I have a bipolar son who is 12. He is a sixth grader in middle school. He is very impulsive and has gotten in trouble a number of times for fighting and threatening other students. We are looking for sources for anger management for him and I was wondering if you were aware of any.

Dear Dave,

Thanks so much for writing on the board and welcome. I can understand your frustration and worry.

My daughter had her first hospitalization in 6th grade. She has been in and out for the depression part of bipolar. The really aggrivating thing was that even when she was in 7th grade the Dr.s wouldn't diagnose her as bipolar because she was too young. I have bipolar and knew she did, but without meds she just kept going in and out of hospitals. Now that she's on meds (I had quite a few fights with the psychiatrists until they finally put her on meds) she's much more stable. I know when I've been in the manic stage I would get very angry or be really on top of the world. Meds leveled me out, but it took a while to find the right combo. My main question is, Is he seeing a psychiatrist that could give him meds to stabalize his moods? If not I'd say that's the first step becaue it's really hard to use the anger management books when you are talking bipolar. I'd say check on this site and see if you can find some ideas, and the msn communities listed on the home page here is run by the woman who set this site up and a lot more people seem to be on her site in terms of more advise on the issues. Her name is AngelBlues. But a lot of the readers on her board give support where you'd have more than just my opinion. My daughter works at Borders book store and I'll see if she can look up anything on anger management that she thinks would work for her, or another bipolar child/young adult. She also goes to a theraputic school and many of the kids have bipolar. I'll see what the teachers do. I know they have a time out room when someone is loosing it, or the student will just say-I need a time out, before they get even more angry in the classroom. Forcing them to just sit in a standard school classroom while in that state seems to escalate things. When I taught 5th grade I'd have the kids go in the hall and tell the class to do whatever and would try to talk to the sudent or see if they just needed some time alone. A lot may depend on what type of teacher/teachers he has. If it's an army seagent type there's constant power problems and that NEVER worked well with my child. I'd push for the go with the flow easy going caring teacher that taught and worked with kids on an individual basis. And if I didn't get that type, I'd get the principal to move her. I'll post another script if I can get some info from my daughter, and check out the msn communities for more advise, or write me back here or at my E-mail...MistRaeven@aol.com I wish you the best.

Raeven

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Replying to:

I have a bipolar son who is 12. He is a sixth grader in middle school. He is very impulsive and has gotten in trouble a number of times for fighting and threatening other students. We are looking for sources for anger management for him and I was wondering if you were aware of any.