We have an appointment tomorrow with the psychiatrist and I'm going to talk to him about trying a med for mood disorder without also doing a stimulant, which is what we had done before.
Have you ever tried medications for anxiety with him (SSRI)? This can be life-changing for an anxious child. Something to talk to the psychiatrist about; whether it's appropriate depends on whether there's a family history of bipolar, among other things.
We may go ahead and request an veal from school. I am not super hopeful about that, it takes 60 days (approx) to have him eval'd and, of course, there's the fact that he gets straight A's, in spite of everything.
Definitely request the eval! If he were to get an IEP, it would assure certain legal protections and ideally get the right mix of accommodations and services into place. If he's tantrumming several times a day I don't think anyone in their right minds would try to tell you there's nothing going on with him. They desperately need a plan if they are going to educate him, and only by evaluating will you get a plan in place. Put everything in the request letter that has ever been a problem for him, and while you are at it, request a Functional Behavior Analysis (get them to take data on what precedes a tantrum, what happens during it, and what follows it) done by a qualified expert.
Yes, it's slow to get this process going, but consider doing it in tandem with the private eval (which I hope is still in the works, you were on a waitlist somewhere, right?), so that you can get everyone on one page ASAP. The school cannot use a private eval alone-- they have to do their own "educational eval" to establish IEP services.
DeeDee
