26??? And I’m 18. #WorstCooks
Where am I?
Or, more appropriately, where have I been? I’ve been writing. And writing and writing. But my focus has shifted to revenue-generating work. After 11 years of being “just a mom,” I can’t tell you how good it feels. So I haven’t had much time to post here. The other thing is that, the more I write for the web, the more my anonymity is gone. So for my son’s privacy, I’m probably going to end up shutting this blog down. I’ve started a new blog called Stingy Southern Girl that’s focused on all aspects of making the SAHM gig work, from finances to staying sane. I appreciate the support I’ve received here more than I can say, and I invite all of you to come say hi at my new blog.
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Writer, baker or candlestick maker?
Today is supposed to be a writing day. Since I don’t have any paying assignments at the moment, I’m working on my ebook about writing for the corporate world. Or at least I should be. But my heart hurts this morning, so I’m baking…because that’s what I do when I’m sad.
The Challenging One’s school called me this morning to tell me that he was in the guidance counselor’s office crying and unable (or unwilling) to say what was wrong. I knew. It was that dang homework anxiety again. I don’t understand why, but the anticipation of homework overwhelms him like the creature you run from in nightmares, only to look up and find it suddenly looming ahead of you. I couldn’t pick him up. Couldn’t. Because then this would become something we’d have to deal with every day. I couldn’t give him any more medicine than he’d already had. I asked the guidance counselor to get one of his homework assignments and let him sit there and complete it to calm himself down.
We have an IEP meeting on Friday. Thank God. Because I can’t keep pumping more meds into the kid to relieve his anxiety long enough to get his homework done. I’m not sure what our options are — this is new territory for me — but I am requesting that he not be given homework this week. This will give him a chance to pull it together a bit as well as provide us with some anecdotal evidence: does not having homework make a difference in his mental state? I’m waiting on a call from the principal to find out. I love our principal…but Mama Bear is pacing.
Tagged with: 504, anxiety, education, IEP, mood disorder, parenting, special needs
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Being a “special needs” sibling
Being the sibling of a special needs child must be like “middle child syndrome” multiplied exponentially. You’re expected to be the mature one even if you’re the youngest. You’re seen as “doing fine” because, let’s face it, your biggest problem is bird poop on a windshield compared to your sibling’s smallest problem. Your social life, your routines, the cadence of your home, even your very identity are shaped by your sibling’s problems. It sucks.
The Exuberant One and The Easy One have never had a sleepover at their own home…The Challenging One hits the wall after a certain amount of socialization, and when that happens, the fun is over for everybody. The only friends I allow them to have over are those whose parents I know well enough to trust they won’t flip out if there’s a scene while their child is here. Extracurricular activities are limited to one at a time, and they have to be close to home, because we just don’t need any more chaos. The standards of behavior are different. The expectations of academic success are different. When my husband isn’t home and The Challenging One has a panic attack or temper tantrum, they’re left to comfort each other while I try to handle their brother. It stinks, and it makes me feel like a crap mother.
How do you all handle this? What do you do when one of your “normal” kids is crying their heart out over a slight from a friend, but you have to peel her off of you so you can go cushion your “special” child, who’s in the throes of a panic attack and banging his head into the side of the bathtub? Do they understand someday, or are they scarred for life? And, if so, do they ever forgive you?
Panic attacks and irrationality always get me down
I try to be open and honest on here without resorting to whining, but today I’m feeling kind of whiny. Monday, The Challenging One called me from school wanting me to pick him up because his head, tummy and throat hurt. And while those do sound like strep symptoms, they also sound like The Challenging One wanting to get out of school, especially since he didn’t have a fever. As luck would have it, I was across town and wouldn’t have been able to get there in time to pick him up early anyway. So I told him he’d have to tough it out. Yesterday, it happened again. After I asked him to wait a while, I got a call from the vice principal, who didn’t make it sound like a request, even though The Challenging One still had no fever. So I got him. The minute he climbed into the car, he asked, “Can we do my homework as soon as we get home?”
In a puerile reflection of my 80s youth….well, duh. Having homework that he can’t get to right away is, for whatever reason, paralyzing for him. His solution to the anxiety was to have me come get him so he could go home and do his homework. Once he did it, he was fine. Until evening, when something didn’t go his way, and he had one of the worst panic attacks he’s ever had. And once again, I find myself staring at a brick wall. If there’s a hidden door, I can’t see the tiniest crack or flicker of light peeking through.
