Working with Violent Children- Avoiding Injury-Please Help..

My grandson has been diagnosed with ADHD. He was given several medicines, none of which has helped. In fact since he has taken them he has become extremely isolated and violent. He is 9 years old, and has a daily "rage" while in this rage his hits, bites, kicks, his father and tells us he wishes to die. I am so frightened. I don't know where to go, or what to do. He refuses to go to school, so is being home schooled and tutored.

Hello LaNostalgia, Working with students with challenging behaviors can be incredibly stressful and make "coming to work each day" a nightmare. :cry: If your teacher seems to be ignoring serious behavior, first and foremost check with your district to see if training in behavior management is being offerred. Ask your teacher to participate. Many districts have workshops or district experts that can help you and your teacher work together as a team to more successfully manage the student's acting out behaviors. Also observe the student to see if you can determine what it is that seems to be triggering his behavior. It might be something like, "the student is asked to do something he does not like or does not want to change what he is currently doing." Work with your teacher to first understand why the behavior might be happening then problem solve together to identify some management strategies that might work. Training is definitely the key so be proactive to determine where it is being offered. good luck, Marilyn

First off, what communication system are you using with the 3-year old child? Also, what is the child's disability? Often times, the root of a problem is communication and the child does not know how to effectively communicate their displeasure, so hitting, head banging, etc. is the easiest way to view their displeasure. And also, telling the child "no" is not an effective way to stop their behavior, but I wouldn't tell that to the teacher. :D Just to let you know, I'm a teacher and I've taught SPED for 6 years, dealing mostly with students that are severely autisitc with some violent tendencies. Almost everything I did revolved around communication and you will be amazed how dramatically the violence went down when the students were able to communicate their wants and needs. Good luck!

It may be that this child becomes frustrated and violent because he is unable to verbally express to you what it is he needs or wants. And transitions are often difficult for SPED kids. It may be helpful to use pictures or photos. Pictures can even downloaded from the internet to make them small. It's easier if you can put Velcro on the backs of the photos and also on a piece of tagboard or even an open file folder. Then you can arrange the pictures in the order of the child's daily schedule. You will have to help him with this at first - say, "Now it's time for music", and hand-over-hand help him remove the picture of music and put it in a designated place (maybe an envelope that's atatached to the board. You may also have photos/pictures for him to use to give to you - such as drink, snack, bathroom, etc., so that he can use them to show you what he wants. Learn a few hand signs, such as stop, no, yes, bathroom, walk, etc., and then use them to reinforce your verbal cues. And teach the signs to the child. You will, of course, want to discuss these ideas with your supervising teacher. It helps to know just what disabilities the student has; I hope have you've had a chance to read his IEP. Best of luck! Know that you're one of many paras getting bruised and scarred daily!