:welcome3
I'm not sure if someone else has made this suggestion, but I strongly recommend you getting the book The Explosive Child There are some very helpful suggestions in the book for dealing with kids who don't respond to normal parenting techniques and for whom rewards and punishments (consequenses) just don't work at all. Most of us here have experienced this with our kids, that power struggles just escalate the problem behaviors.

The Explosive Child's author, a very respected clinical psychologist (who has appeared on several TV shows), recommends the "Three Baskets" approach. Put behaviors that are worth a meltdown and an authoritarian approach into the "First Basket." He recommends this basket be limited mostly to safety issues.

The "Second Basket" is for issues where you can try to negotiate a solution that is acceptable to you and your son.

The "Third Basket" is for behaviors that aren't worth a fight, and he recommends that parents just relax some standards for these kids and put things in the "Third Basket" to save wear and tear and stress on everyone.

He recommends the "Second Basket" as the most important, where the child be most likely to learn give and take.

He says that a child who consistently cannot negotiate at all and is terrorizing the family may need to be hospitalized or found an alternative living situations. Unfortunately in today's world, these alternatives seem to be few and far between and a lot depends on the State in which one lives.

I strongly recommend you check out the book and see if it can offer you some help as you struggle with your difficult son.

Your friend,
JoAnn, mom to Hilary, 18, :angelgirl :boing2 bipolar and diabetic
:grouphuggie