Hi All,
Its taken me a long while to get here and summon up the courage to reach out to others experiencing similar issues. My son is 14 and after 11 years of going through various assessments, a break for COVID and a change of school to get help with an ECHP we finally got a diagnosis earlier this year. To say it was a relief is an understatement but now we have a diagnosis it feels like we have been cut off from any further advise or guidance and to be quite honest we are now back to square one, albeit a different square one but square one nonetheless.
Although we only got an official diagnosis this year, we have been given various advice over the years by so called experts of how to engage with our son to make every day things go as smoothly as possible for him and the rest of the family but it is hard and very little appears to help and to be quite honest most weeks end up in a shouting match between family members usually brought on by the smallest of things and usually stoked by one of his frustrations at something we haven't done properly or explained correctly or, and this may just be a teenage thing, something he just doesn't want to do. On top of his frustrations with us there are obviously our frustrations which also spill out on occassion (although usually between parents). We have got through so many years like this and i have to admit i fear it is now having a long term impact of our son's mental health as well as other members of our family. We have stopped really spending any time together as a whole family because its safer and less stressful to take extended "chill out time". My wife and I both feel like bad parents because of this head in the sand approach but at the moment it really does feel like the safest approach to avoid another eruption of emotion from any one of us. To make matters more difficult, our son has got to the very frustrating stage of constantly lying about things and even when called out on it he tries to stay in the lie and makes things worse. As noted before I know this is not unheard of in teenage boys, or any children for that matter, but it is so frustrating and offers up otherwise unnecessary conflict and it is just constant.
Reading this back I am conscious that I may come across as a selfish parent that is just seeking a one size fits all answer and believe me i understand that this is not available but does anyone have any advise on getting through a day or a week without feeling like a failure. We are incredibly proud of everything our son has done to get to where he is now, but I feel we struggle to show it because even after 11 years of professional advice and consultation we just don't feel like we have any viable experience or valuable knowledge to help us through.
Thanks all in advance even for just reading.