OH Also go to this web site amenclinics.com, it is state of the art brain science using imaging of the brain. There are pictures of different types of brains and their activity, you can look at the brain of someone who has OCD and ADD you may even come to realize that he could possibly be misdiagnosed? never know.
Hello, I believe that to greatly help your son you need to put emphasis and focus on all of the things that he does correctly, you need to point out to him when he does something that is correct, DO NOT WAIT until he screws up! The mind works in a way that it only sees in pictures if the person is constantly hearing don't leave the lights on. The mind pictures leaving the lights on. Also if the only way a child knows how to get attention they will act out just to get that attention, even if it is bad it is still directly focused personal attention which a child pines and needs from his parents. Put more emphasis on the little things that he does correctly he will then start to identify with doing the right things he will begin to think, I do well at this I am good at doing this. He will then focus on constructive behavior because he will identify with it!
I believe this will greatly help your son, from someone whose Father only gave attention when I screwed up and went through therapy, THIS WILL HELP
The Best of luck
My son was diagnosed with OCD when he turned 7. We had just moved, and we had a new baby, so there was tremendous anxiety underneath. He has always been something of a perfectionist, very slow to complete things. Highly intelligent. He's been tested and he is borderline Asberger's (high-functioning autism).
We went thru a couple of crazy years with him, and his version of OCD was to count things.
I did not want to use medications, so i went the herbal route. this helped for about 2 years, combined with therapy (CBT, the gold standard).
Then, one summer, i decided to take him off the herbals. (i had previously tried this during the school year, but it backfired at that time). He seemed ok during the summer.
School started back up and he got some minor symptoms, so i did not treat them. He would tap his fingers for every syllable you said, but he could at least converse with you (previously, he would count how many syllables you said and not be able to hear what the message was!).
Anyway, on a lark, I brought him to a well-known hypnotist, very talented. It has been about 1.25 years now since those couple of sessions, and he's not had any counting episodes AT ALL. So, fingers crossed, perhaps we have somehow licked this thing? Really, it's been a while.
Just a thought .... try something besides pharmaceutical drugs. Read up on the web. Some research claims that OCD (and ADHD) are due to dietary issues, slight allergies, etc. Some say a lack of a B vitamin (research done by a doctor), and some say other things.
The herbals we used were on nativeremedies ******* and they have some for ADHD (brightspark) and for OCD (MindSoothe Jr, and also --- most helpful for us was the Nerve Tonic).
Good luck!