There’s nothing quite like hearing your hysterical, out-of-control child sob that he wishes he had never been born and wondering why God made him such a horrible person. Gut-wrenching doesn’t even begin to describe it. But I’m by no means claiming the role of martyr, because I’ve got some pretty dang selfish feelings in there, too. After more than a decade of being “just a mom,” I’m actually doing something to get a freelance writing career going, instead of just talking about it. The readership on my 2 blogs is growing (thank you!). I’ve decided to write an e-book and even have the chapter list ready to go. I’ve got an application in for a contract editing job. No, there’s no money coming in yet, but I’m doing something! And then I realized that, if I can’t get The Challenging One to the point where he can function in a classroom, I’ll have to consider homeschooling him. That’s a last resort, and we’re not there yet. We’re starting the IEP process again (we didn’t get one at the beginning of the school year, but everyone is now on board; we just have to get it done). I don’t know enough about the available support systems to know if an IEP can provide everything he needs to be successful in the classroom. If that doesn’t work, we can always do another 6-week stint at the day treatment program. So there are options. Still, it’s hard to quiet the voice that wants to cry, “But, wait! It was supposed to be my turn now!” But the bottom-line truth remains, as always: it is what it is, and I’ll do what I need to do for my child.
Tagged with: family, IEP, mood disorder, oppositionality, panic attack, parenting, special needs
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Parenting a child with a mood disorder: lubricant or Kevlar?
Last week, I overheard a conversation that still bothers me. The mom of another oppositional child was complaining about people’s reaction to her son. In the interest of not being hypocritical, I can get pretty bent out of shape when somebody who knows better reacts to The Challenging One out of anger rather than just trying to resolve a situation. But this was different. This mom seemed very bitter over people simply being bothered by her son’s behavior. From what I could gather, he had vandalized another family’s car at school…and she was irate that they were upset about it? I can’t quite wrap my brain around that. While I do expect people who are in the know to respond like mature adults, I would never, ever expect them to like my son’s behavior. He’s my flesh and blood, the child who first made me a mother…and sometimes his behavior makes me want to go hide in my closet with a wine float (because you shouldn’t have to choose between wine and ice cream, you know?). And if he hurt someone’s child or destroyed their property? Damn straight the other parents would have a right to be upset. I’d be fit to be tied if they handled it cruelly, but I would never, ever expect them not to mind. Or not to demand that something be done about it.
So I had to do some painful soul searching. As parents of children with mood disorders, oppositionality, behavioral problems, etc., what is our role? The world is not going to conform to our children, but our children can’t conform to the world. We have to protect and guide our children, but we can’t just inflict them on society without a care. How do we balance that?
I think I see myself most often as a lubricant, helping the brittle edges of my child slide past the often unbending ridges of societal norms. I do a lot of social engineering, surreptitiously tweaking situations so that he’ll be more comfortable and less likely to blow up, while at the same time preparing him, giving him guidelines while he’s calm and unstressed, and having an exit strategy in place in case things go bad. We rarely have houseguests, for instance, because The Challenging One (kind of like his mama) can’t really relax with anyone but immediate family in the house. The moms of The Easy One’s BFFs (these girls have been inseparable since preschool) understand the situation and don’t expect us to reciprocate on sleepovers. That’s where the social engineering comes in (although it’s not fair to The Easy One, and I’m not quite sure what to do about that). If we do have overnight guests, I make sure The Challenging One knows where and how to retreat if he gets overwhelmed. So I try to shape the situation and him at the same time.
Other times I feel more like a Kevlar vest. I try to buffer the impact of any outrageous behavior by having an exit plan in place, and I try to shield him, not from reasonable consequences, but from anger and scorn. I stand in front of him and tell the world, “A child with an infuriating disability is still a child with a disability,” and then reverse position and try to shield the world, letting him know that some behaviors are unacceptable and carry pretty big consequences. I don’t want him to grow up with a victim mentality, thinking that the world owes him reparations for having rules he can’t follow. But I also want the world to understand that it’s not as simple as just telling him he has to follow the rules. I want to teach him that he’s responsible for his actions while telling the world that he’s not entirely responsible for his actions. It’s tough, and I suspect that I often get it wrong. But I try to keep the longterm goal in mind: an adult who takes accountability for himself and his actions in a world that treats him fairly and gives him a chance rather than just writing him off.
Tagged with: child, emotional disorder, family, mood disorder, oppositonality, parenting, special needs
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Obsession!
