My son was born with TGA and had arterial switch at 8 days old.He is 4½ now and has major behavior problems.l try every way in the world to discipline him, but nothing seems to bother him.He is a very sweet boy, the love of my life, but is just ''wild''.He never back talks me though, just will not listen.He will do it or die!l know I am very very lucky to have him in my life and he is a miracle, but l feel as if I am about to go crazy, trying to get him to mind.l would never want anything to happen to him, and I am afraid that with this behavior now, later on (if he does not grow out of this) he will be into bad things later on.Does anyone know if these behavior problems go along with the heart defect?l have heard of a few cases that have had the same problems, but l would like to know if anyone personally has had this problem, and what they do about it.l would greatly appreciate it!

When l was a kid, l behaved just like ur son. l never minded because l did not want to - behaving got in the way of doing things that l was curious about. l was not interested in the things teachers & parents wanted me to do, & instead l had my own views & curiosities that guided my behavior. l constantly got in trouble for things like walking out of the school building during the school day to do things that were more fun.

At the age of 4-1/2, l was in kindergarten. At that time l saw the rules as arbitrary & did not care about the consequences if l broke them. l knew the difference between right & wrong in a moral context, but rules in school were not a moral issue - they were there to control behavior. If l were a kid today, l would have been diagnosed as having attention deficit disorder (ADD), & probably given drugs to suppress my personality. l probably would have regarded this as a form of torture.

Behavior is very complex, & it is seldom influenced entirely by a single condition. Transposition of arteries is highly unlikely to directly cause behavior problems, but the genetic traits that caused the transposition could very well cause other problems.

What u r describing sounds a lot like ADD, but it could also be it could be a psychiatric problem, or maybe just a very intelligent kid who has a strong will. It could even be a phase he is going through or maybe he is exploiting weaknesses in ur personality.

If l were in ur position, l would take him to a child psychiatrist to evaluate his personality, intelligence, & likelihood of having ADD. l bet u will find u have an extremely intelligent kid that is very independent has a very strong sense of self, to the point that his sense of self is more important than pleasing others.