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My 6 year old stepson has shown signs of ADHD for many years. The worst of it is shown in school, where the behaviors are out of control. He has extra help and support from staff and teachers who give him breaks throughout the day. However nothing works. He has gotten suspended from school over 15 times, they have gotten to the point of possibly kicking him out. The suspensions are due to him biting, pushing, hitting and choking other children.

We have tried behavior charts, reward system, time outs, extra breaks out of structured time. We limit the stuff he watches and plays with and he's never been around or seen any violent things to where he would pick up this behavior. This behavior of aggressiveness only seems to be a problem around his classmates because he does not show aggression to us or older adults. We understand he struggled with impulsive control and ADHD so we try to give him extra support and understanding.

I’m not sure what to do anymore. We have tried getting him into a program for children who struggle with ADHD, but they say he’s too young. We are on the waitlist for a therapist and many other programs when a spot opens up. We do discipline him such as taking away toys and not doing fun things and not allowing screen time, but I’m not sure how much this works because I don’t think his mother follows through with the same routine we do. We have also tried other methods of supplements and gummies to clam his body but these only do so much.

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    Hi Allie, welcome to Parenting.SE. I've taken the liberty of breaking your question up into paragraphs and rearranging a couple of bits to make it easier to follow, so hopefully that will help people to answer. If I've misunderstood something then please do fix it. Also, this is a Question and Answer site, but you haven't actually asked a question. Click "Edit" under your post to change it.
    – Paul Johnson
    Commented Apr 18 at 10:57
  • Are there settings outside school where he plays/interacts with other children of his own age? Does he show similar out-of-control behavior there? Have you asked him why he escalated to this unacceptable behavior? Is there a pattern that leads up to the behavior?
    – Bart van Ingen Schenau
    Commented Apr 18 at 12:06
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    Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't see how ADHD is a reasonable deduction simply due to violent / impulsive behavior. If that's the only symptom he shows, I don't think it would be wise to simply deduce ADHD and get into programs specifically for it while there might be a dozen other things that might be the root cause of this problem as likely as the existence of ADHD, if not more.
    – Syed M. Sannan
    Commented Apr 19 at 14:18
  • Responding back to Bart van, there is settings outside of school that he is a little rough playing with cousins but nothing extreme. He shows signs outside of school at home such as not being able to sit down for longer than a few minutes, inability to stay focused on one task, trouble listening and many others. Hearing what his teachers tell us about the behavior at school is that he is completely fine and something super impulsive happening. Pretty much meaning that they never see signs of his outbursts happening until they happen.. which makes it even more difficult to defuse the situation.
    – Allie
    Commented Apr 19 at 21:30

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