Since school started this year, I’ve sometimes wondered why I haven’t gone back to work. The kids are in 2nd, 3rd and 5th grades now; I have 7 hours a day to myself. And even though that’s been true since The Easy One was in kindergarten, this is the first time things have calmed down enough with The Challenging One to even contemplate working. I’m not ready to commit to a full-time job, but why not do some freelancing?
Now I remember why not. Writing is like crack. If I’m not doing it, I’m thinking about doing it. I become obsessed and am mentally unavailable to my family.
But that would be the sissy excuse, an all-too-easy reason not to pursue this goal. Surely I’m capable of exercising some discipline and turning my writing brain off when that part of my day is over, right?
So I’m scouring markets and trying to compile clips (although i can’t understand why we don’t call them “clicks” now) and taking my blogging more seriously. I started a writing blog at thosearehiringwords.wordpress.com. If you can’t imagine what peeing on trees has to do with corporate writing, I invite you to check it out!
Tagged with: corporate communications, editing, family special needs, parenting, writing
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A beginner’s guide to: “Crap….there’s something wrong with my kid.”
The biggest blessing I’ve received from this blog is connecting with other parents who live my life. Parenting a child with mental/emotional/mood problems is extremely isolating. Your child can act like an unleashed demon and is completely impervious to normal logic or consequences. You see other parents disciplining their children with seemingly effortless authority, and you wonder why those tactics don’t work for you. You’re on pins and needles when you take your child out in public. Then you find a forum like this and realize you’re not alone. It’s life altering. But most of the parents I’ve connected with are in pretty much the same phase of this journey as I am: you know what you’re dealing with and have a network of experts in place to help you. But what about the folks who aren’t there yet? The ones who are just beginning to have the “something is wrong” fear gnawing through their guts? So I thought I’d create a list of things I wish I had known way back when….a primer, if you will. I’m not a medical expert by any stretch of the imagination. I’m also completely lacking in personal experience in some areas, like ASD. But here is my compilation of things I wish I had known.
- You know. If you’re worried there’s something wrong, you’re probably right. Mommy radar knows the difference between a normal temper tantrum or meltdown and the kind with that unhinged quality that creeps into your dreams at night, whispering that “this is not normal!” If that makes you squirm a little, it’s time to do something. My biggest regret is that I didn’t act sooner and that I didn’t keep pursuing answers when I knew good and well that we didn’t really have it nailed down yet.
- No matter how unique, weird, unnerving or scary your situation is, odds are someone else has already dealt with it. It’s hard to see that when you’re just starting down this path; the situation seems immense and overwhelming. But it’s important to realize that you don’t even know what you don’t know at this point. You don’t even know yet what questions to ask. And that’s OK, because other people have already done a lot of groundwork for you. Take advantage of that. The day treatment center The Challenging One attended this summer had kids as young as 6, but I didn’t even know it existed until May (The Challenging One is 10), and it’s a mile from my house! Take the time to discover what resources are out there. I’m going to put a list of resources on a separate page so it’ll have a permanent home. For now, just try searching for “child mental health in <your city, town, county etc.>”
- You’re not alone. There are other people in your shoes, and they’re just as starved as you are for people who understand what they’re going through. A blog site like this is a great place to start. Online message boards dealing with your particular issue are another. There may also be “real life” support groups where you live. These can all be essential in reminding you that it’s not your fault and that you’re not a bad parent.
- Medication can work miracles. I’m not a doctor or pharmacist, so I’m not going to advocate for or against any specific med. I would just encourage you to be open minded. For some reason, we balk at giving our kids psych meds when we wouldn’t hesitate to treat them for any other chronic condition. Sure, as a society, our kids are overmedicated. But that doesn’t mean it’s not the right choice for your child. The right meds have been life-changing for The Challenging One.
- You probably won’t find the right med the first time. Psych meds aren’t like antibiotics that are proven to kill a certain class of bacteria. Some work for certain kids, some don’t. Some even make things worse. Sometimes one med in a certain class works while another doesn’t. Sometimes you need to try an entirely different class of meds. And sometimes the med that works the best causes side effects you can’t live with. I encourage you to work with a psychiatrist, even if you adore your pediatrician as much as I do. It gets pretty complex, especially as you step out of the commonplace meds for ADHD and anxiety/depression.
- If you do decide to try medication, get an explanation of what things should look like if the medication is “working”. I was reminded of this again yesterday when we met with our psychiatrist. Even though The Challenging One has had some backsliding, things are so much better than they were at the beginning of the summer that I wasn’t too worried. The psychiatrist, on the other hand, was shocked. She said The Challenging One absolutely should not be having that level of anxiety on the meds he’s taking. Oops. So we made some changes.
