The pain isn't even the thing that bothers him. He doesn' t feel pain the same way as others (there is a name for the condition). It is the thought that he wants to control his own body. When he was little he had the same reaction to having his hair or nails cut. And it makes him angrier than anything else! He only becomes violent when he thinks someone is violating his body ( to him that is what doctors and needles do). And you're right, the meltdown we face with T2 would take weeks to straighten out.

It is good just to know that other parents know what I am facing right this minute.
I sent an e-mail to his teacher to tell him why T2 is home today and he sent one back saying, "Thank you. T2 is a great kid but not when he is being argumentative." The teacher "gets" T2 and the challenges we face. It makes life easier!

We really struggled with hygine when my son was younger, (right up to last year at 11).

I remember trying at 8 to explain the fits he would throw to brushing his teeth or cutting nails, washing hair to a therapist, who said that with diffiuclt children like him, sometimes it is best to just leave well enough alone, if his nails get a little long, or he does not brush his teeth before bed, sometimes it is not worth the fight to "make them".

I have mixed feelings about this now, on one hand I don't know what I could have done differently, but sometimes I think that more structure and routine around these things was indeed what he needed. I remember his finger nails growing so long, that cutting his nails to a decent length (not even short) made them bleed! It was amazing, his nails where more like a dog or cats, with the quick extending past the tip of the finger, then like a human!

I find it a little ironic that my son is actually home today too. (Although I did send him to his afterschool tutoring session with some volenteers from the neighbourhoood). He came home last night, with a failed math test in one hand (the teacher is completely negligent, he missed a lot with his arm and I tried to indicate I did not think he was getting all the work weeks ago, and she never corrected it) and a backboard with an incomplete project that needed to be done for a presentation the very next morning (today) in the other.

It is frustrating, because they accuse me all the time of "interfering" with his work. I am looking at this backboard, and it looks horrible. They have given him no option then to draw out the title (he has severe fine motor skill difficulties and is on a 2 year wait list through the school at their suggestion for OT) and the items are not arranged nicely. I ask him "did you move things around and when you decided where they looked best, you glue it all down? Or did you just do one at a time and then run out of room?" He looks at me like a light bulb does off, tells me he did the latter, but arranging them first was a GREAT IDEA! I get so frustrated, why can't he get even that much support at school? Instead I know the teacher will be more then happy to give him a C or D, afterall, his getting B's in science is an insult to other students intellect isn't it? How can a moron like him do well?

*sigh*. Sorry for venting on your thread! It sounds like your sons teacher is a keeper! I just wish my sons school would admit that sometimes he is better left at home. I remember going in the Monday after he broke his arm trying to tell the LRT that he needed a few days off and she became belligerant because 'he needs to be in school, he already missed too much"! I am finding with the AS diagnosis and the knowledge I have gained here, I am becoming more secure in my decisions, and able to tell them where to go!

Good luck with the bloodwork! I'll keep my fingers crossed for you!

Perhaps there is a miscommunication going on. I have no tone other than advising her to tell her son the truth about this labwork. Blessedmom asked for advice, I gave some based on my experience with autism and medical issues. There's nothing about "brute" force there in those comments. Just being straightforward as usual.
My son also resists taking medicine when he is sick, so I have to tell him the consequences of not taking medicine. (hospital and more medicine)

I agree that in other circumstance it would be best to tell him. He knew everything about the Asperger's possibility and all of the stuff that went with it. I think in this case however, that he already knows too much about what may be wrong. If he had never heard of colitis it would not be a problem. Ignorance is bliss, I guess, in some cases. Today I have been talking to him about anemia and iron and how iron builds red blood cells. I think he may be ready to go to the lab after school tomorrow. I think that is what is causing the paleness and nose-bleeds so we will focus on that issue for now. He has a sore throat today, as well, so hopefully it will be here tomorrow. If he feels bad he won't say he is fine!
Venting on this thread is fine. In a way I think that not knowing what was different with T2 when he was really small is a good thing. I thought he was just very stubborn and temperamental so I was quite a bit tougher on him than I would have been if I had known. I cut his nails whether he liked it or not. I held him in the chair while my hair dresser buzzed his hair. I have worked with toddlers and preschoolers my whole life and wasn't about to let him learn that tantrums were okay. I occasionally feel guilty but he controls his anger quite well most of the time now. Being a teenager isn't helping. I swear kids go back to toddlerhood when they hit puberty!!

