Incredible Years Case Study – Anna

My name is Anna and I am a single mother of two, my son is aged 8 and my daughter aged 9. I live in Colchester in rented accommodation. I attended the incredible years school aged programme. My main concern at the time was my son who has just been given a diagnosis of ASD and was under assessment for ADHD. Both my son’s community paediatrician and school SENCO recommended to me the parenting course.

Before starting the incredible years group my son’s behaviour was, disruptive and aggressive. He used inappropriate language all directed at family members or just in general. I was finding it difficult to control the behaviour and stop it from recurring.

I was positive about attending the group. I was looking forward to hearing new ideas and different approaches I have not tried before. My main goal at start of the group was to gain new ways of dealing with challenging behaviours.

The impact coming to the incredible years group had on me was it gave me encouragement that I am doing a good job and I’m not the only parent dealing with these types of problems. It also helped ease “tensions” between myself and my dad who previously had a very “children must do as they’re told” attitude without any flexibility.

What worked well was the group discussions and hearing other parent’s ideas helped with my self-esteem. The practical strategies such as rewards, limits and time out were also good topics to look at in a different way to before.

Now my son has been prescribed ADHD medication and his hyper/impulsive tendencies should decrease, I feel it may be easier and more practical to implement more of the strategies I have learned and therefore have more of a realistic outcome.