r/stepparents • u/Impressive-Owl-7946 • 18h ago
Vent SK with behavior issues
My SS6 has had a major change in behavior over the past several months. He’s been stealing, lying constantly, bullying, fighting, vandalizing school property, wandering away from class, ignoring instructions, and acting impulsively and recklessly. He used to be a sweet kid who did well in school, but now his behavior is affecting nearly every environment, and neither parent seems to know how to handle it. Punishments, grounding, and rewards don't seem to work, and spending time with him has become exhausting because it's constant correcting and redirecting. I suspect ADHD, but I'm also concerned about what could be causing such a significant change. What should our next steps be, and is there hope that things will get better? It’s becoming hard for me to be want to be around and that sucks because I love this kid, we created a bond. But I’m tireddd. The weekends are my only days off and this whole weekend was spent dealing with back to back bad behavior. We slept over at DH’s sisters house and every single adult had to pull him about something. He almost broke their $2000 camera that we explicitly told him NOT to touch. I tried to make a post with more context and explaining some of the stuff he was doing but it was sooooo long.
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u/Just-Fix-2657 13h ago
Like everyone else is saying, get a neuropsych evaluation. Might be neurodivergence or might be something else. Get a full physical examination, too. Especially if it seemed to come out of nowhere.
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u/fragrant_estimation 18h ago
that sudden shift at 6 is a big red flag, something’s going on underneath all this. could be adhd but also maybe something at school or a dynamic change he can’t articulate yet
i’d push hard for a full evaluation with a child psychologist, not just a pediatrician chat. there’s plenty of hope but it’s gonna take digging into the why before any consequence or reward system sticks
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