- You know your child best. As another blogger recently reminded me here, nobody is more of an expert on your child than you are. It can be such a relief to finally find help that it’s tempting just to hand it over to the expert. But you’re the parent. You still get to decide whether you are comfortable with a diagnosis or course of treatment. Ironically, this is hardest when you have a good relationship with a particular doctor; once you’ve worked together for awhile and established trust, it can be hard to reject their advice. But if they’re as good as you think they are, they’ll roll with it.
- Other parents aren’t going to get it. They can’t. They’ll either think you’re exaggerating or that you’re just not disciplining correctly. Go ahead and develop thick skin now…you’re going to need it. I’ve chosen to be very open about our situation and to educate other parents whenever I can. You may prefer to keep things private, and that’s fine. I just encourage you to have an exit strategy, which I”ll talk about next.
- It’s crucial to know how you’re going to handle the nightmare scenarios. What are you going to do if you’re at the playground and your child’s evil twin makes an appearance, yelling at you, refusing to listen, being aggressive with other kids, etc.? What will you do when your preschooler refuses to get in the car, and you can’t get him there without putting the baby down? What, if anything, will you say to people watching? These things will happen, and it’s best to plan for them before they do.
- Document, document, document. I have my “Big Binder of Everything” for The Challenging One. It contains achievement test scores, report cards, results of psychological testing, communication from doctors and teachers, etc. What it doesn’t contain is a record of all the meds we’ve tried, how well they worked, what the side effects were, etc. I’d give a lot to be able to go back and correct that lapse.
- Don’t quit! Since these kids tend to save their worst behavior for home, it can be difficult to convince even the best doctor that things are really as bad as you say they are. Keep pushing. Keep asking questions. If you still don’t get a supportive response, switch doctors. But save that as a last resort, because you have a great tool already handy: your phone. (Remember the part about documentation?) Record your child’s behavior. If it’s not feasible to stand there and capture video, just set the phone down and let it pick up audio. We didn’t have smart phones back when The Challenging One was little, but I’m certain we would have gotten help sooner if I had been able to show people the behavior I was describing.
Those are the “biggies”….all the ones I wish I had known. There are others, and I may come back and add to this list from time to time. I’m also going to make a resource page, and I hope to have started sometime today, although I’ll keep adding to it whenever I find good information. For now, I’ll recommend my go-to book: Kids in the Syndrome Mix, by Martin L. Kutscher M.D. I love this book because it recognizes that there is a tremendous amount of overlap (symptoms fit with more than one diagnosis) and co-morbidity (diagnoses that that tend to go together) in children’s mental health. My son has characteristics of many and a definite diagnosis of none; he just doesn’t fit into a neat category. This book helps by putting it all in one place, covering:
- ADHD
- Learning disabilities
- Autism spectrum disorders
- Aspberger’s
- Anxiety and OCD
- Sensory integration disorders
- Tourette’s
- Depression
- Bipolar disorder
- Oppositional defiant disorder
- Central auditory processing disorders
If you suspect that something is wrong but don’t know what, this book is a great place to start. If the hair on your neck stands up in a certain chapter because you recognize your child, that’s a good place to do further research. (Full disclosure: This link goes to my Amazon affiliate page. If that bugs you, I totally get it…no worries. I encourage you to consider buying it independently or getting it from your library.)
Kids in the Syndrome Mix of ADHD, LD, Asperger’s, Tourette’s, Bipolar, and More!: The one stop guide for parents, teachers, and other professionals
Edited to add: I just downloaded and read the first part of a book that I think will challenge Kids in the Syndrome Mix for my #1 spot. While Quirky Kids was published in 2007, I just now stumbled across it, and I wish that had happened sooner. It’s aimed specifically at parents who are just starting to suspect that their child might have a problem.
Quirky Kids: Understanding and Helping Your Child Who Doesn’t Fit In- When to Worry and When Not to Worry
Tagged with: child, emotional disorder, family, health, Mental Health, mood disorder, Parent, parenting, special needs
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Relaunching my writing career…and feeling like Rip Van Winkle
I never envisioned being a stay-at-home mom once all my kids were in school. I don’t know why; my mom stayed home until I was 12, and I still remember how comforting it was to know she was there. Still…I didn’t expect to do it myself. But managing The Challenging One’s issues is a part-time job all by itself. I try to get every possible errand and chore done during the school day so that our afternoons and evenings can be calm. I even try to get dinner cooked before dismissal. So I guess that’s why my youngest is in 2nd grade and I’m just now thinking of going back to work. And why I’m pursuing freelancing. I need to be here when I need to be here, if you know what I mean. Although The Challenging One is doing a lot better, things aren’t perfect, and I’m just not ready to commit to a full-time job. I don’t know if I ever will be.
