"Tracy Cramer" wrote in message
...
: On Thu, 2 Oct 2003 20:40:12 -0600, "ColoradoSkiBum"

: wrote:
: Like I said we're on the last ditch effort here. If he doesn't make it
out
: this time then he's probably going to be sent to a "day treatment" sort
of
: place--IOW a mental hospital as an outpatient rather than living there
all
: the time. I feel so ****ing sorry for the poor kid, but I don't know
what
: else we can do for him.
:
: I feel for you because I have an idea of what you're going through. I
understand
: how frustrating it is to have a child that is having major problems, but
is
: still a neat person. You get so ****ed at them for behaving the way they
do and
: yet you still see how much they could accomplish if they put their
attention to
: doing good things.
:
: The one thing I will tell you right now is to get help for your SS ASAP.
The
: longer you wait, the worse the problems will get.
:
: Treatment centers are extremely expensive. I know one around here is $440
per
: *day* for inpatient treatment (I don't know about outpatient). IMHO, if
the
: child's behaviour is really serious, inpatient treatment might be the best
: option in order to give the family some breathing room.
:
: In our case, our health insurance would have paid the bill (except for the
$1K
: yearly family deductible) if DS was dx'd as having schizophrenia, bipolar
: disorder or any type of pervasive developmental disorder (such as autism
or
: aspergers). You might want to check to see what coverage your health
insurance
: offers because a lot of insurance companies have cut back on mental health
: coverage to reduce costs.
:
: To start off, you probably want to find a good psychiatrist that can
evaluate
: your SS thoroughly. He/she can do a bunch of tests as well as an in-depth
: interview and the doc's report will give you a clear idea of how to
proceed. You
: might call your local MH/MR to see if they can help. One of the docs from
our
: MH/MR did my DS's evaluation and she was so incredibly thorough, I
couldn't
: believe it. She's been a great source of information for me as well and we
: certainly couldn't have made the decisions we did without her input.
:
: It's hard to get help for kids like this and it's *frustrating*. You just
have
: to keep calling people and talking to them. If you can find a psychiatrist
who
: will work with you, you'll have a much easier time.
:
: BTW, don't forget about yourself and the other members of your family. You
might
: consider counseling for everyone because having one child whose behaviour
causes
: so many problems can cause a lot of problems for everyone else.
:
: Good luck,

Thanks for all the info, Tracy. The one thing that I guess we're really
lucky about is that he's having these problems *at school*--almost
exclusively at school at this point, since we're not there to correct/coach
him. So if he fails at this new plan (which as I've said, I'm expecting),
then the *school* will have him removed and sent to the day treatment. It
seems like a horrible thing to say but I almost hope he *does* fail because
he so obviously needs this treatment.

As for the insurance options, we have Kaiser, and I know for sure they do
not pay for any individual counseling. They do offer "family counseling"
but it's not meant to be long-term or really theraputic. I'm not sure about
the in-/out-patient options as we haven't looked into that yet. It's hard
for us to make these judgements when *we* don't see these behaviors--we just
*don't*--this stuff *all* happens at school. When we're not there.

I've been a teacher for a long time. And I never thought I'd say Thank God!
for special education laws. It's such a relief to know that he *can't* be
expelled for his behavior (any other "normal" kid surely would have been by
now). There's no way in hell we could ever afford financially to pay for
this kind of treatment, but knowing that the school is going to have to so
he can get some sort of an education is a *huge* relief. We just have to
wait and go through all the channels, all the hoops first, while he gets
worse and gets older and gets farther behind academically.
--
ColoradoSkiBum