Hi, Please help us, we don't know what to do.
We have a 12 year old boy ( soon to be 13 ) who we love, but he is very difficult to manage. We believe he has aspergers syndrome ( classic symptoms ), he hasn't been to school for over 8 months as he gets very depressed at even the thought of it. He has terrible sleeping problems as only likes being on his own. He has anixety and panics - for example a trip to London was abandoned as he simply couldn't deal with all the people, noise and bustle. He can also sometimes be very aggressive and nasty towards other family members and doesn't care or can even read anyones feelings, doesn't understand humour and rambles facts that only he could find interesting wether your listening of not ( which we do - but after the 60th time of hearing the history of the Nintendeo Corporation... ;) ) etc. Seriously none of our other children act in this manner and they are very loving and caring, and the other 4 children get on really well and they are a pleasure to be with - a normal family life.
My Wife and I have done our best - we dont claim to be perfect but he is the oldest of 5 and we have a responsibility to the others as well and we have no help from anyone including family members, this of course is putting a huge strain on our marriage and family life.
He is under CAHMS after I convinced my wife to seek help via our GP about 12-18 months ago. They have offered little help if any. As he has grown older he is getting stronger and more difficult to handle. This all came to a head a few week back when he threatened our youngest boy and my wife with a knife ( he has done this before including threats to burn the house down and kill everyone when sleeping which we have explained to CAHMS etc ) she had no option to call the Police as recommended by myself and CAHMS, the net result was him nearly being tazered and carted off for a night in the cells. He recieved a "final warning" which apprantley I one step from a criminal record - net result we will never call the police again or he will face a criminal record for the rest of his life.
He has simmered down but we now have the joy of a Social Services chasing us for a "7 day Assessment" ( whatever that means ) the leaflet they sent looks horrific, essentially as a parent there must be a reason why he behaves this way and it must be the parents fault. Do we have to do this, i'm not keen as i believe his issues are more health related and we don't like the idea of social services ?
He also has the youth offending team who has told us after talking to us for 15min that he's " just a naughty boy " - no surprise that from what else they said reading between the lines we are bad parents. They have offered " team 4 " not sure what that is either... Do we have to do this?
He has no official diagnoises apart from being depressed, when we turn for help we get to opposite - it was better when we coped alone. My wife and I are at our wits end, we love him so much but we don't want anything bad to happen to him or the children and we don't trust any agencies as they all seem to lie on the pretence of helping and then tell you "you have started a process" etc and they don't seem to have his interests at heart..
What do we do, we don't know - we are both confused and worried..