So I’ve spent a great deal of time this past week scouring the internet to find out what has changed since I last worked in the field over a decade ago. And the answer turned out to be….just about everything, thanks to the internet, which, in 2002, was not yet the duct tape of modern society. Here are a few fundamentals that didn’t even exist prior to my 10-year hiatus of wiping noses and bottoms:
- SEO (search engine optimization): In a nutshell, this means creating a document that search engines will find and display close to the top in a list of results. It can involve everything from use of keywords to document structure to links to where important information is displayed (text vs. graphic, for example). No matter how good your writing is, you won’t be successful if no one sees it. SEO delivers the clicks you crave.
- Keyword density: Related to SEO, this is the ratio of keywords to total words in an article or page. It requires putting yourself in the shoes of potential users. If you were looking for a page like yours, what words would you use to search? Make sure those words are used in your text as much as possible without sounding silly.
- Pingbacks and trackbacks: These are ways of letting other writers know that you’ve referenced their page on your own page. It’s good manners, and it can help drive return traffic to your page.
- Clips: No more mailing fuzzy copies of things you have written. Now clients want links to your already published work. That’s great for writers with current experience; it’s a little bit more challenging for those of us who have been out of the workforce since before internet dominance.
- Article clearing houses: You write an article, upload it to the site, and you may get paid for it if somebody uses it. Most of these offer extremely low compensation, but they’re a good way to build up your clips (a term that’s still used even though we’ve moved from clips to clicks).
And that’s just in….oh, about 8 hours of research. Like I said in the beginning of this post, everything has changed. Even the rules of grammar have loosened up. The upside is that everything you need to know about the current state of the industry is there for the reading. So even a dinosaur like myself can have a working knowledge of “the new media” with just a day or so of groundwork.
I started this blog back in May for two reasons. One, it’s been over a decade since I wrote professionally, and I miss it. Two, we were going through an extremely tough time with The Challenging One, and writing about it helped me sort through my thoughts and feelings. One unexpected benefit was having a record of what happened; I’ve looked back over my posts a number of times to refresh my memory. But the biggest unexpected reward was….recognition! Unexpected or not, it pumps up the “I can do this…” factor, no matter how long I’ve been out of the business. So many, many thanks to rgemom (http://threesaherd.com) for nominating me for a Liebster award.
Step 1: List 11 facts about yourself.
- I read as much as I can, primarily political thrillers.
- I had all 3 of my babies in just under 3 years.
- I’m left-handed.
- I’m a cradle Catholic.
- I’m also a cradle southerner.
- I married my best friend.
- I am freakishly freaked out by eating noises.
- I prefer white to red (but firmly believe there is no such thing as bad wine).
- I love to cook, but only complicated, fancy stuff. Making kid-friendly meals is a chore.
- My writing background is in corporate communications (instructional design, tech writing and other manuals, videos, newsletters, etc.).
- My wedding dress cost $40. Which would sound even crazier if you knew how much time and money I spend on my hair (not ready to be gray yet) and makeup. But I had no desire to be the center of attention. I had envisioned the perfect dress for our small wedding, and it just happened to cost $40.
Step 2: Answer questions from the person who nominated me.
- What is your best holiday memory? The year we got married over Thanksgiving weekend.
- Do you like to collect a particular something? Not really, although I do still have the Elvis fan club pins that were given to me when I worked at Graceland.
- What frightens you? Drowning.
- What bug do you like best? Uhm….ladybug?
- Who is the person who makes you laugh? My middle child, The Exuberant One.
- Where do you go when you need to get away from it all? Inside my head.
- What is your guilty pleasure? Playing mindless games on the iPad.
- Where would your dream holiday be? Italy and Mass with the Pope.
- What is one talent you wish you had? I wish I were more creative. I have the technical skills I need to write professionally, but I’m sorely lacking in ideas. I’d be a great ghostwriter, but it would be fun to write my own novel.
