Mom of an SPD Teen

My daughter is 16, and has many symptoms of SPD..... at one time it was called 'sensory interactive disorder'...while she falls almost unanimously into the 'tactical' category, there are other symptoms as well. We talked to a family clinical psychologist when she was young to determine if it was ADHD, but it didn't seem to appear so. They believed is was SPD (or sensory interactive disorder).




We have worked with her over the years to compensate. But now I am wondering if SPD contributes to extreme negative behavior as well. (Could just be the teenager in her) But she seems to have deep times of negativity, hates the world, etc. She has trouble dealing with the reality of life. Not healthy at all. We try to be very positive with her, but during these times, she does not respond to positive things.

Couple this with high anxiety in general, and you have a real situation that impacts the whole family (she is a middle child of three).

We would like to help her experience life more positively, but is very hard. Do they grow out of this when they mature? If there is light at the end of the tunnel, I would feel a LOT better!

So far, this website has been enlightening.



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Aug 22, 2014
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Teenage son
by: Anonymous

I have a son who will be 16 in October. He was never diagnosed despite me taking him to many specialists many times, and being adopted from DCFS with an alcoholic, drug using mother and father. We asked for help everywhere, gave him every opportunity, such as RTC, years of counseling, living away from us, loving him so much, having no other children, devoting all our resources to him.. We've been blamed and vilified and accused of child abuse and having mental illness ourselves in part because what we say is so different to what he presents. The local FASC gave us a link to this page. It's been enlightening to say the least. It may be too late to get him diagnosed as DCFS are refusing to have him treated for anything other than mild depression due to my abuse (of course, he's been abusing me including physical assaults and has made allegations up, probably to avoid any consequences to him).The descriptions of abuse are the things he's done to me just with him as the victim. He is one thing at school, another at home, He's so smart, so beautiful to look at, so charming and polite, all learned from us, and he can carry that off endlessly in public, but at home behind closed doors he's terrifying. Taking him to so many specialists is supposedly proof of my wrong doing! He simply can't deal with reality, he's aggressive and deceitful, he's involved with the police who can't stop him, his life is imploding over the last 3 or so years. He managed before he was a teenager, I think because we parented him in a successful way. Turning in to a teenager, we can't manage him, and he can't manage himself and won't. We need help of all kinds. He needs help of all kinds too. Can he grow out of it? Will he be successful as an adult? What can we do for him now? How do we get the right people to understand and guide him? How do we stop him? He's a precious person who's destroying himself and his family at the same time. What do we do for him? For us?

May 26, 2011
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I know how you feel.
by: Brandy

We have a 13yr old boy.The oldest of 2. I have tried everything I can think of.No matter how we handle him,it always ends in everyone upset.One thing that can ease the nasty behavior sometimes is wrapping him up in a blanket and lay on him.It comforts him and he welcomes it.I hope this helps.Compression and weight.

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