Expert: Sharon Crandall - 5/18/2009

Question
I am a mother of a 17 year old boy who has been diagnosed with persuasive developmental disorder around the age of 10. He has been in special education classes ever since kindergarten. He has IEP's every year and also he qualified for AB2627. He also lived in a facility for a couple of years when he was 11 and 12 years old due to his behavior. He seemed to be doing better and he came home to live with his father. All the same issues we were dealing with before were happening again and we just did our best to try to manage him along with the school system.. After repeated IEP'S and him being moved from school to school we noticed he was getting worse so again we started the AB2627 and he was placed in another living program. He was in this program for about 6 months and his father decided to bring him back home to live.. Since he has been back he has spiraled out of control he doesn't listen to his father he takes off all the time he leaves for days weeks at a time and doesn't shower he has been caught numerous times shoplifting and panhandling. Whenever we find him and bring him back home he just takes off again. I drug tested him last time we found him and he was positive for ecstasy and meth and pot. Just last week he was jumped by a bunch of homeboys gangsters and he is black and blue all over.. We don't know what to do and I am afraid he is going to end up dead or in custody. He just stopped going to school and when we make him go he just takes off.. What can we do to help him because nothing has worked so far???????  

Answer
Hello Debbie,

I am so sorry you are going through this.  If he were younger I might be able to help some with advice for you; but at his age unless I could work with him, personally, I probably can't do a whole lot of good.  Do you happen to be in the Los Angeles area?  I live in Van Nuys.

There is a product that is excellent.  It is called Neu-beCalmed.  It is a nutritional product that feels the brain directly that was formulated for ADD and they have one for addictions, as well.  Go to www.neurogenesis-inc.com/58357 and you can order it there. If he is wanting help this would be helpful.  

Another thing you might try is to get information from Dr. Phil.  He seems to have some great resources to help kids like this. If he is on Meth he might be quite addicted.  I do wish I could sit down with him as because of my expertise in personality traits I can tell someone so much about them that it really gets their attention.  i can quickly see gifts and talents and all sorts of things.  I can do a lot from pictures but it all depends if he is open or not.

I wish I could be of  more help.  Bless you.  Check out Dr. Phil and also let me know if you can send me a couple of good pictures of him and I could tell you a little bit about him that might be encouraging to you.  

My email for clients is personalityconsultant1@yahoo.com.  My website is www.personalityconsultant.com  I am redesigning it and soon will have advice CDs and all sorts of books and materials to help people on it.  

I hope to hear from you again.

Sharon Crandall
Personality Science Consultant