- If you could meet 3 famous people, living or dead, who would you choose? 1) Elvis 2) Ronald Reagan 3) I’m going to cheat and go with a group: the men who wrote our Constitution, so I can learn what they really intended and what they think of how their document is currently being interpreted.
Step 3: Nominate 11 other bloggers who have less than 300 followers. Uhm, yeah…this will be a work in progress. I obviously need to spend more time exploring the blogosphere and less time reading political thrillers and playingmindless games on my Ipad. But I love these!
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I forgot to knock on wood…
I should have known better than to post about how calm life has been lately. Every time I look a gift horse in the mouth, another one bites me on the a**. Yesterday evening, I noted a small disturbance in the Force coming from the family room, but my husband was in there, and his voice didn’t have that “drop everything and run” tone…so I just went about my business. Until a sobbing Challenging One tore past me and ran out of the house. I followed to find him sitting in the middle of the driveway, just screaming hysterically…no words. At this point, I still had no idea what set him off, and he was in no shape to tell me. He finally calmed enough to spit out, “The Exuberant One is choking!”. Call me a bad mama, but I did not immediately run inside. Like I said, my husband’s voice didn’t suggest a serious crisis. I sat on the driveway with The Challenging One until he was able to get up and walk in with me. The Exuberant One was fine; he had just swallowed a piece of candy wrong and scared himself. He recovered much more quickly than The Challenging One did.
Now, The Challenging One can change moods as quickly as I can rip through really good chocolate. But this was different. From calm to panic attack in a matter of seconds. And the fact that he was irrational enough to run out of the house is even scarier. Knowing his therapist will ask (this is the second panic attack in a few weeks), I tried to think of whether he had ever had panic attacks before. And the answer is yes. I think. Because it looks different without the rage. But for the love of all that’s holy, as awful as it was, it was safe. The rage kept him in my face…and inside. Now that it’s gone, we clearly need to teach him how to be safe during a panic attack….and and how to not get the police called on us. It’s so hot and steamy right now that you won’t find an open door or window within 100 miles, and no one goes outside unless they have to. So we don’t have to worry too much about a neighbor calling the police. But we clearly have some work to do. It won’t be easy. How do you teach someone how to be rational in the throes of irrational panic? But we’ve seen other miracles this summer, so we’ll work for this one, too.
Movin’ on down the list…
I haven’t had much to write about lately. My husband keeps telling me that’s a good thing; it means life has been calm. And that made me think about how my parenting priorities have changed. When just getting through the day feels like a huge accomplishment, the little stuff doesn’t even show up on your radar. And some of that “little” stuff is dang important. Just not as important as surviving daily life. (For the record, I still don’t see why using the word “stupid” is such a big deal. Or eating a PopTart into the shape of a gun…but I digress.)
Yesterday, I tackled one of those “little” things. For the first time in, well, forever, I purposefully neglected one of my daily chores. I didn’t lay the kids’ clothes out for them the night before. Yes, I know that at 7, 8 and 10, they could should have been doing this a long time ago. But The Challenging One had the emotional maturity of a toddler. My goal for the morning was getting him out the door without a screaming, kicking, on-the-floor fit. And if I was going lay out his clothes, I might as well do it for The Easy One and The Exuberant One, too. It was just easier that way.
So…I made the announcement Sunday night. The Easy One (in a great example of her pseudonym) barely took notice. She’s a dedicated clothes horse and has been dressing herself for a good while, even when I do lay her clothes out. The Exuberant One wasn’t thrilled, but he took a practical approach: it’s a uniform, so how hard could it be? The Exuberant One immediately balked…but he settled. He stepped back from the edge. He was able to slow down and understand that, while he doesn’t have a uniform, there are relatively few items of clothing that conform to his school’s dress code (khaki pants and solid-color, collared shirts) and that I had given them their own section in his closet. And he pulled it off without a hitch this morning.
I’m thrilled. Not because it’s such a big deal in and of itself, but because it made me realize that we’ve finally crawled out of survival mode. The fact that this even made it onto my to-do list reminds me of how far we’ve come since things bottomed out in May. Now to tackle this week’s spelling words….
Musings on a life-altering summer….
I have jury duty this week. Lots of sit-and-wait time. Normally, I would relish the chance to read, but since I’m always uncomfortable in crowds (the sounds of gum-chewing can make me come apart at the seams….weird, I know), I couldn’t really concentrate. So I played mindless games on my Ipad. Which gave me plenty of time to think about things other than which little candies matched.
