Originally Posted by Tinydance
OK, granted I don't actually work with children and have no children myself (yet), but I've been working in the disability and mental health field for seven years. I have worked with people with a wide variety of conditions and what I've noticed is for an individual with certain conditions to be in recovery, they need to be treated with a very "person-centred" approach. In fact in my field of work it's all about the person centered.

So basically my advice would be not to treat this child (teenager?) as just your average child and to set up a full lifestyle for him that caters to his conditions. For example, if he enjoyed and was more successful at the special outdoor education school, then he needs to continue attending a similar school. It's very clear that the average school structure is not suited to him and he feels frustrated there.

Here in Australia the government also provides a student aide for free at school for children that qualify. So that means there is a specially trained student aide assisting either that child one-on-one or more than one child in the classroom. The aide knows how to work with children with special conditions and can help them learn in the way suited to them. I would encourage you to look into something like this also.

I suggest you continue to get psychiatric support for him because he may have even been misdiagnosed or not diagnosed with the proper conditions he has. However regarding the memory, I briefly dated a guy with severe ADHD and have a close friend with rare inattentive form of ADHD. They actually had very bad memory and even to the point where they'd just told you something and then would act shocked and be like: "Wait, how do you know this??" Not remembering it was them that had literally just told me the information! So yes quite possibly the ADHD could be causing the memory deficits.

My advice would be to focus on his strengths as best as you can and allow him to develop those skills. That's what I do in my disability work. If a person has disabilities and struggles with something immensely e.g. school and keeps getting told off about it, that can cause a lot of frustration due to being made to feel hopeless. But if the person is allowed to pursue something they are actually good at, that can help with the behaviour. You mentioned he is good with *some* things. What is he better at? Can you try to give him tasks he actually enjoys?
Thank you for the responses to all who have written in,

There is no one solution here as many mentioned, and a lot of time and energy and at times frustration has come out of the last few years with him, even helplessness and fear - The idea is to have a healthy and active home life for our children however day after day our child has issues and can be from the most random thing or the way someone just says something to him that just ruins an entire day / night …. His frustration levels are through the roof which triggers his anger issues which trigger his lack of ability to self adjust to emotions, lack of respect towards anyone etc etc etc and than there is the 5-10 min rule afterwards like it never happened … Not trying to repeat self but I believe your right he needs something to pursue that he is good at and unfortunately we haven't found that one thing yet because he is so severely defeated inside that he usually wont even try new things and when we do try things that magically work for a few like going outside to play basketball or a trampoline park for get some energy out he always finds a way to get frustrated and angry or claims he is bored.

Unfortunately for this school they don't have an outdoor life like school here that we know of and the school he is in is handling all his behaviors but they are literally tailoring to his disabilities by cutting his work load now in half from his already light load. My fear is he will never know how to cope in life when everyone is basically saying you don't have to do this or that , talking to him like a baby for fear of breakdown, and treating him like he can just get out of everything when he doesn't want to do anything - life is not like that and yes I know we are talking about a kid with issues but at what point do you say he is he needs to become more indep and help himself ? We started looking into programs on farms for troubled and behavioral children where they stay there for an extended amount of time we are worried the other kids are becoming to aware of his issues don't want it to reflect , we are trying to tap into any resources to help him and I think he needs a program where its very strict routine, and he cant just stomp his feet and get out of whatever someone asks of him,

Obviously it goes beyond all this but everyone reading this I want you to ask yourself what would you do - you've tried the system of help and resources (all professionals) seen what schools are willing to help and what aren't and pawn off to another school, seen what kind of nightmare medication creates, and watch a young kid literally self destruct on the smallest things only to reemerge 5 mins later not knowing anything even happened … Punishments don't do anything, taking away things, nothing, rewards nothing, everyday he is a new personality not remembering the previous , very active needs simulation to be engaged, again if your the parent what would you do ? All this while tending to other children, husband/wife, animals and home , and father has no role never did but to further ruin him with lack of any parenting skills ...Could you walk on egg shells with him everyday, and watch his every move and make sure he is safe and functioning on all levels all the time all day everyday ? Makes you question parenting and why this stuff occurs, environmental , genetics, etc …