Was looking for some kind of support and looked up : The Explosive Child for am reading it and is hard to get thru it.  Found one of your articles from around 2/9/99 from a Dannette and I was disappointed yet pleased with some of your responses.  Was glad to see someone else experienceing a 13 you who is difficult for i have one also.  Glad to hear you suggest to read the book "The Explosive Child" for my son fits there and her son sounded like he fit there.  My son is milder and yet fits right into the behavior the book talks about but it is difficult.  When you suggest Dannette not homeschool, I could almost agree but couldn't agree to move him to a program out of the home.  These children, even especially my son wouldn't adjust very well and that is one of the things I always saw in him, was he didn't tolerate changes and consistency was important but is hard to keep up with.  I put him in a private school and since 6th grade he starts failing.  So I started looking for help for a diagnosis so as to not say look it is going on and I need some help and encouragement from the teachers more then am receiving.  We are working on an IEP to get done, but I have little faith in the system and do not think it will help to move him to a public school for the change would devistate him and if does he would create more trouble for me,  basicly he would head into that meltdown as the Dr talked about.  Child Find has done the testing and am anxious to find what they came up with, what their suggestions are and if there is a way to continue in the public school.  My son is like the child the Dr talks of in his book that didn't show much of the behavior at school but plenty at home.  It has been so bad that he isn't visiting his dad for visitation for his step mom & dad couldn't deal with the behavior for they were expecting him to act and respond normal & they starting taking on I'm the boss you are the child so do it. Son would go into the frustration mode so bad at his dads place that his dad got abusive somewhat so now son isn't going for dad told him he didn't want him anymore.  Now my other child is acting up due to all of this mess before she goes to dad.  It is getting very tough.  I think there isn't one diagnosis for my son as well as hearing of Dannete' son  But I feel I need something to be able to get more support and help.  I had an older son who is 19 now who got rebellious but he was different and more the norm of norms,  My 13 yo isn't the norm of norms and I have always known and asked but never got anywhere for he mostly showed it at home and not out.  In 6th grade they would say oh it is just the adjustment,  it wass more then that for him and I knew that but tried to wait it out and back off on homework fights for he only went into frustration modes & still no home work.  The end of that year we started looking for help to see if a form of autism or what.  Insurance won't work with us on it & since considered a behavior problem it goes under mental health which thus didn't help much except to r/o autism or asperghers and left us with we don't know, maybe this or that. We as parents deserve more help with this but don't know where to go.  Do you know of any support groups for parents of children that fit in the behavior described in "The Explosive Child"??  Thanks Joyce