What I realized is that my family just lived through the most life-altering summer since our first child was born. Or maybe ever. Because the change from “bratty kid” mindset to “disabled child” mindset is perhaps even more monumental than that of childless to new parent. I struggled to come up with a good name for this list, so I think I’ll just call it “tectonic shifts in the way I think”:
- I spent the better part of the last decade feeling at turns embarrassed and inept in the face of The Challenging One’s behavior. Oh, and let’s not forget furious. I was almost always mad and resentful. I was shell-shocked and almost always in a mental fetal position, awaiting the next incident. I didn’t like my child very much and felt like the worst mother ever because of it. But a switch got flipped this summer. And I’m not talking about a little light switch. I’m talking about one of those big industrial switches that takes several well-muscled men to manhandle. I got slapped upside the head with the realization that my child has a disability, a disability serious enough to require 6 weeks of semi-inpatient treatment and very heavy-duty meds. And, just like that, my anger was gone. I can honestly say I haven’t been mad at The Challenging One since June. Not that his behavior is perfect — or that I let him get away with anything — but I now see his behavior as symptomatic of an illness rather than a deliberate attempt to punish the world for existing. I am able to slow down and think through what he may be thinking and feeling, and I can respond in kind. I can speak in a calm, reasonable voice (a big accomplishment — even though I have known for a long time that he shuts down in the face of a raised voice, I just couldn’t help myself). I can think in terms of solutions rather than punishments, even though punishments are sometimes appropriate. This change in my attitude, coupled with The Challenging One’s overall improvement, has transformed the beat and rhythm of our family. More laughter and fewer tears. More talking and less yelling. It’s hard to describe, but it’s monumental.
- Embarrassment is bad. We’re conditioned to think that we’re bad parents if we’re not embarrassed when our child acts like an unleashed demon in public. But would you be embarrassed if your child couldn’t walk? Couldn’t see? A child with an infuriating disability is still a child with a disability. Embarrassment only dulls your ability to handle it appropriately. Embarrassment lies to you, whispering in your ear that you’ve got a bratty child and that it’s all your fault. Embarrassment takes up so much room in your heart that there is no room left for compassion. Or for appropriate action.
- Putting a good face on things helps no one. This kind of goes along with embarrassment. I spent years covering up just how bad The Challenging One’s behavior could be. I made lots of excuses and avoided situations that I knew would be problematic. I finally got to the point where I was very open about things, deciding that, if people were going to talk about my child (and I knew they would), I would rather they exchange facts than gossipy speculation. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but I overlooked an equally important reason to be open. Impressions are hard to change. It’s easier to create an air of compassion among friends, teachers, other parents, etc., if you make it clear from the beginning that your child has some challenges. If you wait until they see your child as a behavior problem, it can be hard to change those feelings from dislike to empathy. So I advise being open. I had one very painful betrayal by doing it this way, and I certainly can’t say that won’t happen to you. But I still believe that openness is best.
- Your other kids probably understand a lot more than you think they do. I unfortunately lowered the standards for everybody, believing that The Easy One and The Exuberant One couldn’t understand why they got in trouble for things The Challenging One got away with. When I finally had the conversation, I realized how wrong I was. I told them that, just like some kids have trouble walking, The Challenging One has trouble controlling his emotions. And I asked them whether, if he had to be in a wheelchair, they’d expect me to push them around in wheelchairs, too, just to be “fair”. They got it. And probably would have gotten it a long time ago.
- The Challenging One is not a “normal” child and I must — MUST — stop viewing him through normal child lenses. For my other two kids, getting a note that they got in an argument at school would be grounds for a serious conversation at the very least. With The Challenging One, if he got in a argument and was able to walk away without adult intervention…well, that’s a cause for celebration. He disobeyed me and ‘fessed up? Considering that he used to deny everything even in the face of proof, I’ll put that in the “makes me proud” column. I think this is the single most important revelation I had this summer. He is not a normal child. As long as I see him as a normal child who misbehaves in normal ways and should respond to normal discipline, he and I will both experience nothing but frustration and failure. If I think “he should understand this by now” without listening to the little voice that says, “…but he doesn’t”….more failure. In my experience, the single biggest obstacle in raising a child with an emotional disorder is refusing to accept that you’re raising a child with an emotional disorder and that everything you’ve ever thought about parenting has to be thrown out the window. Things cannot get better as long as you’re operating within the paradigm of how things should be rather than how they are. Sure it sucks to lower your standards for your child’s behavior. But you don’t just lower standards and give up. You lower the standards and then continue raising them a teeny bit at a time while your emotionally disturbed child masters skills your other kids pick up by osmosis.