Perhaps it was a miscommunication, I think my language was a bit to strong, and I apologise.

This quote however really struck me, although it is not yours:



I think that is where the comment about "brute force" came from, and I really should have made it clear that it was not directed at you

While I agree in some ways with the tone of phenomenon, in that if this child god forbid where to have a serious medical condition, then you really don't want to wait around until they "feel" like getting blood work done. I can appreciate that. Although how you do that is the hard part, the way our medical system works here, no ambulance is going to come up and strap a child down and give them a shot of something to make them sleepy for bloodwork! And there is no way the average mom can "take" a 15 year old boy by force.




It is definately a fine line between being "understanding and patient" and allowing unacceptable behavior. I know that since the DX with my son, I am letting my son miss more school, trying to tolerate more of his emotional fits, trying to put less demands on him, trying to be a better executive assistant for him. And don't get me wrong, it does help, but on the other hand, it seems like we are slipping deeper into Aspiedom! I find myself doing the same thing too... I guess we just have to both make sure we don't sink "into the DX" too much! It is an explaination for some behaviors, not an excuse!


My son is really late to hit it. Although we are fighting the waking up in the morning though! I miss the days when he was 5 and would come skipping down the stairs in the morning singing "Good Morning, the Sun is Shining! It is a brand new day!" Even when it was pooring rain or still dark!

I was wondering if talking to him about anemia would help before you mentioned it, at least it gives him a reason to get his blood tested that is not very scary but at the same time important. Best of luck!

I don't have any suggestions really, but wanted to wish you best of luck anyway.

Knowing the cut off point is the tricky part. I was made to endure crappy medical procedures for no decent reason. My husband had to endure "alternative" medical treatments that never helped. It's made us very wary of doctors and stuff.
We've had "moments" with Pop that made us wait a long time to take him in or just cancel procedures that we figured were unnecessary.

I know things like this are hard for my son-he hasn't had lab work yet, but hates shots and even just going to the doctor as he thinks they will give him a shot every time, lol. So I make a day of it, we go have breakfast and beforehand I tell him exactly what they are going to do, tell him to pick out some bandaids, bring a book to focus on so that it doesn't bother him as much while it is going on, and he just goes and grits his teeth. Afterwards if he is feeling up to it, he picks where he wants to go have lunch, then he and I spend the afternoon playing games. It's not really bribery, but a way to keep him in somewhat of a comfort zone as he gets very confused and anxious on these days-so finding other things to focus on works really well to keep him kind of at ease.

At times when my son is more difficult, I just tell him "well, either way it has to be done" and I explain to him why, then I say "we can either go have a good day with the exception of that, or it can be a miserable one, but it has to be done regardless, so you pick the route you want to take." (he usually opts to grit his teeth and do it)

Of course, my son is also only 5, lol-there's a pretty big difference, but maybe there is a way to make it a day kind of "about him" just to make it a little more comfortable to go have it done.

Oh, how I long for my kids to be ages 4-7 again. T2 woke up in a fabulous mood this morning. He got out of bed on his own and got ready for school before anyone else. When it was time to go to school he said, " So, we are going to the lab after school, right?" I said we would have to see if it is busy because I work at 4:30 so I thought we were going on Monday. He gave me his annoyed look and said he wants to go today because Monday is too far away. It is a good thing that I am flexible in my plans! These teenagers are going to drive me insane!! And they wonder why my hair is turning gray.

Thanks to everyone for your ideas! I will remember the advice for next time and remind you to enjoy your kids now because too soon they become TEENAGERS .