When to seek more help (long)

[Guest guest]

Hi,

My son Ian is 7 and we are trying to get a handle on this OCD thing.

Recently, (the last 2 weeks) Ian has shown great improvement in keeping his

anger and aggression from going over the top. The behaviors are still present

but are not as extreme. And although we are still wearing kid gloves he seems

to respond to compromising and making concessions. One problem with this is

that Ian is very clever and after agreeing to a compromise will dwell on the

event and 'rewrite' history to make his stand more favorable and ours

(usually mine since I am the one at home) wrong so that in his mind the

compromise is an unjust punishment and therefore invalid. Also if there is a

punishment (lately it is centering on Pokemon cards - his get put in timeout)

he will 'rewrite' the event and show that he was undeserving of a punishment.

He will then hound me to reduce or negate the punishment as I think only a

child with OCD is capable of - it becomes his obsession! I freely admit that

over time I am worn down by all of this and will most likely give in. This is

starting to cause conflicts between my husband and myself as he sees me as

very lenient. I talked with him this morning about my struggle with this and

how unfair it is to judge when he is at the office all day and is not the

primary target of this sort of obsessional behavior. He agreed but it is

still a constant struggle.

These Pokemon cards are overwhelming all of us. Ian and his brother cannot

get enough of them. They have to spend their own money to purchase the

booster packs and have been volunteering to wash the car, clothes, anything

to earn some money for more cards. On the surface it is fine and

understands when there are no more jobs available or we have spent enough

money for one week but Ian cannot deal with this. He has always been overly

focussed on money and the fact that it is very hard to earn enough to satisfy

all of his wants. He not only understands the limits of a child wanting more,

but contemplates how hard he will have to work as an adult to get the things

he wants.

I became very concerned last night after a very disturbing event. He had gone

to a friend's house to trade cards and is planning on getting together with

this friend on next Wednesday. He will not be able to earn enough in the mean

time to buy more cards so he demanded that his brother give back a card that

he had been given. I said that it was not fair trading practice and after he

carried on for a long time I put his cards in timeout. I also explained to

him that I thought his motivation to get the card back was for the sole

purpose of trading it with his friend on Wed. He confirmed this and I told

him it was not acceptable. He did not get upset and have a fit like he

usually does but went off to his room. About 5 min. later I heard water

running in the bathroom but didn't think much of it. In a little while he

came into the room where I was with a bloody finger and one of our serrated

steak knives and told me he had cut his finger with it. He would not let me

bandage the finger or stop the blood flow. Needless to say I immediately

called the psych office and spoke to his doctor. While I was on hold Ian went

outside to play (I could see him through the window). The doctor felt that

since he was calm and not doing anymore harm he was probably all right, but

if we felt he was 'crossing the line' and seemed to really want to hurt

himself badly it would be time to take him to a hospital for an assessment. I

asked what he meant by crossing the line and he said -- if he was going to

seriously hurt himself. We already have an appointment for the end of next

week with both the therapist and the psych (med check) so that was the end of

the conversation. Ian came in and took a two hour nap. I found out after he

woke up that he really only cut his finger on his dad's razor so I guess it

was not as bad as he wanted me to believe. He also admitted that he did it

because he was mad at me. He will freely admit that he hurts himself so that

we in the family will feel bad. The thing I find scariest is how calm he was

throughout the entire incident.

I guess my questions concern how to help this boy who is obviously very

disturbed. He is 7 years old. Is there more we can do then just wait for a

crisis? We live in San Diego and I would like to find out more about the

support group at Mesa Vista Hospital (this is the hospital our insurance

would send us to in case of an emergency). Are there any parenting classes

that address some of these issues we face with OCD kids? Should I have

individual therapy sessions with someone to work on parenting tools? We have

read The Explosive Child and found it very helpful.

Sorry this is so long. I sometimes feel like I am doing fine treading water

and then I get sucked into a whirlpool.

Joy