So, this was a profoundly important summer. I learned the importance of dealing with what is. Not what I thought things would be. Not what I want them to be. Not what other people think they should be. How things are. Everything depends on that. Your attitude toward your child. Your sense of yourself as a parent. Your willingness to do what needs to be done. Other people’s attitudes toward you and your family. Whether your child ever learns the skills you think he should just “get”. Working from a clear understanding of what is is life-altering.
Tagged with: behavior disorder, catholic, child, emotional disorder, parenting, special needs
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One proud mama…
As moms, we often find ourselves proud of the strangest things. Like our baby’s ability to get a spoon to his mouth with some food still on it. Or our toddler’s first poop in the potty. This is one of those things. But if you’ve been following my blog, or have your own oppositional child, read on and clap along with me, because this is a HUGE milestone for The Challenging One!
The Exuberant One and The Easy One are playing soccer, and The Challenging One hates going to practice. Since he’s been doing so much better, I agreed to let him stay home. He treasures the peace and quiet, and it’s a lot easier on me; when I forced him to go to practice with us on Monday, he wound up on top of the dugout on the baseball field and was about to slide down the roof when he got busted. (And if, after reading that, you still think I’m a bad parent for leaving him home by himself, I was half a mile away, and he knows my phone number.)
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming…
When we left for practice, The Challenging One had 15 minutes of Minecraft time left. I told him I trusted him to do the right thing, and he promised me he would. I had my doubts but decided to roll with it.
When we got home, he asked me if he could show his brother something on Minecraft. His behavior has been great, so I said, “Sure, just give me a minute.” But when I went to log him in a few minutes later, he was already playing. Oops. I called him out on it, explaining that the only possible way he would have been able to get on without asking me to log him in is if he had played right up until the second he heard the garage door go up. True to character, he denied it and expressed great righteous indignation that I didn’t trust him. I said, “OK,” in that mom voice that means, “I know you’re lying, but I’ll leave it alone now and bring it back up when you least expect it.” Because once The Challenging One takes a stand, he doesn’t back down. A silly little thing like hard evidence doesn’t even phase him. So it’s often much better to save it until the next issue of trust comes up. It saves a fight and stockpiles ammo at the same time.
But a few minutes later, out of the blue, he yelled, “OK, I played!”. While picking myself up off the floor, I asked him what he thought we should do about it. He replied that I should either send him to bed early or take away his game privileges.
At that point, I was so proud of him that I did neither of those things. I gave him a pass on any punishment other than having to use his game time only when I’m home from now on. And he actually thought that was fair.
So, yes….one of my best parenting moments is when my child admitted breaking a rule and lying. Because it alleviates two of my biggest concerns about him:
- He actually does have a conscience.
- He is able to be rational. He recognized that I had him dead to rights and that there was no logical excuse he could come up with. And he didn’t start throwing out irrational excuses like, “The computer is lying.”
And here’s the other thing: I would have done the same thing at his age. And I was no Challenging One; I was The Good Kid. I made straight As, never got in trouble at school, and rarely got in trouble at home. But, because of those things, I thought I had earned the right to ignore arbitrary rules. And that one would have struck me as arbitrary (if, at the time, I had any concept of “game time” as anything other than the moment of kickoff). So I knew I was leading him into temptation when I left him logged in while I was gone. But did he ever make me proud! 😉
Tagged with: catholic, child mental health, minecraft, mood disorder, parenting, special needs
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Back down the rabbit hole…
I knew it couldn’t last…that the miracle child we’ve been living with the past few weeks wouldn’t stay forever. That some internal shift or external stressor would give the kaleidoscope of his thoughts and emotions yet another twist. So why am I so crushed to see this backslide? We haven’t even had to deal with any oppositionality (yet). Just this child who’s uncomfortable in his own skin. Who, for whatever reason, is so overwhelmed at the thought of changing classes, that the anxiety torments him every waking moment. The child who had made such huge strides at dealing with disappointment and frustration but is once again reduced to tears at what should be a minor irritation. My heart hurts this morning. Partly because I want my kid back, but mostly because he’s now had a taste of what it feels like to be “normal”, and I can’t imagine how scary and heartbreaking it must be to feel that slipping away. It is for me just watching. And I pray that I can stop the slide now, while he can still remember what normal feels like. And that I can convince him it’s worth fighting for.
Life on the Stair Steps 